Added: 3 months ago
From: CGPGrey
Views: 820,352
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (3,638)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Comment removed

  • I live in the UK.

    I didn't know America didn't include sales tax in the prices '-'

    Huh... that sucks.

  • also, can't you just take the pennies to the bank?

  • wait, wait, wait, in america the price on the shelf isn't the price you pay?

  • @Omni315 nope, they have taxes.

    these are not included in the price so that things look less expensive. its a marketing ploy to make people think things cost less than they really do.

  • Bedankt dat je me geen Holland noemt!

  • Makes me wonder why some people in my country (Iceland) refuse to drop a currency that is worth less then the penny...

  • @sovietkaiser you should talk to someone about that, try to get your local government to think about it, then talk about with friends, family, and your neighborhood and try to get your local representative to talk to other reps to make it happen, the smaller the coin, the less its worth, and the more it sucks up and damages the economy. good luck!

  • Unlike more civilized countries, be my friend?

  • on 3.02 genius dutch comment! BUT and i dont want to bitch,this map depicts holland without the GIANT LAKE SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRY, bad map, bad!

  • When waiting in line at the cash desk, I always count my coins, so I know I have 2.28€ in coins. If I have to pay, for example, 12.18€, I happily give most of my coins first, then reach for the bills. With a bit of practice you see whether or not it makes sense to pay in coins. Like this, my amount of coins is not constantly rising, but always staying below 20.

    An important plea to all: Do not throw your extra coins to the crocodiles in the zoo! It's a bad habit and very unhealthy.

  • You forgot about the toilet, they love pennies~

  • @Sarunei and wishing wells, which are estimated to hold more pennies across the country than most cities have in their pockets.

  • I like that old timey music the background. :)

  • Amen, I hate pennies so much.

  • I thought the title read 'Death to Ponies.' Then I was disappointed when I realised it did not. :(

  • @Scizorslash so you wanted ponies to die? :/

  • @Scizorslash Dude CCPGrey is a brony

  • @Scizorslash If you check his favorite video and other hidden link to some his other videos.

  • Fortunately, 7-11 provides the sales tax in the price tags of their goods....I like it

  • Sir you should run the U.S Economie as the current people we have arent quite doing their job well.

  • i thought the tittle said "Death To Penises"

  • Maybe YOU can't multiply by 8.75 cents in your head...

  • @Pyrolias 8.775 PROcent, not CENT.

  • Comment removed

  • This was an essay topic for AP American Language couple years ago haha

  • This doesn't make any cents.

  • Hey guys, I decided to create a petition on whitehouse.gov using this video as a source. If it gets 25,000 signatures in a month, it would actually be considered. Here's a link to the petition: wh (DOT) gov / XgK (you know what to do with that.)

  • sweden got rid of their öre too!! :D

  • Pennies: a horrible excuse for currency and a waste of wallet space.

  • Love the references in your vids :)

  • The rule about no pennies in overseas bases is true in places like Japan and Germany, but in combat locations like Iraq and Afghanistan they do away with coins altogether and print out little cardboard coins that act as gift certificates worth however much they're supposed to be worth. Saves a lot of trouble concerning the weight of shipping coins around.

  • Wow, I just fell in love with these videos.

    <3

  • Haha, "thx for not calling me 'Holland'":)

  • This video is a downer.

  • Actually in Illinois you can use pennies in the tolls. This is less relevant today due to electronic toll transponders, but it is still possible at smaller off-ramp booths. Given that Illinois has strong political voices in the federal government (Durbin, Obama, et. al) who knows when the penny will go away. From the Land of Lincoln, sorry everyone!

  • I've never understood why we don't include the sales tax in the price tags of goods. It's stupid.

  • @michelleh18 In countries like Poland, there's the same tax for the whole country and everyone knows what the tax is. in U.S. it's different. individual states have right to collect taxes from sales and set their own %. The price you see is the actual price of the product. the price you pay is product + tax. if you pay more, you can see if state either takes more money from you, product got more expensive, or there's inflation. . As for me, I like to know how much money I give to government.

  • @michelleh18 Because we're already lazy enough, I guess.

  • @michelleh18 I live in the UK and when I found out I laughed. It's one of the worst ideas I've heard.

