Monday, July 24, 2006

How do you say VIC Card in Spanish?

So some academic types did some research and put some words around something that's been bugging me for a while... What the Naive Consumers Don't Know, Can Help You - New York Times

Of course, they were a lot more sophisticated about their investigation and not nearly as disturbed as I, but it essentially comes down to retailers taking advantage of the poor, uneducated, or unsavvy consumer. Maybe it bugs me because I'm grade-A cheap and am always looking for ways to save money, but it just doesn't seem fair. Based on this article, I should be happy, because these folks are the ones are subsidising my discounts. But retailers are making it so that the folks who don't have the means or the planning skills to jump thru the necessary hoops to get a good deal are getting screwed. Retailers seem to make things as complicated as possible in order to get discounts sometimes. Buy 1 and pay regular price, buy 2 and get a huge discount is unfair. 'Loyalty cards" (a subject for a future rant, I'm sure!) are a pain. Collecting scraps of paper from the cash register to turn in after 7, 8, 15 whatever weeks is ridiculous.

So what's my point? That the system is being stacked against those who don't have the means or the English skills to find the deals... meaning the poor end up subsidizing the discounts of the rest of us. Hmm... I haven't heard that point come up in the recent immigration debates.

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