You're being skrued and don't even know it.

The BBQ Pit
21

Well, I have a very easy solution: If you don’t like cheap stuff, don’t buy cheap stuff and manufacturers will stop making cheap stuff because it does not sell. But we buy cheap stuff and then blame the manufacturer for selling us what we demand. We buy illegal drugs and then turn around and blame the person who sold it to us. We eat fast food and then complain that it’s … fast food! We live in the most comfortable society the world has ever known and it seems all we can do is bitch.

Would you rather have lived 50 years ago?

22

I’d like to correct a misconception. I am absolutely pleased to be living here and at this time.

Also, I don’t buy CDs, so I did not know about the ‘singles’. The last time I checked them out, I found none.

I arrived just a few years before the polio vaccine. We got it on sugar cubes in a school cafeteria. No one here had much in the way of air conditioning, except for the local movie house, but now I have it in almost every room. I recall my mother using a clunky electric calculator that had no display, just a tape, for her small ceramic business. Now my wrist watch has more calculating power and functions than that machine did, is the size of a 50 cent piece and has been powered by the same battery since 1993.

I have no beef with the advancements. I have a big beef with being taken advantage of. Is there something about business which makes people greedy? Is there some reason a corporation just has to hide the flaws, dangerous ones, in a product? Is there a reason why they decide to decrease the volume of food containers without letting the public know, or caring what the market will bear to make as much money as they possibly can in as short a time as possible? Is there a reason to buy out small businesses just to fire the employees and break up the plant to sell off the assets at a profit with no regard for the people whose livelihoods they ruined?

Has honest business gone by the wayside? I know about padding construction orders, which the unwary house owner might not catch, to generate excess material, which will be taken to another project. There it will go on that home owners bill, even though it has already been paid for. Small things, like additional nails, screws, plumbing fittings, and yards of copper wire have been added and the home owner certainly did not get this extra material at the end of the work.

A friend of mine, who used to be a meat cutter for a butcher, told me about some of the tricks in the meat trade. It seems that, depending upon the angle of the cut, a single chunk of meat can be sold at several prices. It’s all the same meat! All the same section of muscle but cut in different ways and sold at different prices! Then there is the trick of adding crap meat into hamburger and some water. Not just bits of gristly meat, but chunks of material containing a lot of connective tissue, some organ meat and different types of fat. Ham is pumped full of water for a gain in weight by some companies. (Ever had a slice of ham frying and kind of discover how long it took to brown it? How much water sizzled off?) Some companies sell inexpensive hamburger patties. The carton is marked with delicious looking examples and colorful proclamations about the high quality of the product.

Get it home and fry one up. On some you loose 50% of the size and weight and generate a tremendous amount of grease in the pan. Many don’t taste all that good and a few leave you wondering if sawdust is their main ingredient. In tiny lettering on the box it informs you of a high quantity of vegetable or soy products in the mix as filler. The meat quality was probably something just barely fit for human consumption.

Now, the ingredients label. After the truth in advertising laws came out, business raised hell and got them ‘modified.’ Coca-Cola does not have to list it’s ‘secret ingredient’ in any way. Lite products are often neither low fat nor low sugar because the indicator ‘lite’ does not have to mean anything. Margarine containing no cholesterol doesn’t tell you that the hydrolyzed oil turns into cholesterol after being consumed. Many prepared foods list the easily observed contents, then hide the rest under ‘seasonings and preservatives’.

Lard can be listed under like 4 different names. You buy a hot plate to cook on in your college dorm or home. You don’t know, until later, that the wiring is very thin and with continued use, it breaks down and the hot plate stops working or zaps you one.

Did anyone tell you that aluminum frying pan you like is going to start pitting and shedding large amounts of aluminum as it ages? Especially the electric skillets.

What gets me is the ‘legal’ sneakery businesses can get away with. If you have a good product, sell it as so. If you have a cheap one, don’t try to convince us that it’s the best around.

RONCO makes millions on his cheap products. They always start out pushed on TV, with infomercial specialists - trained sales people running off of a script - being sold for over $100. Two years later, the product shows up in discount stores for $29.95.

