Friday Rant
November 13th, 2009
Welcome to the USA land of the free, home of the brave, and the country where you pay more for less. Everyday it becomes more apparent that the new American way for businesses to up their prices and cut their portions.
I went to work today during an earlier shift and went to the cafeteria for lunch. It has been awhile since I have worked a shift when the cafeteria was open. Right before I went for my lunch a co-worker warned me that the soup changed as the bowls got considerably smaller and the price went up. Of course when I went in for soup the small bowl became the large and the small bowl was more like a cup. Then they had the nerve to up the price $.40 across the board.
This practice is becoming more and more evident. McDonald’s burgers have become the size of bottle caps and the 2 cheeseburger meal is the same price as the Big Mac meal. My gas station used to be full serve with self serve prices; now they are self serve and up their prices and are now higher than most other stations. Even my health insurance at work is costing me a little more, but the benefits have declined significantly with high deductibles and co-pays.
At what point do we as consumers say enough is enough and demand to be treated fair. I can understand raising prices or cutting portions, but to do both is ridiculous. Everyday I notice it more and more and am really getting sick of it; just give me what I pay for, nothing more and certainly nothing less.
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I know what you mean. I’m old enough to remember when a bag of potato chips actually contained a full bag of potato chips (the days before the infamous ‘contents may settle’ warning).
If you even look at items like hostess cupcakes, they have gotten progressively smaller.
I have to say, though, that things are so much worse here in Ireland. You would be amazed to see the very small portions given here for everything at a significantly higher price than America. It’s unbelievable to me, what they charge for almost nothing. Restaurants are terrible, you pay for every little extra like toast, bread, butter, etc. Order a sandwich and you get one slice of meat between two pieces of bread.
Average price for lunch is around 13 euros, for really small portions.
Products in stores are the same. You don’t even get a scoop with your powdered laundry detergent! What really shocked my husband and I were the “two for” offers – soda, coffee, canned foods, etc. coming from the U.S., we figured they were “two for one.” We quickly realized that, not only was it not two for one, you are charged more to buy two together than to buy them separately! You pay more for the privilege of having them wrapped together.
Even the McDonalds here charges more and gives you much less than in the states.
I guess it all depends on what you are used to, but living here, portions in the U.S. seem like a feast!
Don’t even get me started. How about the movies- the prices are ridiculous and the movies are not even original ideas. The fact of the matter is that as long as we consumers continue to pay the prices and not fight back we will continue to get fucked! Plain and simple. That is why I am such a stickler for customer services. Don’t charge me an arm and a leg and then treat me like crap when your product or service does not do what it promises.
I don’t know about you but I am no longer willing to keep my mouth shut.