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got any sevens posted:Its like calling burgers 1/4 pound when thats the pre-cook weight. Or not including sales tax in the sticker price I'm fine with the first bit, but I loathe that in North America they don't put the price+tax on items. I'm sure that it has to do with some idiotic sales psychology or the whole "must end in .99", but the consumer doesn't care what goes to whom; he only cares about the cost to him. Whenever I am in Europe I really appreciate that, if I pick up a thing costing 4euro50 and another that's 8euro75, I know exactly how much I will have to spend. My feelings on the punitive and highly regressive nature of VAT is stuff for another thread, however. I've only ever once in NA seen a place that had tax included. It was many years ago, right after I came stateside, and it was a cinema. Mind you, their prices on soda/popcorn/sweets were still ludicrous, but at least they were all-inclusive.
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Sep 8, 2017 23:56
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Edge & Christian posted:I feel like there are a bunch of different conversations around "sales tax" but to provide a few more reasons why most places don't include sales tax in the cost of their products in the US: I don't understand this because it doesn't change the prices or the margins, it's just transparency that changes. If it were law, and it would have to be because otherwise nobody would bother, then it wouldn't force anyone to change their margins or pricing structure, it would simply let you know to the penny your out of pocket cost for item X, Y or Z. The only thing that might change is that if I sell item X for $9.99 and my competitor has to sell it for $11.99, having full cost transparency does make the price difference look slightly more daunting. Nevertheless, it's still just being more direct. If the sales tax is 8.875 in my locality, I'm still going to pay $10.88 in the former case and $13.05 in the latter. The only change is the honesty. I'm not saying you are in error here as you almost certainly more knowledgeable than I on this subject, I just don't see the point that you are trying to make. Horseshoe theory posted:"Bootstraps." Whenever I think of the many horrors of capitalism, I am always reminded of that Christian/Theist proverb: The devil's greatest trick was convincing the world he didn't exist. I don't believe in the devil or hell (Jew), but I am constantly amazed how well the capitalist class has done in convincing people that the government is the bad guy. Among everything else they have done to constantly take and take, they have turned their victims against the only entity that could possibly protect them. It's like being in a sword fight where one bloke has a claymore and the other a butter knife, and the guy with the big sword convinces the butter knife chap that he needs to drop his weapon because it might turn into a snake and bite him.
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Sep 10, 2017 02:16
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Edge & Christian posted:The reality of the situation is that as America exists as an actual place in 2017, there are thousands of different sales tax rates. They've been put in place on a state and local level and there are all sorts of odd details:.in New York clothing is untaxed up to $115 per item, but taxed at anywhere between 4% and 9% above that rate depending on the city or county you're in. Many states off tax-free periods for back to school, but only on certain categories of items. I'm sure there are other vagaries that exist in cities and states I've never lived in. These are all the result of laws passed at a state and local level. These laws bring a lot of revenue for state and local governments. State and local governments are often hostile to federal intervention into their workings. Firstly, E & C, I want to thank you for being an informed and rational voice in this discussion. I understand your point now and, having lived a long time in both Europe and NA, I see more clearly the major differences between tax law jurisdiction between the East and West. Secondly, I also wanted to mention my support for the removal of sales tax and possibly VAT because they are the most regressive taxes in a world of regressive policies designed to take from the weak to nourish the strong. Thirdly, I want to compliment you on your forum name; Edge & Christian were a hell of a tag team, though I personally preferred Christian myself. quote:OwlFancier posted: OwlFancier, as a fellow Brit (Correct me if I'm wrong) who has lived in England, France and Wales, I understand where you are coming from about tax legislation & "transparency" between the two countries. E & C has made some very cogent points and I've come around to thinking that perhaps what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. On another note, I would suggest not engaging with either fishmech or Tiny Brontosaurus on any level. As far as I can tell, fishmech is the personification of all of they idiocy on the Internet and Tiny B is the chemical formula for pure, misplaced hatred, so your time would probably be better spent trying to knit a jumper from your own hair.
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Sep 10, 2017 16:34
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I'd like to apologise for this thread going off the rails about the tax thing. I was more or less the first person to state a preference for the Euro-style "tax is included" custom and then it all went wrong. Had I known what it would lead to, I just would have made a dick joke or wished death on Eddie Lampert.