Ever wonder why professionals don’t use the marvelous, magical furniture refinishing kits, E-Z- tools, stain removers and deck coatings? Because they don’t work as good as the infomercials say they do.

It seems inherent it business that you have to take the sucker for all you can.

There are few business people that I have personally met that I like. Especially those who will be your friend, have drinks with you, meet the families, got fishing with and then turn around and run you out of business because ‘it’s just business. Nothing personal.’

23

Skribbler, you have this thing about others taking advantage of you. If you are happy with your life and your situation why do you care about them? I buy what I want to buy because I think it is a good deal for me. Why should I care that it is a good deal for the other party? In fact, I hope it is.

I think it all boils down to a question of attitude and different points of view. I am happy to have so many things at my disposal and I am happy the people around me also have access to them. I do not see anyone taking advantage of me in any way as I am not forced to buy anything I don’t want. I buy what I want and generally I am happy with what I get. I really do not have any feeling that anyone is taking advantage of me.

When I have been unhappy with purchases it is generally not with the products of big companies but rather with the seervices of small companies or individuals. Stuff like installing a new roof and things like that. And I believe these people did lousy jobs not because they are evil in any way or out to screw me but rather because they are just plain incompetent.

This is not a question of right or wrong, it is a matter of points of view. What I will tell you is that I would find it much more pleasant to share mi company with someone who has a more optimistic point of view than you have. You may be right but I think after a while of listening to this kind of stuff I’d want to shoot myself. Life can’t be that bad. I don’t think others are out to take advantage of me any more than I am out to take advantage of anyone.

24

Maybe your view is well summarized in the title: “You’re being skrued and don’t even know it.” and mine would be better summarized by “I’m being screwed and I’m enjoying it” :slight_smile:

25

Skribbler sounds like a bee got caught under his bonnett.

First off, it’s Tampax, not Tampex. I can’t believe that no one nit-picked on that one. :slight_smile:

Second of all you are ranting more than debating here.

My VCR is a no brand Montgomery Ward (actually it was made by Sharp) that I have had for 11 years. It works great but doesn’t work with the newest of universal remotes. Oh well, not a big deal.

I also have my boom box that has gone through hell and back for 13 years – it’s a Sony – despite it’s abuse it still sounds pretty good.

My stereo, also a Sony, I have had for 9 years. It may not be up-to-the-minute but it sounds good and works great for watching a movie.

My Honda Accord EX, I bought in 1996 is a 93 actually purchased by the original owner in 1992. Even with my horrible lack of maintaining the engine, it still runs great.

My dino of a computer (my other one) was built in 1997 by a local computer company. It still purrs like a kitten and if programs weren’t so hard on it I would have loved to continue to use it as my main computer. But the deal is, it’s still in excellent shape.

As for food companies…well, tough. If you don’t have time to be an informed consumer then that is your problem, not Kraft or Nabisco. The problem is, people are not willing to take responsibility for their lives then sit back and whine because they feel big companies are screwing them.

As for the brand vs. no-brand, then boycott the big boys and buy the no-brand stuff. So what if your corn has a few husks left in the can, better than rat whiskers. Personally I purchase items based on the quality rather than the quantity. If the no-brand is just as good then I buy it, if the brand is better I buy it. I make informed decisions based on knowledge and past use. If the brand tastes, reacts or is better I would rather spend a few cents more even if I get less. Oh and YES I do read the per unit costs on most of my items when grocery shopping.

Do something about it if you are so miffed about their packaging. Start a website and get the word out that you are frustrated by their tactics. Send letters, get the word out. Also, as you brought up, one store may have a different price than the other store. Then shop for your money rather than for convenience in this instance. This gives the cheaper store more money to stay in business and continue with lower pricing.

The thing is we live in a world that we must pay for the things we want and need. Personally I don’t mind it as that’s life. That said I am also an informed consumer. I take the time to buy things for the value of my dollar.

That’s my take on this weird and ranting “debate”.

26

I agree with much of what you say, for I also have a cheap, much battered ghetto blaster that has been with me for 10 years and works very well off of the copper wire antenna I had to poke on it.

Obviously, though, you find no problem with being screwed. We’ve come to accept it. It’s part of life. The only reason it’s part of life is that we let it happen. Once consumer groups caught on, they made it more difficult for businesses, so now they ‘sneak’ things in on us. Things they’ve carefully researched to determine we might miss.

