Black Friday abuses consumers
I was going to get a $997 plasma TV for someone at Walmart this morning.
Don't bother going to the store. Mine had 7 in stock. Woo!!! This whole super-deal door-buster limited-stock thing is all a big scam that abuses the consumers.
While the print ad claimed the item was also available online, it was out of stock last night and this morning. For a short time it showed as "In Stock" but there was no button to add it to your cart. Then it was out of stock again.
I don't have a problem with limiting sales to available stock. In a market economy, that's going to happen. (Although most stores give rain checks for normal sale items, which is logical and appropriate.) What I have a problem with is the intentional act of limiting the quantity of stock that is made available.
If you only get in 7 of an item (or 25 or 50 or 100, etc, depending on store size and customer base) then clearly you have no intent of making the sale item available to your customers.
I don't think this applies to stores that do this on a daily basis, ie: thrift stores or any store with a "discount" rack/shelf. The store is getting rid of stock already on hand that is either being discontinued, is near-expiry, or just won't sell at regular prices. That's an appropriate and real function of economics.
Are we to the point where we must legislate something so silly? I know it won't happen (and likely shouldn't... there is far too much legislation already), but it's sad to see the consumers abused so badly.
One can argue that consumers can choose to boycott the stores that utilize these abusive practices. But even if 95% of the consumers do this, there is still plenty of sheep that will keep the companies happy. Keep in mind that this is the sort of situations where legislation sometimes *is* appropriate. When companies team up to fix prices or create monopolies, the government sometimes steps in.
Unfortunately, our representatives in government seem to have forgotten what their job is. They are to be our representatives; they are there for the benefit and protection of the people as a whole. This is critical with our type of economy. Unfortunately, with heavy lobbying and downright bribery, our government is now more a representative of corporations and anyone with big pockets.
I'm not aware of a single representative that has publicly stated support for this standard of ethics and consistently followed through in how they vote.
These issues make me consider running as a national representative. Too bad the main parties are very non-democratic organizations, which prevents nearly all "independent" representatives from winning, except those who ally themselves with the aforementioned corporations and/or deep pockets.
So now the real question...
Would it be morally/ethically objectionable (and/or justifiable) to lie, telling the X party that you'd vote they way it wanted, only to then turn around and actually vote for the betterment of the people, pushing through legislation for the people, and blocking legislation that only benefits corporations? If you think about it, lying is what is done now. Someone running for a public office will say they are going to represent the people, only to turn around and push through legislation that only benefits corporations as dictated by the party, in turn dictated by bribes and politics.
This year's homecoming was really fun. It's the first year I ran into alumni I knew, instead of the downtown events only seeming like a reason for undergrads to get drunk and party.