Well you can work on the problems or just work on having a nice life anyway, or some of both. Knowing about issues can help you protect yourself.
Encouraging intellectuals to have rationality and debate policies is my best idea for improving the world. To me, that’s pretty hopeful. Even just one really good advocate other than myself (the inventor of the idea) could potentially be quite effective.
Oh. Rewatching it I can see that. Transcribing it using subtitles:
Yeah, Arthur Anderson’s employees felt a range of emotions, from resentment to anxiety to a level of unbridled exuberance best described as “Price is right contestant who just won a Honda civic” And they were right to be concerned. Anderson being convicted of a felony meant they lost their accounting license which, for an accounting firm, is generally not great for business.
“meant they lost their accounting license” I guess from how he was talking about the employees before saying that it sounded to me like we were talking about employees, but the part about an accounting firm after makes it sound like it was talking about Anderson, the company, all along. I feel like its still kinda unclear, though saying it was talking about the business makes more sense. Is this a me issue? or is it unclear?
That’s true. Also I guess just cause I know theres a lot of bad things in the world doesn’t mean I know how they are bad and what kind of way they are bad. Like off the top of my head a company like Nestle, at least to my knowledge, gives me safe drinking water. The type of bad things I’ve heard about them is stuff related to slave labor and exploitation in third world countries (I haven’t verified any of that). I think that kind of knowledge of how a company is bad is different from knowing that a certain company puts a certain dangerous chemical in my food. That kind of bad thing/information is different?
What would a really good advocate consist of? Someone as smart as you? Or someone whos smart enough? Or just someone whos meh with ideas but is popular? Or a bit of both?
Very competent and knowledgeable about debate policies, plus something extra: especially energetic, smart, rich, charismatic, pretty, able to get a lot of social media followers, good at art, friends in high places, or some other advantage.
Oh yeah that reminds me of those fake countdown timers on scammy websites.
Seeing an item priced *more*(!) when they’re claiming it’s on sale is a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. That’s not only not true but the opposite of the truth. I guess stores think that they’re taking advantage of people being in a buying frenzy due to ostensible discounts and Christmas coming up. Also I’ve heard of people who save up money so they can spend more during this time of year. So stores are taking advantage of that kind of thing too.
I wonder why I don’t see stuff like this being prosecuted. It seems like there should be bipartisan consensus that it’s bad. But I don’t even hear leftists talk about it. Instead, from what I’ve seen, they talk about other stuff like breaking up Amazon or taxing billionaires or whatever. And rightists will boycott brands for trans stuff (e.g. Bud Light) but not for stuff like this.
One thing from the video I didn’t understand was the $500 off gift card looking thing. I wasn’t sure what that was about or what was supposed to be scammy about it.
I did a quick search to see if it actually is prosecuted and this article published yesterday came up:
[A store called Officeworks] was selling the monitor for $188 until November 14 […] Recently, it returned to $188 – marketed … under a headline “Top Picks For Black Friday”.
[…] The ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] said price changes that misrepresent discounts could be illegal, potentially leading to legal action and penalties.
[…]
‘Sale’ or ‘special’ prices could also be misleading under the Australian consumer law if the ‘sale’ price is actually the normal price.
ACCC spokesman
At the bottom of the article it says the ACCC took action against two companies including Dell Australia, with Dell Australia being ordered to pay $10 million in penalties.
So apparently it does sometimes get prosecuted.
Also, the article said this:
Pieces of luggage had the highest share of deceptive deals: 61 per cent were found to have Black Friday specials advertised at prices above what they had previously sold.
So apparently charging more for a product while claiming it’s on sale isn’t as rare as I initially thought. Maybe I’m just out of the loop or perhaps the fact I didn’t know this already suggests that something is wrong with the media.
Well, Amazon does this (fake discounts) too, and it is one of the many things people are mad at Amazon for.
On a related note, I’ll highlight a better company:
Known for selling DRM-free games, GOG also provides price history information next to sale prices:
Also that countdown timer is real. Some of their games go on sale pretty frequently but they do go off sale too.
Not often enough, with large enough penalties, to stop it from being widespread, I think.
Some quick thoughts:
I think there is some general consensus this is bad. It does get prosecuted (though there are a lot of ways not to get prosecuted, courts are overburdened, and the government’s focus is elsewhere like immigration and drugs for example).
I think a big thing is people are used to this kind of thing. These aren’t exceptional evil things thats going on. This is seen as standard, but bad, business practice.