If you had a business, would you mislead or lie to your customers?

We have vegetable importers. They import fruits and vegetables from third world countries, where DDT is legal. DDT is not legal here. We buy these vegetables, and no one lets us know they’ve been grown under DDT usage. There are laws against us using it, but none governing the importation of DDT soaked foods. Reason for the imports? Cheaper vegetables and bigger profits.

The danger of that Suzuki 4x4’s bad center of gravity was known when it was carried here in the US. It flipped over. It took many accidents before the dealers agreed not to sell them. The Yugo was an accident looking for a place to happen, but it was heavily promoted and only after people caught on to it’s danger did the dealerships stop selling them. The dealers only had to sit in one to know it would crumple like tin foil if hit.

There’s a whole lot of herbal and nonprescription stuff on the market, however none of it has FDA approval, no one has warned any user about the dangerous side effects of some of the herbs if mixed with medication or if over dosed with. (A lot of people still feel that if it is not regulated, a medicine is deliberately made weak, so double up the dosage.)

Get you house sprayed each month? Do you know you don’t have to? There are two ways to this. Sears does the first, but every extermination company can do it. Sears gives you a full strength treatment. It lasts for a year. Most exterminating companies water the insecticide down, so it lasts about a month, and they get to come back. (I had a friend in the extermination industry who told me about it.) It costs more in the long run.

The second method is real cheap. You go to a wholesale chemical supply. You buy a small bottle of the insecticide concentrate for like $10. You buy a plastic pump sprayer for $10. You carefully follow the instructions in mixing the stuff. You spray your house. No bugs for a year or more. I sprayed an old house I lived in that had a major roach problem with this stuff. Three years later I moved out and still no roaches. The stuff is toxic when wet. Nontoxic to humans and pets when dry.

You’re being screwed.

I went to a pharmacy once with a prescription for Datril, then a new drug, because I had a fever. The pharmacist filled it and charged me $10. No problem. I later discovered, through a nurse friend of mine, that the stuff was available under a different name, on the shelf. Same milligrams. Cost? $4.00. A good pharmacy would have told me. I got screwed.

I got a prescription for Ibuphrophin (Motrin) for pain once. It cost me $8.00 at the pharmacy. I discovered that they were 600 milligram tablets. Had the pharmacist told me, I could have bought Ibuphrophin off of the shelf for $2.00 for 200 mgm tablets and simply tripled them.

Movie previews: You watch them. If you like them, you go see the flick. How many times have you been disappointed or just a bit confused that the flick doesn’t seem to follow the preview very well. Know why? They cross edit the preview. They take prime scenes and splice them together, so you’ll see one character say something witty, then another character seems to respond within seconds. In the movie, that funny dialogue never happens. The first comment can be separated by many scenes from the second comment.

Best example: Tornado. Helen Hunt in truck sees her truck swept up. She asks costar ‘Where’s my truck’? Truck crashes to ground seemingly in front of the. She says, ‘Oh, there it is.’ In the movie that scene did not take place. The clip of the truck being taken and crashed down was a whole separate part and not linked to her comments.

So, movie makers are starting to mislead you by splicing together preview clips to make the film appear much more exciting than it is. They make most of their money in the first few weeks of release, so the more people they get packed in to see the film within a few days, the better it is, because afterwards people will start talking.

We’re getting screwed.

It was suggested I do something. I am. I’m talking to you all about it. Weather you agree or not, people will view this thread and some might go ‘hmmmm he’s right.’ Then they’ll start looking around with open eyes.

I am a bit stunned by complacency here though. It’s kind of like ‘oh well. That’s the way it is.’ Even, ‘OK, let me bend over to get screwed because that’s the price we pay for living in this great nation.’

KY anyone?

27

Teckchick is correct. This is no great debate, it’s not even a mini debate. It’s just a (not very original) rant. I do hope it makes you feel better to get all this off your chest. I’d hate to have someone around all day carrying on like this. There are people who just want to convince you how bad things are and they won’t leave you alone. I avoid them at all costs.