  • @michelleh18 I'll tell you why, it's to show you how much tax is actually being charge. Also to show you the base cost of the goods are before tax that company is actually receiving from you. If they had never showed you the amount. The prices could go up and you wouldn't really know if it was taxes or if it was toward them. Afterall, some things get taxed. some others don't. Imagine if your paycheck didn't tell you your deductions.

  • @gredangeo I understand that part now that I've thought about it more. The reply comments have been nice, so thank you. I guess the way I think about it is this: They show you your tax amounts on the receipt, and that's where I look at it. When I'm shopping somewhere, I want to know exactly how much I need to dig out of my pocket before I get to the register - and also if I have enough money to get everything that I want. Not knowing how much it costs with tax makes that harder to do.

  • @michelleh18 they do in other countries and in some states.

  • @michelleh18 It convinces you that you're spending less on the product, despite knowing about the tax. It's like how they have the 9/10 at the end of all gasoline prices, or tvs for $x99, rather tahn $y00. Since the former is lower, your brain thinks "better deal" than with the latter.

  • @michelleh18 the people making the price tags can't multiply either :C

  • The government can't get rid of pennies but I'm sure they'll do a great job managing health care!

  • 5 cents is the minimum in Australia. I once went to a shop with over 200 5 cent coins just to piss people off.

  • my friend who was in the marines has been to the pic at 3:58

  • The look on the woman in Tesco's face when i paid for my lunch in 2ps...

  • I saw that creeper

  • LOL shopkeeper has a creeper hiding behind him!!

  • Germany didnt eliminate the 1EuroCent yet, but some large stores are now having a project called "Round up, Please". At the counter you can tell the cashier to round up the price from eg. 19,99€ to 20€. Good idea, but it would be even better to abandon 1/2/5 Cents, like the Netherlands did. I, living near the Netherlands border, still see the price "19,99" at the netherland checkout counter, but the cashier says "20€ pl0x". We have to follow NLs' example.

  • Thanks for not calling The Netherlands Holland, that's a province (actually 2) of The Netherlands

  • Btw The Netherlands dont ditch the 1 cent coin :P

    We still Have it..

    Brah..

  • The SECOND CGPGray video to mention Finland, YAY!

    Finland salutes you good sir!

  • G-UNIT!

  • when i first saw video i tought it was death to penises

  • *Squeals* Yay, Nederlands!

  • ROFL @ 3:00 Inderdaad bedankt Colin!

  • at least it's better then someone writing a check for $3.28 at my job.

  • Jaa, bedankt dat je Nederland geen Holland noemt!

  • elementary dear watson elementary now have you heard of nickel poisoning lime on pennies quarters but the dime remain a strong metal these metals represent the basic periodic needs for people the common and even the offbranched. some even believe nickel is an alien metal like molybdenum so we need that common penny metal at least to repesent the power that can be used i hope i shed some light

  • death to the penny one hundred times mean's death to the dollar. and a hundred dollars this G over n mint would collapse. CTIES here. now with that in conclusion we meaning the globe would deplete only to restart with new fundamentals so you can round up or round down like that leap year thing of yours, but the real fact is equallity until change truely does happen and then we will understand

  • and is wasteful *

  • My solution isn't ideal and wasteful but I do it anyways. I simply toss them as soon as I get them if there is no collection jar at the register. I've become very good at getting pennies to roll and it's worth the few seconds of entertainment.

  • This is a very well presented argument. It's too bad the people who actually control the mint don't understand this kind of basic logic.

  • just one problem... florida wasnt a slavery supporting state.... we were owned by those damn spaniards... >(

  • @tacticalmilf wow. good eye.

  • Rounding in every transaction? That's f***ing ridiculous and makes tax and business record-keeping vague and easy to falsify.

  • Comment removed

  • Comment removed

  • Yeah, here in New Zealand, we don't have anything smaller than a 10c coin.

  • Now the search starts for "AlexLong1000"'s comment...

  • @undercop5567 Ctrl F. search over.

  • @undercop5567 Now the search starts for the person that replied to AlexLong1000's comment to put into context why I would be searching for AlexLong1000's comment in the first place.

  • @sporkafife Show all Comments + CTRL+F : Alexlong1000.

