Pssst, buddy. Want a great deal? Huh?

I get tickled every time I see a certain home improvement referral service advertised on TV.  They tout how they do all the vetting for you and can without hesitation say their select tradesmen are the best...AND THEIR REFERRAL SERVICE IS ALWAYS FREE!  

Free, huh?  So who is paying for all those TV ads that air every 10 minutes?

Here's the truth:  In virtually* every transaction, only ONE participant is paying money....the buyer.  The seller is receiving money.  No doubt the service provider is paying the referral service a fee, which is rolled into the price they are quoting you.  YOU are paying for the referral service, I don't care what the ad says.  It is NOT free!

The same for an electric service provider in my area who advertises "free night and weekend electricity" for people who sign up for this special program.  My advice:  Quietly back yourself into a corner and hold on to your wallet.  They just coincidentally fail to mention that the per-kilowat-hour-price for the hours they DO charge for is twice as high as their normal rate.

How about the furniture company who says if you buy this weekend they will pay your sales tax!  Sweet, huh?  And people no doubt camp out all night in order to be the first in line to get cheap furniture while the retailer PAYS the sales tax for them.

Remember, only one party in a transaction is PAYING....the buyer.  Anything the seller is "giving" you for free or "paying for" on your behalf is figured back into the deal as a "cost of doing business", just like rent and insurance and payroll.

I have a challenge for medical science:  Will someone please look into this phenomenon and figure out what happened to our common sense gene?  I'm pretty sure we all used to have one, but for some reason most of us have lost ours.

*  The exception to the "only the buyer pays in a transaction" statement is a true distress sale, and they are rare.  The perpetual "going out of business" sale does not qualify.

S

Common sense

Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate.

Question....why are there so many "mouth breathers" walking around these days devoid of common sense to one degree or another?

Example:  The World Rally Championship (WRC) is a car racing series against a clock, along often-unpaved rural roads.  Cars can go 80+ mph and slide sideways around corners, kicking up clouds of dirt and rocks in the process.  The crazy part is that spectators often stand literally a few feet away as the cars go whizzing past.

Should anyone be surprised when sadly, on occasion, a driver loses control and crashes into the spectators with the "ring side seats"?

Do the spectators have a right to stand that close?  Yes, I suppose they do.  But wouldn't common sense suggest it wasn't a smart thing to do?

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Many years ago my ex and I traveled to Chicago together to show our support for our daughter who was graduating from Naval Basic Training.  It was in December, and while we were there, my ex did some Christmas shopping.

 

As we were going through airport security on our way back to Dallas, the screener said she would need to see inside the wrapped packages.  When my ex protested, considering she had paid to have them professionally gift wrapped, the screener asked what was inside, and with more than a little sarcasm, my ex replied, "a bomb".  (NOTE:  This was prior to 9/11)

Of course I took three steps back and was prepared to swear I had never seen this woman before in my life.  But the screener correctly deduced that the ex at times (usually those requiring common sense) had an elevator that stopped a few floors shy of the penthouse, and waved her/us through. 

(For the record my ex is definitely NOT a mouth breather, but is in fact extremely smart.)

Did my ex have a right to say that?  I suppose so.  (Remember, this was before 9/11.)  But wouldn't common sense suggest it wasn't a smart thing to do?

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And just this week, a student at an Irving, TX high school built a digital clock from assorted electronic parts and took it to school in a briefcase to show his science teacher.

Even after his science teacher cautioned him that he probably shouldn't be taking it around school, he did anyway, which eventually got him pulled from class, briefly arrested, and expelled from school for three days.  

Now I understand this was just a 14-year-old kid, and his "common sense" gene probably hadn't yet fully developed, but shouldn't his parents have had enough common sense to see how his contraption might...just might...be confused for a bomb?  Without the usual tell-tale signs such a digital readout, it wasn't readily apparent to a layman that it was a clock.

Of course, the fact that the student was Muslim has made his situation a viral sensation, many saying that it was all just a blatant case of Islamophobia. 

So did this student have the right to take his project to school?  I suppose so.  After all, it was just a clock.  But wouldn't it have been wise for him to leave it in his locker, or in the science class?  Wouldn't common sense suggest this wasn't a smart thing to do, carrying it to other classes, considering the shell-shocked, violence-filled world we live in today? 

Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD.  Just sayin'. 

S

Where has all the common sense gone?

For the life of me I just can't figure out Mitt Romney's economic logic.  I've enjoyed a pretty good formal education and nearly 40 years of business experience, but more than anything I am most proud of my common sense.  Mitt is a brilliant man, no doubt, but his plan to create jobs and grow the economy just defies (my) common sense.

He says he wants to cut taxes for the rich, or at least include them in the extension of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts, and that they (the rich) will then use this increased wealth to create jobs.  But from all I've read, including in the Wall Street Journal (hardly a leftist rag), there is somewhere between one and two TRILLION dollars in capital sitting on the sidelines waiting to be invested long-term.  What's missing is consumer demand to buy more of the stuff these new businesses/jobs would produce.  If there's no demand, why produce it?

Because of their vast numbers, estimated to be 50% of all Americans, the middle class drives our consumer-based economy.  The poor can't buy enough to create jobs because they, by definition, have no money.  The rich have plenty of money, but there aren't enough of them to buy in the mass quantities needed to drive industry.  That leaves the middle class to "spend, baby, spend".

When the middle class has enough money (and is confident enough to part with some of it), then demand will increase, businesses will produce more goods and services to satisfy the demand, and jobs will be created, in that order.  To think you can create jobs and THEN wait for demand to catch up defies common sense.  No business is going to pay employees to just sit around and wait.

I'm sick of hearing about how the rich need more money.  I'm not saying they shouldn't have more money.  What I am saying is what we ALL need right now is for the MIDDLE CLASS to have more money, for it is they, not the rich, who will return us to prosperity.  That's just common sense.

S