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From: rwwetmore@watmath.UUCP
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Money
Message-ID: <5654@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Mar-87 20:37:07 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.5654
Posted: Thu Mar  5 20:37:07 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Mar-87 22:19:52 EST
References: <5626@watmath.UUCP> <2395@watdragon.UUCP>
Reply-To: rwwetmore@watmath.UUCP (Ross Wetmore [ICR])
Distribution: ont
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 21

In article <2395@watdragon.UUCP> absary@watdragon.UUCP (Al Sary) writes:
>Another thing that puzzled me about the overseas countries (such as
>Germany) is that the tax is included in the price, but prices are
>usually round numbers (such as 290 DM, for example). I am not sure how
>that works out. Also, the disadvantage on the business side is obvious
>with this system.

  I'm confused. I *always* thought business sales tax was computed from
gross inventory and never in bits and drabs from each individual sale.
The politics of explicitly adding it to the published price to remind
the purchaser of the government take is like that of quoting prices
as $2.99 instead of $3 - ie just politics.

>But the science of making money has been studied
>much more extensively in North America while other countries may not
>care as much (which means they are not as greedy, which is hard to
>understand after you've lived here long enough).

  Is this a comment on the gullibility of the NA consumer that makes the
time and effort of counting pennies pay off? I can't see how a German or
Japanese business would overlook such a trick if it worked?