In this story, which CBS MoneyWatch’s Louise Tutelian’s titled “4 things never to buy at Costco,” she starts out reasonably enough. She advises against buying designer clothes at Costco:
She goes on to advise that some name designers create cheaper, lower-quality clothes intended for outlet stores and warehouse clubs.
OK, fair enough – certainly a “Moneywatch” concern. her items three and four are also fairly described as warning about value-for-dollar problems: buying the full crate of oranges because it’s such a bargain and then ending up throwing half away uneaten, and the fact that sheets and towels are offered elsewhere at better prices and more selection.
Item #2 raised my eyebrows, though:
Um… what?!?
Listen, I surely get the idea that to many people, seafood sustainability practices are important. But I never got the sense that this was supposed to be “Socially Conscious Moneywatch.” In contrast to the other three items, this one is not warning you against buying a product because of its value or quality, but because of the environmental practices associated with its harvest. I feel like I’m watching Sesame Street and hearing, “One of these things, does not belong here!”
Is there some defense for the placement of this item?
Yeah, you’re ranting, but you do have a point. I read the article and got the impression these were supposed to be “things to avoid because, while they may look like bargains, they really aren’t.” #2 sticks out like a sore thumb.
They thought it was interesting, and needed another item to fill out the bit?
Honestly seems a little OCD to complain that a given news item doesn’t exactly fill out what you perceive the mission statement of the program is. I don’t think CBS pretends to hold themselves to any rigid code of separating news items by type.
(glancing at the moneywatch site, they also have recommendations of what paint colors to use in what room, 20 facts about incoming UCLA freshmen including that 80% of them bring their laundry home").
Also the “What to buy at Walmart” article
So throwing in some information for the socially concious consumer seems to be SOP for these bits.
Well, it’s their rag, so they can print whatever they want.
If they were looking purely at the cost/quality issue, though, they might want to hit on the fact that a lot of these shrimp are farmed in highly polluted “ponds”. I won’t eat shrimp unless I know where they come from, and most frozen shrimp is crap.
I kind of see your point, but there are a growing number of people who think about how their consumption relates to the environment. If I were to pick out an oddball story in the bunch, that Gary Busey thing is just TMZ/E! Entertainment fluff nonsense.
I don’t think the Gary Busey story is a valid argument unless you have evidence that Bricker saw that story previously and accepted it as belonging to that format of show. He can only comment on the legitimacy of the stories he sees, after all.
True, but by criticizing MoneyWatch for this sin, I sort of imply at least a basic familiarity with the site and its story choices, and I admit I missed the breaking news about Gary Busey.
Well, if they can slam CostCo, why not plug Trader Joe’s.
Maybe the idea was “these shrimp look cheap, but they are not such a good bargain for the planet as a whole”. I can see that being something consumers would want to know about - like “don’t buy those workout togs, they were made with Chinese slave labor”.*
Regards,
Shodan
*I don’t know if that really happens for workout clothes.
That might work if the name of the show was ValueWatch or somesuch, but since the title is MoneyWatch I would hope the stories gravitated around monetary concerns.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Well, if they can slam CostCo, why not plug Trader Joe’s.
[/QUOTE]
Well, obviously they can, since they did. It just seems wrong to me, though and about the equivalent of saying ‘Oh, don’t go to Walmart for that stuff…go to Sunflower Market instead. Yeah, it’s more expensive, but it’s much better for you and the environment’…which is something my sister has said on numerous occasions to my wife. Coming from her it’s amusing…on a show like this one, it seems a bit out of character, though I have to admit I’ve never seen the show, so maybe it’s what they normally do.
If Sunflower Market is just a couple blocks away, and WalMart is a couple miles or more away, that might be true, since it would take just as much time to walk to Sunflower Market and back, and get a bit of exercise, as it would be to drive to WalMart and use the gas and give more business to a place with large space and sprawl footprint.
Sunflower Market (which I also shop at…they have killer sausages), like Trader Joe’s is across town from us (say, 15+ miles from my house) while Walmart is actually about 5 miles from my house. I don’t live in a place where you can just walk to the market and back, though that is slowly changing as time goes by and civilization creeps closer and closer every year.
The article has a theme: Spend less but receive less:
Example #1) Relatively cheap but poor quality. #2) Relatively cheap but hurtful to the environment. #3) Relatively cheap but your home will be monotone. <-- the one that really proves the point, not less value, not less quality, just poor choices. #4) Relatively cheap but it’ll rot before you eat it.
It looks to me like a sampler of things to generally think about when your buying items, any items, at CostCo. Not sure why #2 got picked on as odd.
Well, if you truly want a defense and aren’t just ranting, then consider that non-sustainable farming of seafood is essentially an example of Tragedy of the Commons. which is a fundamental issue in economics. Further, one of the few ways in which you can solve a Commons problem without resorting to regulation is to either get the users of that resource or the people that consume their products to self-police.
It basically turns on how you define the value of the product. If you’re a free marketer, like me, then value is whatever people are willing to pay for something when they have complete information (and the rest of the market assumptions are met). Thus, there is no relevant difference between the value of some scarf because of the effect it has on how beautiful you look to others and the value of some shrimp because of the degree to which its production harms people. Both things are about the value of the product to a given consumer based on their idiosyncratic preferences. Since many consumers care if their clothes look good, or if their shrimp is destroying the eco-system, then both facts are relevant to the value proposition.
I think the article acknowledges that some people consider other things besides saving a buck or two when they spend their money. They must be numerous enough that Money Watch feels the need to consider them in the report.
Yes, of course consumers have many other interests, since they are drawn from the human race.
And by your logic – that consumers often have other interests – there is no subject that Money Watch should not cover.
To my way of thinking, there is a logical and close nexus between manufacturer recalls or safety warnings and watching one’s money. The nexus between watching money and sustainable seafood harvesting is much more attenuated.
MoneyWatch is free to cover the collected works of Increase Mather, but if they do, they’ll have the same problem they do here: while interesting and perhaps socially conscious, it’s not the first subject that the phrase “MoneyWatch” brings to mind.
It just seems wrong to me, though and about the equivalent of saying ‘Oh, don’t go to Walmart for that stuff…go to Sunflower Market instead. Yeah, it’s more expensive, but it’s much better for you and the environment’…which is something my sister has said on numerous occasions to my wife. Coming from her it’s amusing…on a show like this one, it seems a bit out of character, though I have to admit I’ve never seen the show, so maybe it’s what they normally do.