Meanwhile in...

[sexobon]

Michiganers Charged for Killing Dollar Store Officer Over Face Mask Dispute

… Now, the three aforementioned family members face a different number of charges. All three have been charged with first-degree premeditated murder and felony firearm possession. The son and father also each faces charges for carrying a concealed weapon, and the father faces additional charges for being a felon in possession of a firearm and for violating the governor's executive order. ...

OMG, someone's been charged with violating the governor's executive order! Assemble the firing squad!

[sexobon]

US Mint is literally begging for spare change

Uncle Sam wants YOU to dig under your couch cushions and unearth your spare change.

The United States is in the midst of a nationwide coin shortage brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, making life difficult for banks, retailers and anyone who regularly pays with cash. The US Mint, which is in charge of producing new money to replenish the country's supply, is working on addressing the issue, and now it's asking Americans to help out, too.

The Mint is asking people to pay with exact change and to find other ways to return coins they may have lying around to circulation, it said in a press release Thursday.

"We ask that the American public start spending their coins, depositing them, or exchanging them for currency at financial institutions or taking them to a coin redemption kiosk," the Mint said in the release. "The coin supply problem can be solved with each of us doing our part."

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke about the coin shortage during a virtual hearing with the House Financial Services Committee last month. He explained that since more people have been staying home, shopping online and avoiding physical currency because of the pandemic, the normal flow of coins through the economy was interrupted.

"The places where you go to give your coins, and get credit at the store and get cash ... those have not been working. Stores have been closed," he said. "The whole system has kind of come to a stop."

The US Mint also briefly slowed coin production to implement safety measures for workers, though it says it resumed regular production in mid-June.

In response, the Fed convened a US Coin Task Force to work on restoring the coin supply chain. And in the meantime, companies have come with ways to manage — some retailers have warned customers they may not be able to receive change in coins and one bank is even paying people to bring in their spare change.

The shortage could be especially painful for low-income consumers, who are more likely to pay in cash — potentially exacerbating the impact of the coronavirus crisis, which has already hit low-income communities hard. It may also be a burden to some retailers, for which accepting credit and debit card purchases can come with fees that cash transactions don't.

Third-party coin processors and retail activity account for the majority of coins put in circulation, according to the Mint. Last year for example, those sources accounted for 83% of coins in the supply chain.

"There is an adequate amount of coins in the economy, but the slowed pace of circulation has meant that sufficient quantities of coins are sometimes not readily available where needed," the Mint said Thursday. "We are asking for your help in improving this coin supply issue."

[xoxoxoBruce]

"The places where you go to give your coins, and get credit at the store and get cash ... those have not been working. Stores have been closed," he said. "The whole system has kind of come to a stop."

That had already stopped for me. I used to dump a bunch of change in the machine and give the receipt to the cashier when I paid for my groceries.
Then they started charging 12% to do it. Fuck that, fuck them.

[glatt]

It’s been a year since I have done it, but the coinstar machines at our local store gave you the best deal if you bought a credit on Amazon with the balance. The receipt had a number you typed in to your Amazon account. It may have even been zero fee.

[Clodfobble]

Our grocery store had a Coinstar machine for years, then they got rid of it. I guess no one was ever using it, or else the store felt they weren't getting a big enough cut to justify it.

[tw]

One cannot buy a flat washer even with a penny nickel or dime. Why do useless coins exist? A Congress with too many extremists - not moderates who can make intelligent decisions.

A dime once bought a Coke. Even a dollar bill is insufficient. A dime was what a $1 bill is today. Why do we still have paper $1 and $5 bills? So many extremists who so hate America by not thinking for themselves. Even threaten the Constitutional rights of others by not wearing a mask - because Trump said it is unnecessary. Conservative: he knows it must be true because Trump said so. We all need guns to protect what Trump says. A penny was good enough. So it will always be necessary.

We spend about $1 billion annually making ridiculous paper $1 bills. Directly traceable to extremists who supported Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. People who know because a Central Committee of the Party (ie Fox News) has ordered us what to think.

How hard is it to eliminate a penny? How hard is it to eliminate the paper $1 and $5 bills? Same logic also proved Saddam had WMDs. "I was told what to believe. So it must be true."| Let's attack China. That will solve everything. Propaganda said so. It must be true.

"I know because I am a conservative."

"Beam me up Scotti. There's no intelligent life down here any more." How curious. Even he is now in space.

[BigV]

Please Scotti. Please.

[xoxoxoBruce]

God yes, Scotti, take the raving lunatic away, he's trying to make everything more expensive and every purchase traceable by the government.

[tw]

Once upon a time (some decades ago), smallest denomination was a dime. So a soda cost a $1 (a dime in those day). Now that we have 0.1 and 0.5 cent denominations (called the penny and nickel), soda costs more than $1. We also waste a $billion every year foolishly making paper dollar bills. We know costs are higher because extremists love to 'wreck shit' by doing nothing. Even use pervert reasoning to claim otherwise.

[BigV]

Did you mean a dime and a half dollar?

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by tw

Once upon a time (some decades ago), smallest denomination was a dime. ...

... Now that we have 0.1 and 0.5 cent [sic] denominations (called the penny and nickel), ...

US 1¢ coins have been minted since 1793. US 5¢ coins have been minted since 1866 and before that Half Dimes were minted since 1794.

You're intertwining denominations with legal tender status. US 1¢ and 5¢ coins didn't become legal tender until 1873 (over a century ago). The total amount they were legal tender for was limited though.

It was the Coinage Act of 1965 ("some decades ago") that codified legal tender status for all US circulating coins without limit.

The US 1¢ and 5¢ denominations previously existed as have 1/2¢, 2¢, 3¢ and Half Dime denominations for periods of time in the past.

[Diaphone Jim]

An extremely useful question that should be asked by everyone several times a day is "Cui bono?". Who benefits?
When the price of something is $.99 instead of a dollar, you might wonder is the merchant is fooling you or are you fooling yourself to think there is a difference.
But the real question is: Who benefits?

All the coins we have to use instead of even money is good for somebody, just not us.

Anyone ever clerk at a store where every cash register had a well worn tax table? You had to follow down the column of the total of taxable items to find the rounded-off break set at the current percentage rate to add to the total that would eventually be backfigured to pay the franchise boards.
WTF benefited from that? We still do it most everywhere except the cash register steals the money without the hassle.
I remember marveling on trips to England how everything came out even, no small change (coins) involved.
Cui bono?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Diaphone Jim

I remember marveling on trips to England how everything came out even, no small change (coins) involved.

In London in dark bars, it can be too much trouble to take out glasses to read those numbers. I would throw some coins on the bar and ask a bar tender to take what she needed. She would select a few coins. It only took maybe two coins to buy a pint of beer - because their currency has value.

[glatt]

Meanwhile at Arecibo Observatory

[Gravdigr]

Ow, my giant ear!

That's gonna cost at least a hunderd dang dollars.