Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."

[Eldan]

I actually do it online, I haven't phoned my back in over a year (that was when I lost my ATM card). Two-factor login, followed by two clicks and entering two numbers and a few more clicks on a form and a new automated monthly transfer is done. Takes about three minutes and then I don't have to bother about it again until I leave that flat.

[Morquard]

I find it funny that americans seem to trust banks and their fellow people so little that they're afraid of giving out any account details even if there's nothing anyone can do with it. But at the same time they're entering their credit card number everywhere.

[Cazero]

Also; your baker is robbing you, if you pay more than a dollar for a croissant. Not to turn this into a competition or anything, but....

That depends of the croissant. There is a huge difference between supermarket croissant sold by the dozens for cheap and high quality croissant sold in bakeries.
Wether or not it's worth the price is another question.

[Keltest]

I find it funny that americans seem to trust banks and their fellow people so little that they're afraid of giving out any account details even if there's nothing anyone can do with it. But at the same time they're entering their credit card number everywhere.

Its funny. At the store I work at, when you sigh up for a membership card we ask if they have any sort of ID because it makes it a lot easier to avoid misspelling their name or anything like that since we have an electronic reader. But as soon as they hear we want their ID, a small subset of people get super suspicious and absolutely refuse to let us handle it for any reason. And then, once that's all sorted out, they'll go and buy beer and/or cigarettes from us... for which we need to see their ID.

[Beelzebub1111]

Also; your baker is robbing you, if you pay more than a dollar for a croissant. Not to turn this into a competition or anything, but....

These are real handmade full sized croissants. From Scratch. Not that frozen crap. If you get mini croissants it's about 1,449.

[Wraith]

It's important to remember that, by European standards, American banks are intentionally ***holes.

It's hard to put aside the fact that in the last century that have single-handedly caused at least three global recessions which caused thousands of Americans to lose their savings, credit scores and houses through sheer myopic greed and mismanagement. It certainly doesn't build trust when those banks are then bailed out with public money while granting million dollar bonuses to their executives.

But on top of that, American banks don't want people to spend money. That's the only way I can think to explain it - they intentionally refuse to invest in infrastructure and services so as to make it intentionally difficult to move money about, hence why they're about 15 years behind on Chip & PIN technology, let alone contactless payment that has been the norm in Britain for the last few years.
By forcing people to use archaic means of banking, it stops people from efficiently controlling their finances - thus their money sits in the bank for longer, and it's harder to keep track of so that they continually rack up fees and penalties which get automatically given to the bank itself.

I'm no pinko Commie sympathiser, but the rest of the English-speaking world looks at American banking with a mixture of horrified awe and morbid, astonished, curiosity at how no one has realised how bad they have it.

These are real handmade full sized croissants. From Scratch. Not that frozen crap. If you get mini croissants it's about 1,449.

The bakery where I buy lunch sells those for something like 40p (55c or so?) each. Then again, ours probably only have about 1/3rd the salt and sugar in them - American bread is weird.

This conversation reminds me of nothing so much as Crowley trying to explain to his Hellish peers just why tying up every portable telephone system in Central London for 45 minutes at lunchtime was a victory for Satan.

Are you implying that Max_Killjoy wants to keeps pennies around because he is demonic? (Great reference though, by the way!)

[Lapak]

That depends of the croissant. There is a huge difference between supermarket croissant sold by the dozens for cheap and high quality croissant sold in bakeries.
Wether or not it's worth the price is another question.

As a hobbyist baker who makes croissants from scratch occasionally, the amount of time that goes into making the dough for those things makes a good argument that they should cost MORE. Laminating dough is a hassle. (I'm sure it is less so when you are doing it continuously rather than a one-off batch, but even so they represent a lot of work.)

[Kato]

Sorry to kick off the money debate. I was mostly concerned with the use of bills, apparently as small as possible from some tales..
I'm not sure if the penny argument is politics or not.. But just to point out the obvious (?) : if you're government spends about 12 billion cents a year to make 8 billion cent coins, that's a waste of 4 billion cents in tax payer money. Granted, what's 40 million dollars in the big scheme but it's the tip of the iceberg. Unless you don't pay taxes.


Anyway, croissants! As a (former) hobby baker who never made them... There's a reason for it. They are a bitch to make. And so either not worth it or worth more than a dollar a piece, depending on your perspective.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm genuinely curious as to why? I'm not particularly affluent, but if I drop pennies in the street I don't bother to pick them up again because it's not worth my time or energy. The only use for them I've had in the last 20 years is a small box full which my daughter stacks up and knocks over as toys, because it costs me more in petrol to drive to the bank to deposit them, than I'd get FOR depositing them.

I'm not asking to be confrontational or combative at all, I just wonder as you seem to come across as unexpectedly resolute on the subject.

One, because there's no actual benefit, just smoke and mirrors.

