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“PENNIES FROM HEAVEN?”

Dear Editor,

 

I would greatly appreciate if you would publish the following open letter to the President of the American Samoa Chamber of Commerce.

 

Dear Mr. Robinson (Dave),

 

In almost every store I shop at, I continually see signs that state: “We Need Pennies”. I always give them the ones I get in change because I hate having to end up with a pocket, or drawer full of pennies, which I never take with me when I go out anyway.

 

To save me, and other like individuals, from the nuisance of having to fumble for pennies, and of being hounded by stores begging for pennies, why couldn’t the merchants of American Samoa simply band together, do us all a great favor, and declare a cutoff date for the demise of pennies in this Territory. They could just round off the prices of their products to the nearest nickel, and put pennies to rest forever.

 

I know they think they are fooling us into believing that $19.99 is somehow much cheaper than $20, but I for one am not motivated by this ruse. I would be very interested to see arguments for and/or against this idea. I know this idea has been debated before, but American Samoa could make history by being the first in the nation to actually have the courage to put it into practice. Let’s all make history together.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Soifua lava,

Charles (Mick) McCuddin

 

(Editor’s Note: New Zealand has a consumer law that basically says the cost of an item can be rounded off to the nearest nickel or dollar, i.e. 4¢ becomes 5¢, 99¢ becomes a dollar, and while 92¢ can be 90¢ while 6¢ is a nickel… and so on. As a nation, they no longer manufacture pennies. What it rounds off to — depends on the math… ra)