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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Just How Stupid Are Americans?

Last week I went into Sam's Club and a large bag of fresh oranges was $4. and some change. As each day went by the price continued to rise, to a point last night that same bag was around $9.00.

At $4.00 and some change a bag, oranges were certainly worth the luxury of buying. However, I'll not be so insulted that I'll now pay more than double in one week for ANYTHING.

A few articles below this one it talks about the price of produce doubling. Well, just how stupid are you? IF you want to gain back control of this crap once and for all, STOP BUYING THESE PRODUCTS, PERIOD!

For far too long Americans have just fallen for this crap BECAUSE THEY ARE MAINLY STUPID. I can understand gas going up and down, we can't live without it. However, an ORANGE!

Let me ask you this. If you were having a bad month in business, can you just DOUBLE your prices and start making some real money out of nowhere? No, you can't. Send a message to these companies who CANNOT ever take a financial loss, (yet we do it all the me) and STOP buying ANY produce from this point forward.

Americans need to start fighting back. We can live without tomatoes, oranges and so forth. Of course you'll never see such a message on the national news because, (of all  things) they'd probably get sued! Yeah, that's America for you.

6 comments:

dan said...

I'm a bit confused on this issue now. You have a post earlier explaining that, due to the harsh winter weather, a large portion of fruit and vegtable crop was destroyed (something that happens often.) As a result, prices will increase, probably dramatically, in a short period of time.

In this post, you rail against "stupid Americans" because the companies we buy prduce from incease their prices as a result of lowered supply.

This seems like pretty cut and dry case of supply versus demand. Supply is down, demand has not subsided, so the commoidy in question is more valuable because of its scarcity.

Does it make things hard for the consumer? Yes, but that is the way our system works. This is not a new thing.

Who is the enemy in your eyes? The people supporting a free-market system that is not designed to be in their favor? The free-market sytem itself? The industires taking part in the free-market system and ensuring thier profit margins are healthy?

What is the alternative?

Joseph Albero said...

Dan you're right. Supply and DEMAND is the situation at hand.

Let's look at the demand part for a monent. Domand, (to me) is something we must have and can't really live without. Like gasoline. NOT produce.

All too often we, (as Americans) have been told certain weather conditions have forces the rise in gas prices. Heck, you make the excuse, we bought it and it wasn't something that hit us several days later, it was hitting us at the pumps the next day, at the latest. Even the threat of any condition cost us dearly.

Now, all of a sudden every single producer of produce lost ALL of their crops based on frost or ice. Sorry Dan, I'm not that STUPID. The product already AT THE MARKET had risen more than 150%.

This household will not be purchasing bags of oranges until they come back to normal prices.

The demand is just not there Dan. If you're willing to pay those prices you go right ahead.

Funny how just about everything is in a crisis mode any more.

Joseph Albero said...

Dan, I'll add: "Peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, asparagus, the entire asparagus crop was wiped out," were mentioned in that article. Would you like to explain the increase of ORANGES going up 150% too?

Tweety said...

I plan to put a little extra effort into my vegetable garden this year. As for the price of oranges, I thought Florida declared a state of emergency due to frozen citrus crops back in December.

McGruff said...

I think there were a lot of crops ruined this year down south and to the west by very cold weather ('global warming', says Gore)
There isn't much produce available this time of year anyway.
That's the way it always was, till Very Important People demanded that they be able to buy out-of-season items whenever they want.
So-- voila. Demand. And entrepreneurs rose to the challenge.
But now that the planet is heating up, much of it froze.
What's a mother to do?
Raise the price. So now a 40-cent orange costs 1.50
And some sucker will pay it.
Just like so many people came here from NJ, PA, NY, etc, and paid $250K for a $100K house. And now they're screwed.
But at least you can eat the orange.
I agree with Joe. They can keep the produce till the price is reasonable.
I didn't buy the house either. My money's still in the bank, and when I do buy, it will be a sweet deal-- probably $80K for that $250K house that somebody ended up losing.

10001110101 said...

Vitamin C is important during the cold season but you can get it from garlic and various greens. Add a couple of garlic cloves to your main meal to get Vitamin C in your diet. Also, its planting time for Kale and spinach. Raised garden beds are great to get the seeds in right now. A 4 by 4 raised bed can be covered with a couple old windows to create a hotbed to get a early jump on your seeds. By the end of March you will have fresh greens ready to eat.