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Sep 11, 2017 21:44
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bloodysabbath posted:You're doing a pretty great job of appropriating douchebag culture yourself with your endless self-righteous shitposting streak. I found it fascinating that even though you neither explicitly said nor even slightly implied anything to the effect, she immediately went with the sexist/misogynist defence.
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Sep 12, 2017 23:07
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What really bothers me about so many jobs disappearing, even though many are terrible slave-wage jobs with no benefits, comes from how utterly, terrifyingly wrongly society treats the lessening need to work. Everyone is so obsessed with this idea that everyone has to justify their own existence by performing some kind of toil, and if they don't then they do not deserve even the basics of life. It doesn't matter if those resources are abundant and that there may simply be no work to do, and I think that that is a sad commentary on humanity.
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Sep 15, 2017 03:35
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I can't remember the details well enough as this was months ago, but before I moved my postwoman told me that the whole "USPS will no longer work Saturdays" was some kind of bluff/posturing on behalf of the postmaster general and it was never really going to happen. I wish that I could remember more of what she said, but I want to say that it had to do with proposed funding cuts. On another note, one of my first jobs after coming to the US many years ago was at a pre-Gamestop kind of shop. It wasn't that bad of a job (if you put aside the horrible pay) until the company went public, and then things went south fast. They made a huge gently caress-up buy buying a bunch of these disc resurfacing kits. It was a huge mistake and nobody wanted to buy them, so they would hound each store to make their weekly quota selling these pieces of poo poo. One day, some perfectly pleasant lady came in to buy a spindle of blanc CD's while the district manager was there. I didn't try to sell her one of those resurfacing kits and she apparently ordered the assistant manager to fire me for it. I'm not sure why she didn't do it herself, but he refused to fire me because I was a good employee. Somehow we got away with it and I worked there for quite a while longer.
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Oct 11, 2017 17:11
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Crow Jane posted:Also boy howdy, do you see some tacky poo poo looking for that and other home furnishings on Amazon. Which, if the aim is wasting time is sort of fun in and of itself, but is significantly less so if you're actually looking for anything you'd actually want in your home. I bought a combination colander and mixing bowl on Amazon that look like ducks. I regret nothing.
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Oct 12, 2017 01:14
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Alterian posted:I wish more US stores would use a queue for all of their check-outs like other countries do. The only places I've experienced this is Joann Fabrics and TJ Max. Its the only fair way to do check outs I have seen a Best Buy or two in the US do that, one of which was in a major university town and quite high volume. It's a very good system, but seems space-intensive to me. Haifisch posted:I'm guessing there's too much middle management inertia to change it. Also this.
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Nov 6, 2017 20:29
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I miss proper British savoury pies and sausage rolls and such so much, but I also miss proper poutine and tourtières from when I lived in Québec. When I lived in Montana, there was actually a place there that made local pasties. They weren't very good, but I appreciate the effort. I used to live and work in a university town in the fairly deep south, and they actually had a decent British-style pub there that served corned beef and cabbage (yes, I know that's more Irish) and great Shepherd's pie. I miss that too. Also British and French cheese. France ruined me on bread and cheese. One can't even get proper camembert in the US due to the FDA. I'm so hungry now.
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Nov 12, 2017 22:50
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Fame Douglas posted:Why would you willingly eat crackers Because those Town House Tuscan Cheese crackers are good and you can't get proper Focaccia where I live, that's why!
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Nov 12, 2017 23:47
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Beachcomber posted:All the prices seemed cheap compared to SF bay area prices, let alone Whole Foods prices. Rather off-topic, but I was up for a job in the bay area recently; previously I had never been farther west than the Oregon-Idaho border. The job sounded really fun and it paid way more than any job I've ever had, but I looked at rental rates out there and the cost of living is so ludicrously high that, even with a much higher salary, I wouldn't really be any better off. Hooray for market economics!
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Nov 13, 2017 00:18
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glowing-fish posted:Where were you in Montana? Missoula; I worked for U of M for one year. lovely pay, jacked up cost of living in Missoula, but the benefits were insane. Deep Red state, but I was a state employee and they paid for EVERYTHING. Beautiful scenery there, though. I even saw a bear from a great distance, which is undoubtedly the best place to see them from.
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Nov 13, 2017 17:48
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boner confessor posted:consider that american bread = euro cake is true, but that it's not that american bread is bad, but rather europe has really lovely cake Crow Jane posted:May Mary Berry strike you down If she doesn't, I will personally beat him to death with a Black Forest Cake.