BTW, it seems Ralph nader is sort of riding this wave. He keeps rambling about how bad everything is and how big corporations are screwing us. But what’s his opinion on foreign policy, on this or on that issue? Nothing. His opinion about everything is “we’re being screwed by big corporations”. it seems to resonate with quite q few people and I bet Skribbler is one of them.

As I said, I might be getting screwed but I’m enjoying every minute of it. in fact I wish I could get more screwing in the form of consumer goods. Maybe I just don’t have enough to realise how bad they are :slight_smile:

28

This is, plain and simple, dead bloody wrong. The recording and mastering costs have to be included as part of the cost of manufacturing a CD. You cannot simply assume them away and reduce the cost of “making” a CD to the cost per unit of the physical disc itself.

Um, the physical per unit cost of a CD does not change whether you’re making singles or full-length releases, nor does the mastering cost (usually around $250 for the glass master, although many plants waive that cost if the run is big enough).

Oh, BTW, welcome back again, Serlin.

29

Skribbler, the solution is to be a careful shopper and watch those package labels. Subscribing to a consumer shopping magazine is a good idea too.

There was a thread similar to this one ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=9031 ) a year ago, where I wrote:

That was almost a year ago, and those cookies are still four for a quarter. When enough people decide that something is too expensive, the price will come down.

By the way, comparison shopping is something I’ve been teaching my kids as soon as they were old enough to understand how money works. I’d take them to the store with me, and say something like “Let’s pick out a bag of potato chips.” “Oh, dad, get these, they’re delicious!” “Hmmm, let’s see. Seven ounces for $1.49. We can get them if you want, or we can spend the same money on this other brand for this giant 16-ounce bag.” “Oh, dad, those are so plain, and these are great!” “Yes, they are. It’s your choice, a small bag of delicious chips or a giant bag of ordinary ones. It’s your call.” – And lots of times they’d choose one or the other. If it was something where the quality was important to me, I’d make the decision. But for potato chips and similar items, they get a good education in smart shopping.

30

I’ve been showing you where you get screwed at. There is no reason for this, except greed. I guess I came up in the time of the ‘bakers dozen’ (where you’d buy 12 buns from a bakery and the baker, for good will, would toss in one free, making it 13) and currently I go to a vegetable stand where a hard working Vietnamese lady always tosses in two or three extra vegetables for free.

Her produce is good, prices acceptable and goodwill gesture pleasant so I keep coming back. She doesn’t hide over ripe tomatoes in the bottom of the container and they run a lot less than at the grocery store.

I did not notice such wide spread ‘cheating’ the consumer until around the ‘selfish 80s’, when it started popping up everywhere. If you are in your 20s or 30s, then you grew up in the 80s. Debate? I don’t know. I’m pointing out hidden corruption but, astonishingly, most of you defend it.

That’s like those cappuccino coffees or whatever in those new coffee bars. They pack less than an ounce of grounds in a steamer, blast hot water through it, toss in frothy cream, sweetener and whatever and sell it to you in a cup for $3 to $5 dollars. The price is high because people pay it.

You buy high profile clothing at twice the price of standard because of the label, even though they both were probably made in Taiwan along with about a million others at the same, low price.

Why is this cheating the public so acceptable? In my time, I’ve done my part in boycotting goods, writing in letters of complaint, was a big supporter of the then controversial and much resisted lemon law and spread facts. I’ve complained about that Grecian Formula hair cream, designed for men, to gradually restore their natural hair color over a period of time. It’s got a high amount of lead in it! You use it daily.

I found out that women who are beauticians actually take years off of their lives because of being exposed to so many chemicals, something even most of them didn’t know.

Super markets have been packaging meats fat side down for decades. This is acceptable because most places will open the package and let you see the underside. However, some of the same supermarkets bleach old fish, squirt it with lemon and sell it so as not to take a loss. Several chains cut up old chicken and do one of two things with it. A) they cook and sell it or B) they package it, covered with spices and sauce, as oven ready meals. The meat is usually beyond it’s expiration date.

OK. We live in a great nation. OK, planned disposal has given us a variety of new products but that doesn’t give businesses the right to screw us. Believe it or not, there were times when businesses making a good profit were content and not out to make enormous profit. However, today, we have some businesses based on over pricing right from the very start.

