Did you know they don't use pennies in Australia? They have bills plus $2 and $1 coins; 50-, 20-, 10- and 5-cents peices -- but no pennies. It's not because of things not costing any number of cents, but somehow the Aussies have bought into practice the idea of rounding to the nearest multiple of five in order to eliminate the need for pennies in circulation.So how do they manage this? Well, I was pretty surprised when following a purchase I got the receipt only to see the entry "Rounding" with the amount "0.01" cheerfully and boldy printed next to it. Of course that penny was computed to round UP to the nearest nickel. "Does it ever round down?" I wondered. Who knows. No one in front of me in line was complaining about the practice, though.
A completely random and biased survey of citzens revealed first puzzlement as to what I was talking about; and then the startled "Oh yeah! They do do that, don't they mate!" followed by the rueful laugh. My then asking if merchants ever rounded down was met with laughter so loud I swear even a kookaburra was startled off the old gum tree.
"But there's a bright side to it!" they always hasten to point out, "Purchases with credit cards aren't rounded!"
Gee. Thanks.
- Farmer Ted
No comments:
Post a Comment