Australia and New Zealand have stopped using pennies. I for one think this is a good move. I think they are too expensive for what they are worth and would much rather that prices got rounded to the nearest nickel (or even dime). At the end of the day I think retailers and consumers alike would come out even and even if I lost a couple pennies with each transaction I wouldn't mind.
The U.S. is moving to an all digital television network next February. I'm sure electronics companies and retailers are thrilled by this news because all analog TV's will have to be replaced by digital ones or have a converter attached. I don't especially mind this happening, I guess it's progress. I suppose it's a good thing that our TV went belly up last year.
These countries have not have not officially adopted the International System of Units (metric system) as their primary or sole system of measurement: Liberia, Myanmar and the United States. To me it seems like the U.S. should join the bandwagon and convert to the metric system. What is holding it back? I think either laziness and/or arrogance. Neither of which are good qualities. I mean really, every other meaningful country in the world uses it, why should Americans/American companies and those working with them have to go through a system of conversions in order to function. I think a cold turkey move to the metric system is the only way to go.
We received an letter from the IRS yesterday announcing an economic stimulus payment to up to 130 million households. Households will be eligible for up to $600 or $1,200 if couples file together and another $300 for children. Let's say $1,000 for 100 million households and that is $100 billion. That's a lot of cha-ching. I'm not an economist so I have no answers but I do have questions, like will enough of that get spent to stimulate the economy out of recession? If all of it is spent would that even be enough? Since people weren't expecting to receive this anyway, is there a better use for the money? Like it could be used to pay off a portion of the national debt for example. I don't know and I don't know.
Just a few items that are filling my head on this day.
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5 comments:
Besides what it is costing the government to give everyone this rebate of their income tax, what did it cost to send out the notice that it is coming. Why didn't they just allow them to take it off the taxes they owed when filing.
Good point. My guess is that if it is taken off the taxes it isn't seen as much as a "windfall". Therefore people would be less likely to spend it versus saving it and the economic stimulus would be less.
Whoever is using my comment name "Anonymous" makes it sound like I am writing the comments and I did not. Although I agree with him/her about what he/she wrote. But I kind of like the idea of getting the cold hard cash to go spend.
The most efficient thing to do would have been to take it off he owed taxes. But the USA is not known for being efficient in government.
I am hoping Oled will comment on this one as well.
Oh yes, we need more Oled posters. That way the rest of us sound smarter.
P.S. Oled, if you are a real person, my apologies. However if you are some sort of something that is just trying to drive traffic to your website then no apologies.
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