I don’t know about you, but I work hard for my money. I don’t want to find that I’m paying more for less food. I’m already paying more for less gas and a huge chunk of that is city tax and State tax and dealer increase. (1.59 per gallon comes to roughly .80 from the truck.) The recording industry, or, rather, record industry, has been exposed several times for price gouging but people still buy the CDs by the ton.

Why put up with it?

I’ve not been able to look into movie theater costs, but I’ve noticed that when one theater beats all of the others out in a city (like here) so it has a monopoly, prices soar. $6.00 to get in. $4.00 for a large popcorn, $2.00 for a medium drink and ushers fish you out after the show so you can’t sit through it again for free. (Like we used to.) usually the places run on a very minimum crew, so overhead is down.

People complain loudly, but still pour into the theater. I don’t. I don’t go to the theater in town.

Ralph Nader points out the rotten apples in our basket of prime fruit. Unsafe At Any Speed, his book, pointed out the outright lying of the auto industry with the Corvair. They had that piece of junk looking like it could go through rough land like a jeep! They also knew the car crashed easily but decided that human lives were worth less than profit.

However, interestingly enough, when the auto industry first put in seat belts, most of the ‘intelligent’ public refused to use them. It took a seatbelt law to make people protect themselves. This is the same mentality that says it’s fine to get screwed. I wonder how many of you voted down the helmet law for bikers? You have the RIGHT now to smear your brains across the roadway and have the government pay for shoving them back into your skull.

So, I’m telling you. Some of you will tell others what to look for. The rest of you will sit back, say things are just fine, don’t rock the boat, and grumble about rising food prices and ignore the fact that the government is seriously thinking about helping pay for medications because they can’t limit profits on drug companies.

31

I don’t know what to say, Skribbler. You are correct that big business finds sneaky ways to get every cent that they can from us. But you are very mistaken when you say that this is something new.

Maybe you didn’t notice it at the time, or maybe you’ve forgotten. But I’m only two years younger than you, and I remember 5-cent candy bars. And I remember noticing that they were smaller than they used to be. And then they got ever-so-slightly smaller again. Then, they were suddenly larger, but they cost 6 cents each now. And then 7 cents. And so on through 10, 15, 20, and all the other levels.

It’s now reached the point where the same bar can be 55, 60, or 65 cents, depending on the store. Which means that the price hikes can be done even more insidiously, because although I can easily refuse to pay 70 cents, and only shop at stores that charge 60 or 65, one never really notices when the last holdout at the 55-cent range finally raises his price.

Bottom line: I encourage you to continue in your efforts to hold prices down and such. But don’t think this is a new phenomenon.

32

[Moderator Hat ON]

This is more of a general rant/whine, and as such doesn’t properly belong in Great Debates. I’m moving it to The BBQ Pit. Sorry, Alpha, Lynn.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

33

Er, bullshit. Those of us who might not agree with your paranoia are total fucking idiots? Don’t think so, pally.

I get screwed occasionally. Voluntarily. And I don’t bitch about it. The rest of the time I somehow manage to make reasonable and informed prices through a little bit of research and a technique I like to call “paying some fucking attention.” If I think a price is too high, I won’t pay it. If I think I’ve been cheated, I’ll know not to get caught a second time.

Aand ya know what? I manage to keep from bursting a blood vessel doing it, too. Unlike some, it seems.

Hey, Skrib, don’t you realize you’re being scrued by the cookie manufacturers, dude? What the fuck? You’re willing to pay Drake TWO DOLLARS A POUND for cookies? Don’t you know you could just make the cookies yourself and save half that? You’re a sheep! You’re willing to take it up the ass instead of making your own cookies.

Hey, don’t blame me, I’m just showing you where you’re getting screwed at.

34

Um, andros, I think that was Keeve that was talking about the cookies.

Skribbler, what you’re outlining is the basis for capitalism. You provide a product or service, and charge whatever you can for it. If your product is in demand, and you run your business properly, you can make a profit.

Is it “right” to reduce the amount of product and keep the price the same? Depends. It’s another way of increasing the price. Would you complain as much if the manufacturers raised prices 20 percent and gave you the same amount of product? It’s their way of trying to meet or exceed an established profit margin.

