Re: USAGE: Currencies and -s

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Raymond Brown wrote:
> > But I remember at the time several Math(s)
> > teachers getting up-tight at seeing prices displayed with a decimal point
> > followed by a couple of digits with 1/2 appended   :)
>
> Gas prices over here are often given in a similar fashion, the price
> followed by 9/10.  I'm not sure why, but it's *always* 9/10.  I know
> that the cent was divided further into 10 mils, used for tax purposes,
> as the smallest coin ever actually used was the half-cent, so that's why
> the 10ths of a cent, but I don't know why it's always 9.
For the same reason that other wholesellers give listprices between one
and five cents lower than the price they want to sell at:  29.99, 34.99, etc.
Also, the selling of gasoline, as it happens, is a very competitive market with
a very inelastic demand curve -- most gas is pretty similar to all other gas, so
one of the only reasons they can convince consumers to buy *their* gas is to
lower the price.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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