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Nov 18, 2017 03:25
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I'm genuinely ashamed to say that I recently started a retail job for lack of any better prospects and one of the training modules was quite literally one of those propaganda reels wherein they try to dissuade you from joining a union because IT WILL GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND ARBITRATE BY YOURSELF (while failing to point out that one single worker has no leverage regardless). It was all I could do not to get up and walk out of the room. The sad part is that I am totally, honestly, genuinely sure that that probably works on a lot of people, especially Americans, because they have been conditioned for decades by social bullshit to be terrified of anything collectivist.
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Nov 26, 2017 02:03
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Ganson posted:This describes like 90% of the Malls in central PA. They stay alive by the sheer fact that there's absolutely nothing else to do in central PA for the 90% of the residents who are too proud to hit up the bang'n thrift stores (The only reason I go home, great way to get good quality incredibly inexpensive furniture. Especially around Mechanicsburg/Carlisle Pike). I actually went to grad school in central Pennsylvania and briefly worked in a mall, and I can corroborate this. I still have some phenomenal furniture from there that I've kept through far too many relocations.
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Dec 29, 2017 15:38
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fishmech posted:It's very hard to engineer something to break in 2 years that won't make it break a ton more than it does now the first two weeks the customer have it. True, but it's quite easy to engineer something for which patches, updates and technical support will be discontinued when it's still perfectly functional in order to make people buy The Next Big Thing™, if only out of frustration. Much more than two years, but Microsoft is doing everything short of holding a dagger to my throat to get me to upgrade to Windows 10 when I'm still very happy with 7. I don't expect them to support Win7 forever, but I'd rather that they not choke me until I
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Jan 24, 2018 04:29
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:lol which one Which threat or which president? Either way, I'm 
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Jan 30, 2018 03:37
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There are three malls near where my mum lives in the US, just outside of a small city of about 250,000 people. The medium-sized one with a cinema closed years ago and is now a strip mall with a Super Target and a bunch of other shops. The small one is still open, but it has more empty storefronts than occupied and is about to lose one if its anchor stores, Carson's (the other two being JCPenney and Hobby Lobby). The large mall on the local equivalent of Main/High street is still fairly well off, having only one or two empty stores at present, and hosts a reasonably functional Sears of all things. However, it has steadily been losing business for years and I can't help but think that its days are numbered. As an anti-capitalist who has a disdain for crass consumerism and the cluster of poverty-level jobs that malls represent, I shouldn't be bothered by this... yet I am for reasons I don't quite understand.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:25
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I was up for a really interesting job in San Matteo a few months ago, and at first glance it seemed like it paid a ton and I was really chuffed about it. Then, I did some research and realised that the cost of living out there was so high that it was basically a subsistence salary, and I gave up on the interview process. In other words, rich people ruin life for everyone and they should all die.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:40
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The JCPenney thing was depressing to me because it showed me how stupid people are. Not that I didn't already know that, but it will saddens me to have it shown so clearly. Basically being tacitly told that people are thundering dumbfucks who like to be emotionally manipulated is a bitter pill to swallow.
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Feb 16, 2018 01:36
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There was a Wegman's in the college town in New England where I went to graduate school. I remember it being quite expensive, but it was the only place locally where I could find all of the French and British foods that I miss from living in Europe.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:01
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Almost like a country ruled by them would suck rear end Leadership = sociopathy + luck. All other factors are inert.
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Mar 24, 2018 03:21
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I'm tempted to stop by the soon-to-be-former TRU near me and buy a Lego set, just for old time's sake.
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Mar 31, 2018 22:08
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Baronjutter posted:USA/Canada shipping is a god drat nightmare. Meanwhile I can order tons of stuff from anywhere else in the world and it often comes faster, cheaper, and never with surprise fees. I'll second that emotion. I'm a Canadian-born Brit who lives in the Great Lakes region of the US now, and everything I order from Europe always comes noticeably faster than anything from Canada... despite the intervening ocean and the thousands of extra kilometres it has to travel. I once ordered a book from Germany and another from Montréal, both via Amazon on the same day; I did not have tracking information for either so I could not follow them or know when they were actually sent from the seller. The book from Germany arrived 6 calendar days later; the one from Canada took 17.
