W ell, it is official. The Conservative government is going to nickel and dime us to death.
Last week's budget called for the elimination of the penny. A strange provision to put in a budget but the justification provided by Minister Flaherty is even stranger.
"We will eliminate the penny. Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home. They take up far too much time for small businesses try to grow and create jobs. It costs taxpayers a penny-and-a-half every time we make one. We will, therefore, stop making them." announced Minister Flaherty in his
budget speech.
Kind of makes you wonder, though, about small businesses. If counting pennies is somehow preventing businesses from growing or from creating jobs, what else might there be in the way of impediments?
Indeed, I would have thought that counting pennies would be a job creator. After all, someone has to be employed at the task. You know - The
Official Penny Counter.
And we all know that this is an important task because if you take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves.
But maybe it isn't pennies that are really the problem. Maybe it is the whole money thing in the first place. After all, balancing the cash register at the end of the day takes up valuable staff time.
That is time that could be spent job creating.
Indeed, collecting the money from the customers in the first place is time
consuming, too. Maybe we need to get rid of that and then businesses can grow.
They can focus on creating jobs.
All that money collecting on dressers at homes across the country, taking up valuable sock and photograph space, is just destroying our economy. Think of where businesses could be if they didn't have to worry about all that money taking up too much of their time. Think of all the jobs that they could be creating.
One could make the argument that Minister Flaherty's initiative aside, money is becoming obsolete. I can't recall the last time that I actually made a cash purchase. I use my debit card for most transactions. It is easier and I am never caught short.
It is also harder to steal. The piece of plastic requires a PIN and that means that both components need to be present. By itself, a debit card is pretty much useless.
That is not to say that sophisticated thieves can't steal a card and use it to steal an identity. But it is certainly harder to steal than cash. It can always be cancelled.
So, why stop at the penny? What about nickels, dimes, and quarters and all of the rest of those unnecessary coins and bills? Get rid of them and suddenly our small businesses would have much more time to concentrate on what really matters - growth and creating jobs.
It would also save the taxpayer a lot of money because it takes money to make money. Literally. The Royal Mint is not cheap. Shutting it down would save the government a pretty... penny?
This year the Royal Mint even went so far as to introduce bills made from plastic. Why not just go whole hog and replace cash with plastic all around?
Cha-ching goes the credit card, the debit card, or - wait for it - the new
Canadian Money Card.
Heck, for real security, why not just get chips implanted in all Canadians?
Just tap and pay. Is this where we are really heading?
I suspect not. Or at least, that is not the Conservative government's intent.
You would think, though, that a political party built on the ideal of maintaining things just the way they are would be the last to get rid of the penny.
However, giving the government the benefit of the doubt, this could all be just about eliminating a unit of currency that really has become meaningless.
After all, in our economy, you can't buy anything for a single penny. Long gone are the days of penny candies or bubble gum. About the only role that the penny fulfills is to allow retailers to advertise for $6.99 instead of $7.00.
But eliminating the penny does lead to the question of how prices will be rounded - up or down? Will it be legislated that a price of $1.02 is only $1.00 and $1.03 will be a $1.05? Or will it be left to retailers to decide?
And will the prices of things just settle down to the five-cent mark? And what happens when taxes are applied? A seven per cent tax on a dollar item results in a cost of $1.07. Will retailers bite the bullet on the taxes and sell for $1.05.
Who knows? But we will surely get nickeled and dimed to death as this is all sorted out.