  • Informative video but I guess I'm a romantic. I still like pennies and collect them every where I find one on the street! I guess I still see it as money rather than a drain to produce or a problem.

  • Send your pennies to me if you don't want them!

  • CGPgrey, you're trying to target the fact that there is no good use for a penny and that no one can ever use them actually thats not true depending on the situation pennies can be very useful and have a ton of different uses. e.g. u want candy in a school candy sale one piece of candy is five cents u dont have a nickel but u have a penny u can buy ur candy wit that and because the government knows there are smart people in america and can figure that out, i think thats y they havent abolished it

  • @P0CK3TB00K I think that isn't exactly correct. Rounding to the nearest five cents is very easy and shouldn't be hard for anybody. It's obvious that if they stop making pennies, they will have a whole lot more time and money making nickels, dimes, quarters, etc. And lets say you don't have a nickel in the same situation, you simply ask for change from the person you are buying from. Even if they don't have change, you can deal without something that is only five cents.

  • Oh god bedankt dat je ons geen holland noemde!

  • Why the (bleep) are prices ALWAYS listed in stores as how they are WITHOUT taxes. It would be 500% easier of price tags showed how much you're actually going to pay. Then we could figure out exact change.

  • You know I spend more time waiting for people to find and use their debit or credit cards, than it takes me to find exact change including using a few pennies sometimes which when I can is great, and even faster than when I don't because the clerk does not have to make change.

  • fuck this

  • @LunaFiTinG thanks adding that piece of trash comment to a fine discussion which proved nothing and provided no argument so we can't even prove you oh so terribly wrong.

  • @dean84921 dude chill you are so dumb you piece of trash .

  • BUT, shops need pennies as if there were none then they could put prices at things like £19.99 which looks cheaper than £20.00 and get people to buy it. And if you were going to buy that item and handed the cashier a £20 note, how would she/he pay your change back? And it would mean increasing the price of 1p things to 2p. And there are 1p things such as sweets in pick-n-mix shops. Long live the penny!!

  • @Jeez0Louise £19.95 would still satisfy this requirement. The point is that in the US, which is the currency of the video, there is nothing for sale for 1¢. Penny candies are now 5 or even sometimes 10 cents.

  • Another inaccuracy here, there ARE toll booths that accept pennies, including but not limited to all toll booths in the State of Florida.

  • You just wasted 4:30 of your life on pennies.

  • hey asshole! i'm in Texas and i love Lincoln!

    stupid yank...

  • In Denmark we got rid of our ”25 øre” (=4,45 american cents) only a few years ago. The current smallest coinage is worth twice as much.

  • haha, 'Bedankt dat je me geen holland noemt.' Very nice :D

  • Everyone in the US should just collect every penny they come to possess and not spend it. Keep all your pennies in a box in the basement, and never let them see the light of day again. If everyone does this, the government will have to stop printing them.

  • About 4 years ago New Zealand eliminated the 5 cent coin. Now our transactions round to the nearest 10 cents. Life became a lot simpler.

  • The only coin that I care about is the quarter. In fact most of my transactions with my friends (usually groceries for the household) are just rounded to the nearest dollar. Pennies really are just weight. The only time I think I've ever actually used or cared about pennies was when I had a "century of collecting" collection book for 1910-2010. :P

  • When I play monopoly I throw out the 1s and round to the nearest 5, 2 dollars rounds to 0 and 3 dollars rounds to 5.

  • I agree the penny should die... but what you should be more furious about is inflation... so what do we kill next with rampant inflation.. the dime... then the dollar. I currently own a 100 trillion dollar zimbabwe note.. That's right ONE HUNDRED TRILLION. When the zimbabwe was first introduced in 1980, it had slightly more buying power than the US dollar. Inflation is a form of taxation and is evil. Forget getting rid of the penny... cut the money supply so the penny is worth something again!!

  • don't talk shit on coinstar... coinstar takes about 9 percent not 10 and provides a service. You call it a leech? haha... then don't use it. I have a huge jar of change currently that I'll eventually take to coinstar. It'll probably be worth 50 dollars or so. If I can spend 5 dollars to not have to count up all that change and put it in rolls, and then go to my bank... if they even accept my rolls... I'll choose that. It's a service that's provided.. choose to use it if you want

  • @urwholefamilydied

    My bank counts my change for free. Usually they want you to deposit it however. I think some may even convert it for you to dollars or larger denominations. Might allow you to keep all of it, but you are right it's a personal choice I guess.

