Open Mic May 25
Another week of loss. Robin Gibb passed away, leaving us with one Bee Gee. An earthquake in Italy destroyed thousand-year-old buildings. Oh…and a lot of people lost money on Facebook stock, leading to numerous lawsuits.
And it’s Friday. Your day. What’s on your mind?
Don’t see an article on a particular topic, but want to talk about it somewhere? This is Open Mic. Talk about whatever you want, but stay respectful.
We create a new Open Mic every week to give a clean slate, but feel free to add to this topic at any time.

This entry was posted by Logarchism.com on May 25, 2012 at 12:01 am, and is filed under Open Mic. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
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#2 written by mclever 11 months ago
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#3 written by Mule Rider 11 months ago
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#4 written by mclever 11 months ago
@Mule
Yeah, but that article kind of shows why, if the market is full of sharks, the honest brokers get screwed, even with the “transparency” of price-tags and fine print. The invisible hand isn’t driving all of those dishonest stores out of business, it’s driving JCP out. But, could you imagine the difference if the market were regulated to require honest pricing based on JCP’s model? How would that change consumer behavior? How would that change the winners and losers? How much would that help lower the overall costs to the consumer, because they’d no longer be victims of shrouded prices? -
#5 written by Mule Rider 11 months ago
“But, could you imagine the difference if the market were regulated to require honest pricing based on JCP’s model? How would that change consumer behavior? How would that change the winners and losers? How much would that help lower the overall costs to the consumer, because they’d no longer be victims of shrouded prices?“
A situation like this highlights the murkiness of regulation & commerce because I’m not sure where the break is between regulating for the sake of ensuring honesty and transparency and regulating for the sake of protecting people from their own stupid decisions. I’m all for the former but think too much of the latter is really opening a can of worms that we might not like. -
There’s a significant problem with the JCPenney model, in that sale hunting plays into an important primal instinct in humans. Offering sales sells in much the same way as advertising sex sells.
One of my favorite absurd examples is PacSun, who goes to the trouble to oversticker every one of their items in order to make it look like they’re marked down. To the unsophisticated teens who shop there, it lulls them into believing that the item has been marked down. But really, they simply oversticker the $12.00 tag with (I’m not making this up) an $11.99 sticker.
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#7 written by mclever 11 months ago
@Michael
Offering sales sells in much the same way as advertising sex sells.
True. I happen to be one of those consumers who actually hates haggling and hates coupons and hates the constant sales, and not just because it’s cool to complain about it. I hate the hassle so much that I go to the mall maybe once a year, and only then because my spouse makes me. I’d much rather they just tell me the price and be done with it, rather than worrying about whether it’ll be marked down extra if I wait a week because of the season change-over. If I see someplace having a sale, I stay away, if for no other reason than to avoid the inevitable crowds. (No, I never shop on Black Friday or Memorial Day. *shudder*)
But psychologically, most of us like haggling with the car dealer, because we all think we’re smart enough to make a better deal than the next guy. Car dealers count on the consumer’s belief in themselves as super-negotiators, because that’s how the the car dealers make their bucks.
(Looks like we’ve moved Open Mic over to this thread, now that we’re nearing 600…) -
#8 written by mclever 11 months ago
Must be a slow news day…
Keeping an eye on this story to see if NY is actually foolish enough to pass a law that would prohibit anonymous posting. Can you imagine if every messageboard or comment section required the public display of Name, Address, and IP of anyone who posted something controversial?? I can’t imagine the unintended consequences that would explode from something like that. Oh wait, yes I can… Bad, bad, bad idea.
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#9 written by mclever 11 months ago
@Michael
But really, they simply oversticker the $12.00 tag with (I’m not making this up) an $11.99 sticker.
I’m surprised they bothered with the extra penny on the initial sticker. I’ve seen places that sticker everything once in white, then a second time with a yellow sticker that says “sale” in red on it, but the price is identical if you peel up the yellow…
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mclever,
But psychologically, most of us like haggling with the car dealer, because we all think we’re smart enough to make a better deal than the next guy.
Yup. We all live in Lake Wobegon.
(Looks like we’ve moved Open Mic over to this thread, now that we’re nearing 600…)
And for that reason I moved the JCP subthread to Open Mic.
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#12 written by mclever 11 months ago
For those joining the discussion late, the JCP article referenced in comments #1–7 is here:
http:// redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/25/11864 178-fair-and-square-pricing-thatll-n ever-work-jc-penney-we-like-being-sh afted?lite
JC Penney instituted a “fair pricing model” that uses whole-number prices and does away with the constantly rotating seasonal sales, and it’s killing them to the tune of 20% decline in business… -
#13 written by mclever 11 months ago
@Michael
Was it Arizona that also had such a law in the works? I thought I remembered another state doing that, but not which one.
I agree with you. I appreciate the intent, especially the desire to stop malicious, anonymous bullying that can occur online. However, these types of laws are poorly thought through and would cause far, far, far more problems than they solve. Posting people’s actual physical location online and exposing that in a wide, public forum would open them up to actual physical bullying, stalking, threats, etc in the real world. Possibly from strangers who only go after the commenter because they got offended by a something that wasn’t directed at or intended for them…
Not to mention the headache and hassle for site moderators… -
MW
A month ago you mentioned In general, undecideds break for the incumbent at the last minute.
rgbact,
In general, undecideds break for the incumbent at the last minute.