Two, because the effort to change it is a giant waste of time, just discussing it on this thread has been more time than the issue is worth.

Three, because it's just change for the sake of change (or not change, because pennies).

Four, because it will be another little cut in the push to "go cashless".

Five, because it will provide an excuse for bills to round up 1-4 cents on a lot of items, which adds up over time.


E: Because I've become absolutely sick of the way our culture, influenced the idiocy of Silicon Valley, has come to embrace "disruption for the sake of disruption" as an unfettered unlimited unquestionable good.

[Keltest]

One, because there's no actual benefit, just smoke and mirrors.

Two, because the effort to change it is a giant waste of time, just discussing it on this thread has been more time than the issue is worth.

Three, because it's just change for the sake of change (or not change, because pennies).

Four, because it will be another little cut in the push to "go cashless".

Five, because it will provide an excuse for bills to round up 1-4 cents on a lot of items, which adds up over time.

As somebody working in retail, I will be perfectly happy not having to fiddle with a couple pennies and trying to find ways to trick people into taking them with their change. I have had maybe two people in the hundreds of sales ive done voluntarily take back their pennies when asked.

From where im sitting, there isn't a lot of good reason to keep using pennies.

[Max_Killjoy]

As somebody working in retail, I will be perfectly happy not having to fiddle with a couple pennies and trying to find ways to trick people into taking them with their change. I have had maybe two people in the hundreds of sales ive done voluntarily take back their pennies when asked.

From where im sitting, there isn't a lot of good reason to keep using pennies.

I always take them, with the caveat that I'll take a couple from the "penny tray" if it's full to round out my payment, or put a couple in it if it's empty for someone else's convenience later.

[Keltest]

I always take them, with the caveat that I'll take a couple from the "penny tray" if it's full to round out my payment, or put a couple in it if it's empty for someone else's convenience later.

Well, that puts you in a distinct minority then. And im still not really sure I see what the point of keeping pennies is. Yeah, we cant just snap our fingers and stop using them, but when was the last time you saw a $2 bill?

[John Cribati]

Eh. Money only has tautological value anyway.

[Fawkes]

Slightly unrelated to the current discussion: did the dollar have a sub-cent unit, when it was created? It was worth more, wasn't it?

The US had a half-penny coin that was discontinued in 1857 because of its lack of value.

In today's money, an 1857 half-penny was worth 14 cents.

[halfeye]

We had pennies and half pennies. There used to be groats long before I was born, were they quarter pennies? Then decimalisation came along, and pennies increased in value and shrank, and suddenly inflation took off big time. At that time, we still had half pennies, but they were even smaller than the shrunken pennies, but the half pennies got abandoned some while ago. We've still got the pennies though.

I tend to think that abandoning or shrinking physical coinage accelerates inflation, and is therefore bad for that reason, and probably only that reason.

[Cikomyr]

I always take them, with the caveat that I'll take a couple from the "penny tray" if it's full to round out my payment, or put a couple in it if it's empty for someone else's convenience later.

So it's literally worth nothing to you, to the store, or the next customer

The only purpose of the penny is to pay for the pennies. And it's useless, because nobody cares about that little amount of money.

You can remove the penny overnight, and nobody will lose anything. Except abusive corporations like Coinstar.

[Kato]

One, because there's no actual benefit, just smoke and mirrors.

Two, because the effort to change it is a giant waste of time, just discussing it on this thread has been more time than the issue is worth.

Three, because it's just change for the sake of change (or not change, because pennies).

Four, because it will be another little cut in the push to "go cashless".

Five, because it will provide an excuse for bills to round up 1-4 cents on a lot of items, which adds up over time.


E: Because I've become absolutely sick of the way our culture, influenced the idiocy of Silicon Valley, has come to embrace "disruption for the sake of disruption" as an unfettered unlimited unquestionable good.

Okay, fine.

One: there are plenty of benefits that have been pointed out, if you care to read others people posts.

Two : it would be about the easiest possible thing to change. You stop printing them and you wait until they are gone. Changing to rounding up / down at checkout is about as difficult.

Three : kind of redundant because you're just repeating your first dismissal, but it's change to remove a bunch of (minor) problems, which sum up when they affect a whole country.

Four: okay, if you have reasons to prefer cash. But there's a lot of steps between dropping a useless coin and removing cash.

Five: that is not how rounding works.

[Fawkes]

As far as rounding goes, there's a decent argument to be made for always rounding down on cash purchases. The benefits to the consumer are obvious, but it could work out in favor of the business as well. The slight discount encourages cash purchases, which, even rounded down, are a better deal than businesses get from credit card transactions.

[Max_Killjoy]

So it's literally worth nothing to you, to the store, or the next customer

The only purpose of the penny is to pay for the pennies. And it's useless, because nobody cares about that little amount of money.

