"But the USA is the king of the marketers using every trick in the book to sell more. Gas is even worse at 2.99 9/10 pre gallon."
God! What's the matter with saying 299.9 cents? This would have to be rounded up to $3.00 anyway, wouldn't it? Surely its not that difficult to understand that 0.9 = 9/10ths? Or are they scared that people might somehow think they're charging $2999 a gallon? ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Ressel" <[email protected]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 1:46 PM Subject: [USMA:47195] RE: Decimal currency & Metrication > But the USA is the king of the marketers using every trick in the book > to sell more. Gas is even worse at 2.99 9/10 pre gallon. Maybe we > should have a 1/10 cent piece! > -- > > "Go for a Metric America" > Howard Ressel > Project Design Engineer, Region 4 > (585) 272-3372 > > >>>> On 4/19/2010 at 10:26 PM, in message > <[email protected]>, Al Lawrence > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The main resistance to the dollar coin in the US is that no one wants > to >> carry a big pocket full of change around. Replacing the dollar bill > with a >> coin makes sense, but only if you get rid of the penny at the same > time. >> That would require rounding up or down on some items. Unfortunately > many >> Americans are paranoid about losing a cent or two if merchants round > up more >> often than they round down. But what is even crazier, in the US > everything >> is priced at $ 2.99, $11.95 and even $99.99, and the real price is > usually >> five to eight percent higher, depending on taxes, so the real price > might be >> $3.23, $12.91 and $107.99 (which includes rounding, by the way). >> >> In many countries the price of a hamburger is listed as $3 and really > is $3, >> not listed as $2.99 and really costing $3.23. That is what results > in a >> pocket full of annoying change, and a dollar coin will make it worse. > >From >> personal experience in New Zealand, there are no pennies and you > almost never >> see a 5 or 10 cent coin. They have $1 and $2 coins, but because > almost all >> prices are "round" you still have less change in your pocket than you > do in >> the US. >> >> Until merchants in the US are forced to become honest and post the > real >> price (and stop playing the silly game of ninety-nine cents) and > Americans >> stop being afraid of paying an extra penny or two once in a while, > the penny >> will not go away and the dollar coin will remain a nuisance. >> >> >> Alan Lawrence >> >> >> >> _________________________________________________________________ >> The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars > with >> Hotmail. >> > http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID283 > >> 26::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5 >