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Apr 20, 2018 03:03
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Cicero posted:Amazon has been steadily adding things to Amazon Prime, it's not super surprising that they're raising the price. At some point I imagine they'll split it into tiers. I hope that they do, because the constant increases are getting tiresome, especially in light of how obscenely profitable and huge they are. I only use Prime for the shipping and could not give less of a gently caress about anything else that it includes. boner confessor posted:if you own a few mcd's franchises you basically are just printing money Nice that someone's making bank, because the employees can't afford even the essentials. I wonder why that is... oh, wait.
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Apr 28, 2018 03:57
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Fame Douglas posted:Nice try, Jeff. Beat me to it.
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May 1, 2018 01:31
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Minenfeld! posted:I used to work down the block from the original Subway location. It's still there and is still a Subway. I'd get lunch there sometimes. Everyone can have their own opinion, but even I have been kind of bumfuzzled by the hatred for Subway in this thread. I would never nominate them for King o' Sandwiches, but I've been known to enjoy one on the odd occasion. I'm always open to suggestions on new things to try, but I think that they might be guilty of the wonderful "popular=bad" phenomenon.
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May 5, 2018 01:55
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As a disclaimer, I recently lived in two different small cities in Georgia over the space of two years. I will be the first to admit that the state is mostly appallingly hot, humid weather and racism, but given the ludicrous CoL in NYC I find it very hard to imagine literally anything in Georgia (outside of Atlanta, perhaps) being more expensive. I once was offered a job at NYU; the wage wasn't bad but the cost of living is so ludicrous that I would have been working full-time for the joyous privilege of illegally subletting a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.
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May 7, 2018 03:21
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I have been to the most arse-end rural parts of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and other remote areas of the British Isles, but I had never found myself unable to understand an English-speaking person until I found myself in northwest Georgia. Also, and I say this as a Brit who loves his proper tea and iced tea, I'm pretty sure that "sweet tea" is really just sugar water (emphasis on sugar) with brown dye in it.
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May 9, 2018 00:27
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Grand Prize Winner posted:They call them Tubes over there, I think. Genuinely laughed aloud at this, thank you. People always ask me questions about London, probably because they couldn't name another city in Britain. I'm from a town of 60k people whose nearest proper city, if you can call it that, is Stoke-on-Trent... and I don't much like big cities. The only time we would nip down to London is to take a plane out of Heathrow.
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May 9, 2018 03:25
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fishmech posted:Not to mention that things east of Quebec City are pretty empty too. Not much north of it, either. I was stationed in Bagotville-Saguenay and the only two things up there are gently caress and all.
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May 10, 2018 05:04
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Dehry posted:https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/997610067644985344 Possibly because Amazon does something similar with physical copies? It requires Prime, but there's a lot more that comes with Prime than just game discounts. I'm not being smart; I honestly don't know and am just theorising. As I understand it, profit margins on new video games, especially physical copies, are very thin. Given the constantly rising costs of game production, perhaps that made it unviable.
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May 19, 2018 04:22
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This is a little broader than the scope of the thread perhaps, but talking of thin margins made me think of this. A few months ago, I was flatly shocked to see a major bank in Paris say flat-out that Marx was right, then detail exactly why; it's the most I've been surprised in a very long time. I'd host it somewhere and share it in the thread, but I can't find an English version. If anyone fancies it, though, I have the digital document in French.
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Jun 2, 2018 16:59
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Triangle Shirt Factotum posted:post that poo poo. Hell, cross-post it in the French politics thread and maybe some kind soul will translate it. I actually saw it in the French politics thread and saved it. I could swear that someone posted an English version too which I would have naturally saved, but I can't find it in my archives or the thread. I can certainly translate it from French, though. Liquid Communism posted:I mean, despite my name I'm not a communist, but Marx definitely had some valid criticisms of capitalism. Here is my take... Communism/socialism is theoretically viable but has so far not been sustained in the real world and has too often fallen into despotism and dystopia. Capitalism doesn't even work in theory but is propped up in the real world despite being blatantly unstable and doomed to collapse in on itself. From this, I've come to the conclusion that human beings, at least for now, are too inherently selfish to accept a utilitarian/egalitarian system and the wealthy elite will do anything in there power to stop it from coming about, because they have too much to lose. For more examples, see the New Deal. I have also come to the very, very sad conclusion that people have a very strong desire to feel superior and look down on people. Modern "progressivism" in the West has come to mean that one cannot dislike people due to race/sex/etc/etc, but can still look down on them for being poor due to the Just World Fallacy/Prosperity Gospel. I'm not saying that I condone the former of course, but the latter is just as horrid yet widely acceptable. Furthermore, being nice to racial minorities requires no material sacrifice, while helping the disenfranchised does and, well, see what I said above about human nature. I worry greatly because we are obviously in the late stages of capitalism and it can't last much longer, but the two choices going forward are "adopt utilitarianism" or "full dystopia". Sadly, I have no faith in human nature to do the right thing. That's my analysis of the situation. Sorry for the derail. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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Jun 2, 2018 19:33
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Well, I was going to try and post that statement from that French bank where they admitted that Marx was right, but instead I'm just going to offer a profuse apology for kicking off a horrible derail. Seriously, proper ashamed.