  • @AAErikCO I think my bank would be a little pissed if I brought in a huge jar of change, but I've never tried it. My main beef with this video is that the penny is worthless because it's no longer made of copper and because of rampant inflation. Deflate the dollar and back currency by things that are worth something (gold, silver, copper, nickel).

  • I've heard that toll booths on highways in Illinois (the Land of Lincoln) accept pennies for local pride purposes.

  • @cgpgrey No Wonder John Green likes You

  • change (DOT) org/petitions/us-government-ab­olish-the-penny

    SIGN PLEASE!!!

  • b-but, I collect pennies DX

  • value of copper : about $8000 per metric ton.

    that's $8 per kilogram

    that's 0.8 cents per gram.

    weight of a penny = 2.5g

    actual composition : 2.5% copper

    copper in a penny : 0.0625g

    value of copper in a penny : 0.05 cents

    get your facts straight

  • @Jamet999 You don't buy copper and magically have pennies. Forgetting the zinc, you still have the cost of manufacturing the coin.

  • A better solution would be to fix the inflation problem. Germany printed bigger and bigger bills until it incapacitated their economy. Granted, their inflation was several thousand percent a year for almost a decade, but just getting rid of pocket change won't fix the problem that causes it all: INFLATION.

  • But... I like bartering like a savage...

  • pennies are so usless. this one time, i went to subway and got some food and the lady at the counter tried to give me 4 cents. (my meal was $12 and 6 cents; i gave her $12 and a dime) I refused to take it because WTF am i gonna do with 4 cents??

  • so knowledgable!!! 

  • The first time i saw the title i thot it said "Death to Penises" ...

  • @TheRushingWind and you'll see 102c rounded down to 100c. so unless if every time you buy stuff you hit the lucky roundup number, you'll be fine

  • the actual dutch was a nice touch

  • You don't approve of a little thing called fact checking do you? If a price is rounded up to the nearest five cents, then of course it's a higher price. 98c rounded to the nearest 5 cents = 100c. 2c more on every transaction. No wonder people say Americans can't do mathematics

  • @TheRushingWind You can always cheat with that if you buy two times that product. 98c+98c= 1.96, rounded to nearest is 1.95, so you actually saved a cent.

  • @TheRushingWind But then you have two cents taking up space. Pennies are useless to me and just about everyone I know. I don't think anyone would give a fuck over two cents here.

  • Never been more happy to live in Australia.

  • omg this is the best channel on youtube he deserves even more views!

  • @renaman2539 I agree!

  • Wouldn't one of the simplest ways to fix the penny problem is to go to an all digital system?

    Or, in the opposite direction... revalue the currency to 1900 values. Think about buying a house for $5000. But your salery would dip from $40k to $400 a year.

    Still, an iPad for $5 sound nice. Candy for a penny. And oil would dip to $1 a barrel. Fill your $250 car for $0.05 a gallon in gas.

    I think that'll work.

  • The missing point of having the penny is a real important ommission in the reasoning.

    Say you sell your pencil for $1 and a customer wants to buy 100. That's $100.

    Now I price mine at $0.99. That penny saves the customer $1. Not much, but enough to get them to but from me.

    You drop your price to $0.95 and I drop to $0.94. Again, a penny less and I win.

    The pennies history was based on that. A paper for $0.05 lost to the one selling for $0.01 less.

  • @bsabruzzo which is pretty much the same as giving him an extra pencil for the same price

  • @bsabruzzo erm, digital transactions already work quite well in fractions of a cent. You simply require large enough lots that the difference is washed out. Further, even if you charge $0.94 and I order 103 pencils, the transaction will be rounded to the nearest increment, just as your price is rounded for the 9/10 of a cent tax you pay at the pump.

  • well said. I'm not american but I found the existence of the penny in the modern era hilariously impractical

  • OR you can just use a credit card.

    Problem?

  • The cost of producing a penny is easily offset by the cost of producing other coins.

    If you don't like pennies, I got a deal for you, give me one every day for 31 days, but each day double the amount you give me. Then you will be penniless and can quit bitching.

