382- SO, WHO DO YOU TRUST?...

Social Commentary: what I discovered while talking with a management person about the food prices you're NOW paying, in comparison with what you were paying, say, this past summer? What if you were paying 68-cts. and the price of a house brand of soup jumped to $1.16 in one week? That's a whooping 48-cts. jump in price for that one (1) can of "chicken with stars" soup! For enough of you who watch prices closely, you should recognize more huge price jumps on individual prices at this same retailer...check 'em out closely, now, each time you go shopping! And I discovered WHY? By the way, this educator did teach a special practical Econ class, and, as always, did extensive research as the classes were being taught!

a- This retailer, for years, has prided itself on the lowest prices in competition! It's common practice, most of us know, was for competitors to visit other retailers and check prices...OK? And for this large retailer to boast of having the lowest prices, by 'checking'.
b- NOW, however, I have discovered that this same retailer checks on surrounding competitors' prices AND raises their ownprices UP to come close to matching the competitors, but slightly lower than those checked competitors. In other words, this retailer, now, is checking competition BUT using the tactic to jump their own earlier "lower" prices considerable higher. They are actually RAISING their prices quickly and precipitously much higher to 'match', all under the guise of remodeling their stores while the store was in a state of changing flux, thinking that you, the savy customer, wouldn't recognize what they were doing!
c- That first glaring example, this summer, came from their house brand soup, like their 'chicken with stars soup' jumping in one week from 62-cts. to 68-cts, then the next week to a whopping $1.16 (48-cts jump for one can of soup) That's when I began asking questions! That's when someone inside management told me that the company's "NEW" pricing policy was to check other's prices and then jump way up to come right under a competitor's price, no matter what was originally being charged. Hence, huge price jumps, overnight! have noticed, now, more and more glaring huge jumps in prices from earlier this summer---16-oz. cans of their brand of fruit! PAY ATTENTION, America, to what's going on!
d- Working my way through high school in a small local grocery chain, I had learned so much about the grocery business. That 68-cts. price this summer, jumping to $1.16, was already paid for with the much lower wholesale price at 68-cts. And, as said before, the soup price was jumped significantly, earning this huge retailer a much higher rate of return, over and above the original wholesale price, for each and every can of that soup!!!! Imagine doing the same practice with thousands of items?
Did you like it last summer when the same principle was gouging you with gasoline at $4.00+ a gallon, knowing that the original wholesale price for gasoline had already been set and paid at the much lower wholesale price? Gasoline companies, last summer, raked in huge EXTRA profits from marked- up prices...from us, once again, the poor consumers.
e- Solutions? Don't buy the item, items when you discover ANY huge jump in price overnight!! Prepare your own soup at home! Don't buy the huge marked-up house brand in the store. That will force, SUPPLY AND DEMAND, the prices back to actual wholesale level if we all band together!!!
f- When I asked how 'they' could do this to consumers, that's us, the reply was a quick "it's that old inflation!" INFLATION? Bull! Rationalization...making excuses, on the back of us, the consumer. YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!!