quote:

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Why do the sales on staples never take place at the beginning of the month, when most low-income people get their cheques and are completely out of food?

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A simple rephrasing provides the answer:

Sales on staples never take place at the beginning of the month, because then most low-income people have gotten their cheques and are completely out of food.

quote:

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The seller wants to control the sale. This is done buy using various sales techniques. This will allow them to sell things that the buyer doesn't really need. There are methods they can use to "make" or induce the buyer to feel like they need their product or service.

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Have you ever wondered why a large grocery store has a bakery and a deli? Ahh the smell of fresh baked breads and roasted chicken and such. Makes you nice and hungry. It isn't cause distributing the goods from a few locations around town is less profitable.

So control is an illusion. You only think someone has control over you because they have convinced you that it is so. Help yourself to see through this smoke screen and you will find that no one controls your mind but you.

When it comes to argument, why you need to have something that only hours before you were able to live without, a sharpy will appeal to your baser instincts. Pride, ego, and above all the health and/or well being of your children. Why else would you need a $2000 vacuum? Ask yourself this. Why haven't I died yet, since I haven't had one of these?

Oops. Fell for it again. Rats.

I've heard that about going to places and asking for discounts. However, the one thing that really ticked me off was when David Tsibouchi made the comment about haggling at the grocery store over dented cans of tuna. Not just because of the dented can thing (can you say botulism?) but just because of the idea of haggling with a cashier who is likely making minimum wage, and has no power whatsoever over the pricing at the store. So what, every customer should haggle with every cashier and hold every line up while the supervisor or manager goes about approving or disapproving every item in every person's grocery cart? It's just unreasonable.

I'm going to report you immediately to CSIS!

Actually I totally support pressuring the store (not the cashiers) to lower their prices. Imagine if everybody started doing it.

Unfortunately it is very hard to organize consumers for a mass revolt. That's because production and distribution of goods is socially organized but the consumption of the product is done by individuals and that includes both goods and surplus value.

I feel my "lecture" persona coming on so I will now drop the subject.

I was working as a cashier at the time (at a bakery, not Canadian Tire), and I thought she was a bit of a jerk for doing that. She told me, "But they don't lose anything from it. I return it like new." So I said, "Do you tell them when you buy it that you're going to return it in a few days, after you've used it?" She said, "No, of course not." I said, "Then you're being dishonest." Apparently I was racist for thinking so because she was an international student who didn't have much money (she had more than I did since I was living on minimum wage and she was living on money her rich family was sending her). Oh well.

I don't know what the solution to that is. Too bad there aren't things like tool-lending libraries the way there are book lending libraries. In fact, I'll bet places like Canadian Tire, who have the inventory anyhow, would probably make some decent extra money if they sold lending-library memberships to people (say, $10-20 a year) so that people could borrow an item and return it. If they don't return it on time, the cost automatically gets debited from their credit card, and they've bought it.

Then again, I guess it could be argued (especially by that woman I was talking about) that this system is already informally in place - except instead of a membership, you pay the price of the tool as a deposit, then get the money back if you return it in perfect condition within the time limit of the returns policy of the store.