#The Gouging of Consumers

As consumers we have to be constantly on the alert, because we are continuously robbed of our money by various sources. Some of the robbing or gouging is obvious, like what the oil companies are doing. Nobody even talks about that anymore. We have been brainwashed to accept it as ‘that’s just the way it is and there is nothing we can do about it’. We are gouged by the financial institutions with high interest rates and hidden charges. The Postal Service is robbing us blind, but we have a choice; we don’t have to use them. There are other venues. Telephone charges are outrages, especially if you’re living outside the ‘local call’ area, as we do. Some stores are trying to charge more than others, but smart buyers shop around. Restaurant prices have risen and we are supposed to tip 20%. Taxes are going through the roof. Our provincial government just raised the provincial sales tax another percent, after promising that will never happen. GST was supposed to be only a temporary thing (like all taxes!), but it is part of the system now. We'll never get rid of it. The next generation of citizens won't know there ever was life before GST. Municipalities and Schools want more and more money.

Those are just the obvious ones, but actually, I am talking about that subtle gouging that we don’t even notice. A couple of weeks ago I bought a packet of pepper seeds from McKenzie Seeds. Cabernet F1 is the name of the peppers. I’ve bought them before and I liked them. I paid $2.49 for the packet and when I opened it up there was another small packet inside the larger one. It contained a total of 9 (nine!) seeds. I nearly flipped. Now, anyone who ever looked at the inside of a pepper will notice an abundance of seeds on the stem. I sent an email to the McKenzie Company and complained, pointing out that I can buy 6 ready-to-plant pepper plants for half the price from a garden center. I can save myself not only money but also time and effort. So far they haven’t replied with an explanation why they charge $2.49 for 9 seeds. I call that an exuberant charge. That’s 28 cents per seed. And not all seeds will sprout. In fact, there may be a good chance none of these will sprout, because it’s been 9 days since I seeded them and none have come up yet, while my other pepper seeds all sprouted within 7 days.

Yesterday I made a soup from a Knorr package. Chicken soup. You just add water and boil it, then let it simmer for 5 minutes. I like those soups. It goes fast to make one. The usual Knorr soups in those packages call for 4 cups of water. This one called for 600 ml which is not even 2 ¼ cups of water. Notice that they asked for ml not cups? Another trick to play with our minds. Not many people take a calculator to make a comparison. Over packaging is another trick they use. A large container filled only about half ways. You think you get more. Or the manufacturers change the look of the package and raise the price.I could go on.

Here is another subject dear to me. Ever since our all-knowing government introduced the metric system for whatever stupid reason things went haywire. Not all measurements and weights have changed. Now we don’t actually know what we have in Canada. Some stores sell stuff in inches and feet, some in cm and meters, some in ounces, some in grams, some in ml, some in cups, some in kilos and some in pounds. We kept the old pound which has 454 grams. In the metric system a pound is 500 grams. The metric system is based on ten. Some stores even sell their wares in portions. You don't know what you buy, unless you read the small print hidden somewhere on the package. And all that to confuse us. The majority of shoppers don’t even bother to compare. Either they don’t know their measurements or they just don’t care anymore. I carry a metric converter in my pocket and figure out how much it costs per kg. Then I know what I get and I can decide if I want to buy it or wait for a sale.

The snowing has stopped but it is cold again. Where is the Heat? What happened to Spring? Next week is Easter and the catkins on the pussy-willows are still too small to be harvested. We have to use the ones from last year.

Today is Palm Sunday. The sun is shining. Enjoy he day.