Wand and British money

[pengolodh_sc at yahoo.no]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Saitaina" <saitaina at w...> wrote:

[snip]

> Dimes, nickles, etc is confusing and annoying, I've often wished
> as a child they named them for their ammount, but we live with
> what we get.

Nickels probably are named for the alloy used to produce them; I 
suspect it consists of 75% copper and 25% nickel. mainly contains 
nickel.  

> Tax is a diffrent matter and is done state by state.  My
> current state (Oregon has aboslutly no sales tax and what
> you see is what you get), but California has a high sales tax
> and you should carry extra to the cashier.  It's stupid and
> annoying but the powers that be in the capitols (and the voters)
> have decided how much tax they want to spend so they can't
> really bitch about it.  It's just one of those things that you
> have to live with while living here or visiting (sadly)

But Norway has tax as well.  It is 23%, but 13% on food, unless you 
eat it at the place where you bought it; i.e., a coffee to go has 13% 
tax, a coffee to be enjoyed at the restaurant has 23% tax - it drives 
the owners batty!  The present system is the result of a very recent 
reform of the sales-tax, and was done by the same politicians who 
created a law by which shops less than 100 square metres can have any 
opening-hours, but shops larger than that have to close y 9pm on 
weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays, and they must remain closed on Sundays.  
The exception is if they are selling gas - then the limit is 150 
square metres.  

To get back on what I was going to talk about:  Norway (with the 
exception of Spitsbergen) has a sales-tax.  Nevertheless, the tax is 
included in the price on the price-tag.  I don't see why it is 
necessary to print the price *without* the tax in the store, when 
there in fact *is* tax, as is the case in many states.

Oh, while I remember it:  the Norwegian sales-tax (it's 
called "moms") was introduced several decades ago, as a temporary 
measure - when introduced, it was 1 %, flat.