Apology accepted.
However, she doesn't know about it. She just collects the coupons from somewhere in the pile of paper that is the Sunday LA Times and (perhaps after a cup of tea) heads out. She says at times she saves a lot of money. I don't know how.
Actually, I do better than she does. She works part-time at BlockBuster Video, which means she gets to see five new movies a week (before they are released to the customers). She lets us see them. This exercise allows us to see how many rotten movies are released - along with a very few gems.
I remember those green stamps. I think there is a certain amount of fun to collecting such things - not for me or you perhaps, but to many people.
The biggee here over the last few years is "membership". You get a card, or something you attach to your key-ring and this entitles you to special deals. Two of the three major supermarkets have memberships. The third stopped them.
However, I buy on price. Supermarket flyers come with the LA Times a couple of times a week. I am interested in beer, my son in meat bargains. If I can get our favorite Washington Redhook Extra Special Bitter for $5 or even $6 a six-pack, I am satisfied.
I never buy them, but the standard beer brands seem very competitive. Do you still buy your beer through the Liquor Control Board?
We get our bread at a local day-old bread company outlet (instead of $2.59 - we pay $2.19 for two loaves. All of our produce comes from a small local Armenian store - great savings, mostly in the dollar a pound plus range). Basic household stuff at Costco, or Sam's Club - always cheaper, if you don't mind buying (say) two bottles of something instead of one.
Oh, we have a Walmart around somewhere but I've never shopped there. When I visit my San Diego daughter, I walk around the town and go into Walmart. That's more to have a rest than anything - a chance to sit down. Their prices haven't looked all that good to me - but perhaps they are.
You'll note I shop locally though not from nostalgia - something evinced by some of our friends in their posts attacking Walmart. I don't care whether people shop at Walmart or locally. I just think they should make their own choices. As Leonard Read admonished - "Do as you like, but harm no-one."
Harry
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Arthur wrote:
Apologize if I offended you or your friend. My first real job after graduate school was with a Presidential Commission in Washington. Called the National Commission on Food Marketing it looked at all aspects of food from the farm gate to the household. The problem then, as now, was why were food prices rising and farm incomes falling.My area was supermarkets. We spent a lot of time looking at non-price competition. One area was of course the use of coupons by supermarkets and grocery manufacturers. Coupons are a way of competing without cutting prices. They can also be a way of gathering information on consumer habits both generally and specifically. This was also the time of green stamps that people would dutifully stick in books to redeem products. A lot of activity and busyness that could have been avoided if price competition were in place. One supermarket executive told our team that he would look the other way and say nothing if government would ban such activities. If his competitor down the street issued coupons, he would have to do the same. Non-price competition was much in vogue in those days, free coffee, special areas for child care, etc. Activities that drove up prices. It was called product inflation. You ended up paying for more than you than you wanted. (same thing was happening in other areas of the economy viz., airlines, where carriers were competing not on price but on food (lobster and champagne) and drink offered during the flight. Activities that finally spurred deregulaiton) (that was during the LBJ years, a long time ago, but while much has changed, much has remained the same. Some of the congressmen and senators associated with the Commission are still around and are saying much the same thing.) arthur
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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