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Jun 5, 2018 02:59
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:unironically what is this thread even loving about anymore Also being neither ironic nor sarcastic... are you serious about the stuff in bold? I genuinely cannot tell, for which I take full responsibility. Edit: You're right in that we're getting into a derail, so no further comment m'lud. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 04:57
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skooma512 posted:Nah they never teach how business actually work. The WF example would be a derail, by I think that the Pyrex example would be thread-appropriate. I would like to hear more about that one as I love hearing stories of deliberate corporate malfeasance to further embitter my world view.
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Jun 18, 2018 18:40
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Raldikuk posted:Buying used would be the only way to get the good stuff for sure; but you don't need to roll the dice either! Check the trademark stamp on the bottom, if it is "PYREX (r)" then it is the good stuff, if it is "pyrex (r)" it is the bad stuff. I still have some of the good PYREX stuff, purchased in America even. Well-made products lost a long time, which is a very good idea in a sane world where utility is desirable, but not so much in a capitalist dystopia because it hurts profits. Edit: "capitalism" is a noun, not an adjective. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jun 18, 2018 |
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Jun 18, 2018 21:16
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Crashrat posted:A story about the Internet and Family Video I have a related anecdote. Between the first and second year of working on my Master's degree, I moved back to the town where I did my undergrad because it was much cheaper, a lot more fun and the first year of my MA made me want to die so I needed some distance. I moved into a furnished apartment complex where several of my undergrad chums still lived and managed to negotiate a sweet short-term lease because they were struggling to fill their occupancy. Internet was included, but I quickly found out that it was terrible. I was playing a lot of TF2 then, during the glory days when the game was about gaming and not just hats, and it wasn't even good enough for that. I asked for permission to get outside internet from the company that supplied them with television and, to my surprise, they did not object at all. I had a lovely summer with good internet and all was well. I ended up coming back to that same town and apartment complex a year or two later and I lived with some college friends. They told me that they had upgraded the internet but, being a cynical sort who never believes anyone I purchased internet from the same company as last time. Some months later, I got a call from my ISP saying that I had passed my download quota and that if I did it again they would cancel my service. I remember this with great humour because I recall saying to the twat on the phone "So, if I use your service too much, you'll lose a customer?". He was so flummoxed by that question that I laughed out loud and still smile to this day when I think of that. Well, this made me curious, so I unhooked my third-party ISP and hooked up the house internet. It turned out that they were actually telling the truth and it had much improved and was equal to what I was paying extra for, so I dumped my outside ISP and saved some money. ========================= We have a Family Video near here and, while it's still in business, it seems to get very little traffic. They definitely picked their location well as they are immediately adjacent to a Little Ceasar's, walking distance from a high-density apartment complex in an area with few of those, and very close to the only grocery store within a 2-mile radius. I could be wrong about how much custom they get, but every time I pass by I am doubly surprised that a more or less "traditional" video store is still functioning these days in general and also how empty their car park is. skooma512 posted:You mean people actually still do market research and try to make their business successful, rather just show up and expect customers to flood in and go along with outdated practices or practices designed to take advantage of them? To be fair, proper, sophisticated market research is certainly very expensive and I don't see how a company that is already in a solid position could afford it. There may be similar opportunities that would be supported by sophisticated studies, but I doubt that some aspiring small entrepreneur could afford to have one done. Most likely this nascent store owner is going to set up shop where best he thinks and hope that it works out. JustJeff88 fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jun 22, 2018 |
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Jun 22, 2018 16:46
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