The corner stores in some poorer communities are losing up to 4 cents a transaction because local (small government) laws that this country values (or valued or pretends to value when their influencers say so; depends on which way the wind blows now I guess).
Laws that dont allow being charged different. They are rounding down, to avoid lawsuits but I would guess it only takes one to cause a stink with that and put the store out of business.
If the corner shops have to close down, thats also those communities “grocery” store. They are not all walking around with smart/iphones/credit cards. Thats where this was shortsighted. Even the article says no one is really asking to bring the penny back.
bediger4000•3mo ago
Some cities require businesses to give exact change. Other venues can't charge different amounts for card and cash. There's no rounding to the nearest nickel guides. A mess caused by the edict of a single, uninformed, man.
elmerfud•3mo ago
Congress has the sole constitutional power to make money and set its value. What Congress did with this power was to abdicate it to the executive branch to determine the amounts thereof of the monies in circulation. So while you might want to scream "orange man is bad" which I do agree there has been several bad decisions, this one is because the absolute failure of Congress to do the job that it was empowered to do by the Constitution.
So put the blame we're blame exists. You get to re-elect a massive portion of those congressmen every two years. So you don't have to wait for the "bad orange man" to leave office. Most of what people cry about that Trump is doing is actually because all they seem to focus on is the president and never about the Congress which has abdicated its power in many places to the executive branch. Because Congress seems to have its sole focus on getting reelected and not actually managing the portions of government that they were empowered to do by the Constitution.
bediger4000•3mo ago
elmerfud•3mo ago
So let me say this again, and maybe you can go look it up yourself, the Constitution gives the power to make money and set the value to Congress. Congress gave that power over to the president. There was a time early in the history where states and localities thought that they had the power to make money and it was a big confusing mess. Which is why the power was directly written in to the Constitution that the money is a federally governed thing.
So any state or locality that is trying to pass some law or ordinance overriding the making or setting the value of money is automatically wrong. You have representation the power is within Congress every two years you get to reelect around 60 to 70% of Congress. So stop complaining on hacker News and start paying attention to the congressional elections.