But you should be aware, railing at “Big Brother” is pointless at best. If specific things bother you (such as a food provider altering the amount of product they give you), then take action. Refuse to buy the company’s product. Tell other people. Start a write-in campaign to the company. (They DO listen to this kind of stuff.) Just getting on a message board and saying “Hey, all you people, listen to me, I’ve seen the light” doesn’t do much. You tend to get lumped in with the black-helicopter crowd.

35

Well, actually, the short stuffing of the containers is new. Less peas in a can, more water to make up the volume and no weight change, but same price. Two or 4 bite sized candy bars missing from a bag, same size package and same price.

Things that are not obvious and might take awhile for the consumer to spot. The companies know that eventually consumers will spot it, and reduce buying, but if it takes several months or more, they’ve made a big profit. Then, depending on the consumer response, they’ll decide whether or not to restore the contents to normal.

I mean, this thread has shown that people will buy anything, expecting to be screwed and do nothing about it. Some consider it excellent business practices.

That big box of macaroni might be an ounce lighter now, yet the same price and it might take you weeks to notice it because it looks the same! However that big candy bar might now be 1/2 inch shorter and you’ll notice that because it’s obvious. I’ll wager you’d complain if the gas pumps were reset tom pump gas in 4/5 of a gallon for the same price as your current full gallon. (I know, Federal regulations don’t allow that – enacted because years ago some people did adjust their pumps.)

Have you ever seen any of the exercise equipment plugged on infomercials carried in a gym? I haven’t – though I could be wrong. On one such infomercial, it was pointed out that at the end, the muscular pitchman said real fast and softly that results could be obtained only with diet and additional exercise. He said it so fast that the program which pointed it out ran a VCR tape of it twice at normal speed and you couldn’t understand what he said. Even slowing it down, you could barely grasp what it was. However, it met the legal standards. Up until that point, one was assured that the magical machine would give you results in just minutes a day. For just 8 payments of $29.99. (I love that. They discovered that cutting the price into small chunks will fool a lot of people into buying the thing whereas if they list the entire price, many won’t. An old trick. It rakes in a lot of suckers.)

When I was a kid, I used to believe that my favorite TV heroes pitching cereal and stuff, claiming that they loved it actually did. I badgered my Mom into buying the stuff. Even if it was kind of crappy, my hero ate it and so would I. I did not learn until later that for money, almost anyone famous will tell you that goat shit is delicious, they eat it all the time and you should too.

I don’t feel that they should say they use, endorse or consume a product unless they actually do. It’s lying to the public.

Now and then I’ll sell a car. I have a list of things wrong with each car. I have a negotiable price set. When a buyer is interested, I go over everything wrong with the car with him, suggest places to buy parts or to get it fixed. Sometimes I have the parts, but they never got installed and those go with the car. If he is still interested, we dicker, settle on a price and he gets the car and I have a clear conscience.

How many of you have gotten screwed by used car dealers? Know the old trick of shoving bananas in the lifters? Filling the oil pan up with super heavyweight oil? Taking a rag with oil on it and wiping down those fake wood sides on station wagons? Recharging the a/c every day? Installing hot burning plugs to disguise leaky piston rings? Packing STP into a worn rear end gear box or transmission?

Dealer tricks, but, I suppose we all know to be real careful about used cars. Still, lying to a consumer should not be allowed.

Remember locking lug nuts for chrome rims? They were a bit costly, all chrome and kept people from stealing your chromes. No one mentioned that a sharp rap with a hammer cracked the locking nut and it could be picked off and your rims stolen.

How about those ads where if you buy X number of CDs or whatever, you get that nifty boom box radio and they show you a picture of the thing and it looks cool? You buy the junk and the radio shows up – and fits in the palm of your hand.

36

The dangers of Jeeps were known too. It’s inherent in the design, which the Suzuki is a copy of. They didn’t stop selling them, the company merged with GM to produce the Geo line–the Tracker is a Sidekick with some GM engineering–and kept selling Suzukis as well. I just rented a 2000 Suzuki Something or other from Enterprise. Yugo went out of business when the government took over the factory to convert it to a weapons plant. Get your shit together, Mr. Nader.