You can remove the penny overnight, and nobody will lose anything. Except abusive corporations like Coinstar.

Not really, but you can distort what I said like that all you want.

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: Between the strangely heated tone of this discussion and the fact that it is wildly off-topic, perhaps we should go back to discussing the comic.

Remember when indie music was relevant to anything in the characters' lives?

[Max_Killjoy]

Okay, fine.

One: there are plenty of benefits that have been pointed out, if you care to read others people posts.

Two : it would be about the easiest possible thing to change. You stop printing them and you wait until they are gone. Changing to rounding up / down at checkout is about as difficult.

Three : kind of redundant because you're just repeating your first dismissal, but it's change to remove a bunch of (minor) problems, which sum up when they affect a whole country.

Four: okay, if you have reasons to prefer cash. But there's a lot of steps between dropping a useless coin and removing cash.

Five: that is not how rounding works.

One -- all smoke and mirrors, no real benefits.

Two -- when I say the effort to change it is a stupid waste of time, I'm referring to all the people who are trying to do away with the penny; they're engaged in a stupid waste of time.

Three -- not really, it's that some people think that all change is good and that they need to make changes to everything all the time and that if things aren't changing then they're "old" and "bad" and "rotten". Change for the sake of change. Change as a fetish, as an object of worship. You can always see who's slipping into that mindset by noting who resorts to attack-mode "you're just afraid of change" whenever someone objects to whatever change they're currently fixated on.

Four -- presumes that it's useless.

Five -- if you really think retailers will round down instead of always rounding up, you're living in an alternate universe that's better than the one I've spent my life in.


EDIT -- posted while above red post was being posted, I can delete if deemed necessary.

[Wraith]

We had pennies and half pennies. There used to be groats long before I was born, were they quarter pennies?

2 farthings made a ha'penny (Half-penny, and thus a farthing was a 1/4 penny)
2 ha'penny made a penny (denoted as d).
2 pennies (pence) made a tuppence (2d).
2 tuppence made a groat (4d).
3 tuppence in a sixpence (6d).
(...Which could also be 2 thruppence (3d) coins, known as bits....)
2 sixpence in a shilling (12d, or 1s).
20 shillings (or 240d) in £1 (pound).

It is therefore completely understandable that Great Britain resisted decimalisation until 1981, as counting 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 was clearly and utterly incomprehensible by comparison....

Two : it would be about the easiest possible thing to change. You stop printing them and you wait until they are gone. Changing to rounding up / down at checkout is about as difficult. .

Britain did this about 2 years ago with our £1 coins. The old ones were, with the advance of technology since they were introduced, judged to be too easy to counterfeit and so we released a new design on a specific date (March 2017) and everyone was very publicly told that the old ones would no longer be legal currency as of... I think it was October 2017? Something like that.

We just... did it. Old £1 coins got spent in shops or exchanged in banks, and we barely noticed that they had gone. But then again, our banks aren't entirely* incompetent or otherwise evil, like the ones in the US seem to be... Or maybe we weren't as obsessively outraged with trivial changes as the Americans seem to be**

* Not that they aren't without their flaws, but in this they at least seemed to get THIS right....

** Americans, I know for a fact that you are wonderful, warm, friendly and delightful people, but your representatives on the international stage? They suck.

[EDIT]

Great Modthulhu: Between the strangely heated tone of this discussion and the fact that it is wildly off-topic, perhaps we should go back to discussing the comic.

Apologies, ninja'd. Want me to scrub that or just stop?

[Traab]

Great Modthulhu: Between the strangely heated tone of this discussion and the fact that it is wildly off-topic, perhaps we should go back to discussing the comic.

Remember when indie music was relevant to anything in the characters' lives?

I wonder if deathmole ever found a new drummer?

[Yana]

Amir is who?

[Fawkes]

Remember when indie music was relevant to anything in the characters' lives?

Indie music references have been discontinued due to their diminished value. It's no longer worth the effort to continue to make them.

[Vinyadan]

Indie music references have been discontinued due to their diminished value. It's no longer worth the effort to continue to make them.

There actually was a whole site by Jeff devoted to them. https://www.questionablecontent.net/...1_archive.html But then it stopped updating! D-:

[Traab]

Amir is who?

Soft noises some people find pleasing. /nod

[Wraith]

Amir is who?

The bassist in the band that Marten and Hannelore played in, before Hannelore went off to find herself and Marten apparently forgot all about his friend and never bothered to check that the guy was even still alive.

Again.

[mucat]

The bassist in the band that Marten and Hannelore played in, before Hannelore went off to find herself and Marten apparently forgot all about his friend and never bothered to check that the guy was even still alive.

Again.

Of course Amir is still alive. He is waiting for them in the practice space, as is his way.

[John Cribati]

Soft noises some people find pleasing. /nod

That's ASMR. Amir is the Spanish word for "love."