Dangers of the Modern World

[Universe Prince]

Surely they will not all admit "I bought these orange stilettoes and these Banana Republic Burmese Excursion Gaiters because I am a greedy person", but what other motive s there for buying that which one does not need and never uses?

I am wondering how you know the items were never used. Buying shoes that are then not excessively worn and deciding some time later to sell/give them to a thrift store is hardly proof that the original purchaser bought them out of greed. And wanting something one does not need does not necessarily indicate greed. On the other hand, assuming that clothes ending up in a thrift store is a sign of greed might indicate a desire to judge other people.

[Plane]

Should you go to any thrift shop, you will see evidence that people buy a huge number things they do not need.


This does not mean they all did so out of greed.
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Surely they will not all admit "I bought these orange stilettoes and these Banana Republic Burmese Excursion Gaiters because I am a greedy person", but what other motive s there for buying that which one does not need and never uses?

Retail stores turn lots of unsold merchandise over to Goodwill and the Salvation Army,

the Salvation Army accepts so many garments that they cannot sell them all here, they rip some up for shoprags and bale lots up for shipment to Africa where the bales are sold to small businessmen to be resold.


This isn't generosity?

[Cynthia]

Well,Prince, like I said.....greed is in the eye of the greedee'.

Selfish.....wanting more because credit cards can take care of buisness?

Whatever...I have little faith in the time in which we live, because someone out there has made it TOO EASY to buy things without consequences.

More later.
Cynthia

[BT]

Donating reusable items to a thrift store seems to be the opposite of greed.

Unless they are doing it for a tax write-off, and even then, that's a defect in the tax code and not necessarily and indictment for greed.

[Universe Prince]

Not trying to be facetious here Prince, but do you have stats to back this?  I recall that gasoline consumption didn't drop at all until the past few months, for the first time in 16 years.

It hasn't dropped much in the past, but it is taking a long term toll on people's budgets, and people are not going to be driving to the store for one or two things. But gasoline is still consumed so a small decline isn't going to be a big deal. Let me put it this way, I don't think we'll see huge drops in gasoline usage, but we will probably see a gradual decline.

I disagree with your argument, people have to buy gasoline no matter what the cost, or else they can't commute to work, farm their fields, or pull that timber down off of the mountain.  The increased cost of gasoline may or may not be passed on to the consumer, but someone who commutes 50 miles to work isn't going to ride a bicycle to work, or rely on a bus/mass transit system that isn't there.

True, but that person might also make fewer trips to the store to buy the now more expensive groceries. But that person and others might also reconsider living 50 miles away from work if gas prices continue as they have. One of my sister's major considerations in looking, not that long ago, for a place to live was to find something not too far from work because she does not want the expense of a long commute. Again, I'm not saying that people will suddenly stop buying gasoline. But people do adapt, and a gradual change in society will be a likely result of higher gas prices.

If low oil prices are in the company's best interests, then why are record profits being posted?  By your line of thinking, the higher prices should lead to lower profits, but they don't.

We don't know that they haven't. And that so-called record profit is a record in dollar amount, not in percentage of revenue. I believe the "record" profit was determined to be something around 10%. There are other businesses which operate at a higher profit percentage. For example, look at this from a Reuters article about Netflix: "The gross profit margin for the first quarter was 31.7 percent, compared to 36.1 percent for the first quarter of 2007 and 33.8 percent for the fourth quarter of 2007."