37

[Disclaimer: I do not work for a corporation, only worked for one a few summers in college, and have no personal affiliation with the dreaded “big business.”]

Let’s all say it again, supply and demand. If people are willing to pay for the goods that Skribbler complains are cheap, inferior or overpriced, then by economic definition they ARE NOT cheap, inferior or overpriced. Instead, they are goods that the market wants and that the market is willing to pay the stated price for. That really is the end of the discussion. A person, such as Skribbler, is certainly free to argue that the goods are cheap, inferior and overpriced in his opinion. However, the amrket as a whole, which is much stronger than Skribbler gives it credit for, has agreed to purchase those goods.

Keeve’s cookie story is an excellent case in point. Companies will make goods to the level demanded by the market, or they will go out of business. They simply cannot survive making goods that the market as a whole has judged to be overpriced.

On the other hand, there is no moral objection to a company making as much profit as it can. That’s what companies and corporations do - make profits. If they can make a little profit at $1 per widget and a much bigger profit at $10 per widget (because people are willing to pay $10 for these really amazing widgets), then corporations have an obligation to their shareholders to sell them for $10. (Of course, the rights and responsibilities can be somewhat different for non-corporate business entities, but we’ll put that to the side for now.) The profit is not “unfair” - it is what the market bears, for better or worse. If the profit is sufficiently great, then competitors will pop up and try to sell widgets for a lesser price, sell a better widget for the same price, or even occasionally, a better widget for a lesser price.

Skribbler’s example of the changes in American automobile manufacturing do not represent a “failure” of the system or corporations “screwing” the public. Instead, the rise of Japanese automakers and the resulting improvement in American automakers are an example of how the market system really does work. We all got better widgets (cars in this example) as a result of market forces.

The role of government, if any, in this process is not to stop corporations and companies from maximizing profit. Instead, government should work to correct failure of the market system (such as natural monopolies) and leave the rest alone.

I’m sorry Skribbler, but there’s no reason to force some misguided sense of morality on a system that works best when left to the wants and desires of the consuming public. If the public wants its corporations to act differently, all it has to do is be willing to pay for it.

38

So, I assume then, that it is acceptable to lie and mislead the public in order to increase or encourage sales of a product, to disguise hidden dangers and health hazards and to use chemical names of potentially harmful ingredients instead of common ones in a product, knowing that Susi Homemaker won’t know what it is and might not know where to look it up?

No cholesterol margarine is a great example because some of the oil in it, once in the body, turns into the gunk. However, until consumed, it has no cholesterol and is pitched to people wanting to watch their cholesterol.

What about those no cholesterol chips, with that little notice telling people on cholesterol diets to call the 800 number for full cholesterol facts on the product? Perhaps they contain fat that turns into cholesterol?

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But the type of thing you’re talking about isn’t new. Heck, there were companies in the 1800s that touted products like the “electropathic belt,” which would (allegedly) cure all sorts of maladies. Believe it or not, packaging and advertising in the U.S. today is much, much more honest and aboveboard than in the past.

A margarine manufacturer can say “No cholesterol” on their packaging because the FDA says they can. Besides, it’s true. The margarine doesn’t contain cholesterol.

My personal beef a few years back was the use of the word “Lite” to describe various products. Cecil discussed this in a column. But as an informed consumer, I knew what was going on, and refused to buy many of the products that carried that label.

I understand what you’re saying, but your point seems to be rapidly degenerating into “big business is bad” and “things were better in the good old days.” Big business is occasionally stupid, but they’re not bad. And there have been many examples in this thread of the progress that has been made in the last few decades. My suggestion would be to identify specific products and brand names, and outline what your problem with each one is. This would perhaps create a groundswell of support for boycotting these products/firms until they conform to the standards you’d like them to meet. Nothing wrong with doing that – again, that’s capitalism.

Or you could just stop ranting. Nothing personal, but at any moment I expect you to say “Why, in MY day, we walked eight miles to school in the snow, uphill, both ways!”

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Spot-on, Phil. I’ve been watching this shit since he made three posts on his first day. It’s him alright.

I hear the price of crotch perfume has risen significantly more than inflation over the last 12 years. What’s your take on that, Skriblin?