Interesting, I thought it was the total opposite.MW ~ Once upon a time, it was. For reasons that are not yet well understood, that trend reversed in more recent years.
Misunderstood reasons notwithstanding, me thinks this year w/100% negativity coming from conservative Super Pacs ie turdblossom et al, that undecideds, especially conservative evangelicals who know mittens is a total fraud on every level, are more likely to stay home.
>
Also the obvious ~ As a rule, political surrogates and politicians, except Corey Booker
, are adept at not answering questions or deflecting like there’s no tomorrow. But this year the rule has been heightened to the nth degree by conservative pundits and mittens himself, who are not answering questions re: Romney’s failed political past and dubious business acumen at a 95 to 100% level.Indeed, as “they” are reluctant to talk about any facet of Romney’s life.
Again, there’s a reason the Rep hierarchy chose McCain over mittens in 2008. And the reason Romney is the Rep nominee this year is by default as he out clowned the rest of the clowns.Apologies to clowns …
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Conservatives have been pushing this idea that no one is “smart enough” to know how much stimulus to inject into the economy during slow times, or how much to rein in spending during boom times. I remember on the old 538, a certain BdP used to claim that libruls “worshiped” those Very Smart People whom we want to put in charge of our economy. Lately, this has morphed into the idea that no one is really “smarter than” the “invisible hand of the Market.”
I’ve figured out how to describe what really bothers me about this silly argument. The idea that no one is “smart enough” is an argument against doing anything, ever. Who is really “smart enough” to be a doctor? Why do you “worship” that Very Smart Surgeon who’s going to perform your heart transplant? Hell, do you really trust your car to the garage mechanic? Who can possibly be smart enough to know what pressures your brakes are going to be under during a rainstorm at 80 MPH?
But the silliest one is this idea that no one is “smarter than” the “invisible hand.” Please. Individual people can be pretty damn bright. When you put people together in groups, they can be awfully dumb. Who’s smarter — Stephen Hawking, or a lynch mob? Hell, Stephen King is smarter. Don King is starter. Don Imus is smarter.
Where do we find someone smarter than the “invisible hand”? Perhaps in your average third-grade classroom. The “invisible hand” is invisible because it doesn’t exist. It’s not a person. It’s not a thing. Being a not-a-thing, anyone is smarter, by definition. I’m smarter than my pet rock. The pet rock is not a person, either.
At best, the “invisible hand” is the collective action of a bunch of people who are acting in their own narrow self-interest — and that is, in fact, how Adam Smith described it, and he came up with the idea. A bunch of people each acting in his or her own narrow self-interest sounds more like a groupthink lynch mob than any sort of example of brilliant rational analytical process. Groupthink lynch mobs are pretty dumb.
The nice thing about the “invisible hand” theory is that it gives you permission to do whatever you want, act in your own self-interest without regard to anyone else, and raise selfishness to the status of a Grand Economic Theory.
This “who can possibly be smarter than the Invisible Hand?” idea is yet another attack on education, a slap in the face to those who devote their lives to something more complex than pizza and beer and American Idol. Conservatives and Republicans have been on the warpath against rationality and learning for a long time. We should have a Regular Guy in the White House — you know, like a cowboy who clears brush and says “newkewler” for “nuclear”. That turned out well, didn’t it? Santorum reminded us — the idea that Obama wants our children to go to college — What a snob!
This is just another example of that. Deny global warming. Teach creationism in public school science classes. Denigrate the value of education. No one can possibly be smart enough to out-think the mythical “invisible hand.” And if anyone was that smart, we’d stone him to death anyway.
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#18 written by Max 11 months ago
Conservatives have been pushing this idea that no one is “smart enough” to know how much stimulus to inject into the economy
Truly a bullshit meme! The answer is easy and obvious.
Enough to make a difference. No more, no less.
Does one, approaching a well in the desert, “know” exactly how much water, to the milliliter, to use to prime the pump? Does one care? The measure is completely irrelevant. One adds “enough” to cause the pump to work! And then one “pays back” the ““loan” (stimulus) by refilling the water in the priming jug!
There’s no question of measure, no question that priming is necessary, no question of refilling the jug. Just putting enough water in to get the pump working again. (Although Reagan and the two Bush’s didn’t seem to get the message that one was supposed to refill the jug, and I suspect that they would also have taken a few sips out before priming the pump.)
Simple, actually.
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@Max,
Fair enough.…and I’ll be there, in the end, to wave saynora to the country as we know it once it goes down in economic flames and be the first to say, “I told you so.“
Anyway, with the mindless herd of sheep that this country’s woeful economic policies (that foster a victim mentality and show contempt for moral hazard) have cultivated, it doesn’t appear transparency and honesty really do that much good:
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/25/11864178-fair-and-square-pricing-thatll-never-work-jc-penney-we-like-being-shafted?lite