  • Hey I live in washington and our sales tax is about 6.5% and I can still find the tax percentage for the total sum of the products (cents and all) in like 5 sec. and have a 1 cent error margin and always have my cash ready

  • I already knew they needed to stop the penny, but he's got more facts.

  • He makes learning fun.

  • im absorbing your knowledge...

  • May you explain how inflation works in another video please?

  • true

  • I didn't realize autoplay had put this video and switched to different tab. I had headphones on with the volume up. Those hitting noises at the beginning scared the heck out of me.

  • I just started watching these videos and I gotta say they are quite informing and fun to watch. Death to pennies it is! But how could an Average-Joe get rid of pennies?

  • There are ipod vending machines??? 2:19

  • @AliceCullensAwesome have you been living under a rock?

  • Im only in 7th Grade and Iearned all this from youtube lol

  • 1:13 SHOP CREEPER

  • That's crazy! Why don't they include tax in the price? That's just stupid. Americans are dumb.

  • @MyNameIsFarToLong please explain why Americans are dumb because of something we can not control that's like saying oh Americans use Fahrenheit there dumb. Think before you post next time bud.

  • @IiZMagic So you saying that the people who make the rules for America aren't american? I guess they are, therefore americans are dumb. It's something that everyone knows.

  • @MyNameIsFarToLong But think there are people that are incredibly smart in all countries of the world. You are classifying us together as one group rather then individual that we all are. That is a very stereotypical beliefs let me guess under your beliefs all Asian are smart, or all people from the UK have yellow teeth, put more thought into your answers next time.

  • @IiZMagic i guess you have a point there:') I'll take back what i said -__-

  • @MyNameIsFarToLong Thanks <3

  • @IiZMagic its okay baby cakes <3

  • @MyNameIsFarToLong Our congress is just dumb. Not the citizens themselves. -.-

  • @TheOfficialScrowl I guess, So when your in a shop and something on the shelf says $1.10 then you get to the till and it will cost more? 

  • @TheOfficialScrowl Exactly.!.!.!.!

  • @IiZMagic Thats crazy!

  • Only hicks don't like Lincoln.lol

  • i Thought it said: Death to penis... im reliefed

  • @DonCramon same here bro.

  • I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE A HALF CENT COIN! !!

    ...sorry, just had to put that out there o,o'

  • I used to be an Abe-loving nostalgist, but thanks to the Vlogbrothers and, now, you, I completely agree that the PENNY MUST DIE.

    (I still love Abe, though.)

  • I hate how he says that the USA are barbarians or uncivilized, but great videos with good info tjough.

  • Is there any country in the world where this isn't true? Or, if that's too big a question which requires too much research and effort, does this pennies=deadweight theory apply to the UK as well?

  • yeah but they get reused so it doesn't matter that the cost more to make than they are worth

  • @frogman751 You are incorrect. Because each reuse of the penny takes TIME and time is worth money. It's a complicated thing in economics called Opportunity Cost that basically says that every time I do something, I could be doing something else. But instead of catching the bus that gets me to work on time, I'm 30 seconds late because of the three people who dug into their purses or pockets for Exact Change, and now I'm only in time to see the bus pull away from the bus stop.

  • @Likeflames "I'm 30 seconds late because of the three people who dug into their purses or pockets for Exact Change, and now I'm only in time to see the bus pull away from the bus stop"

    Isn't that your own fault for not leaving the house 30 seconds earlier?

    30 seconds?... you should have been 20 minutes earliers anyway.

  • @bsabruzzo It was a metaphor, actually, and a hyperbole. IT's basically me saying that pennies are a waste of time, a waste of space, and a waste of money. Of course if I were only 30 seconds late it would have been my own fault. Why the heck was I buying, like, coffee or whatever if I were running late?

  • Im canadian and whet to the US on vacation last week and they wouldnt accept a canadian penny... makes sense right

  • @AmaranthJosh It's not the same currency IDIOT!

  • as the Nerd once said, "Pennies are BULLSHIT!"

  • This is awesome! Huge victory of rhetoric. I can only assume it's true, but I can guarantee it's charming. very charming.

  • I'm all for getting rid of the penny and our tax system, but since when, was bartering considered something savage. Thats idea is pure STUPID.

  • James Rolfe approves of this message.