Chinese Economics Thread

manqiangrexue

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
B.I.B. said:
Ha Ha. They probably suspect you put them in the 88cents basket so from now on you are on the watch list.
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I'm not a thief; that's not how I play my game. I hunt for legitimate opportunities, sometimes caused by other's errors and other times created purposefully. That's the challenge. America's consumer system is incredibly trusting so if you wanted to do shady/borderline illegal stuff to rip stores off (buy stuff, eat 80% and return it saying it didn't taste fresh), you could do it every day and get by almost free but it's no challenge and no fun to defraud someone who trusted you and made it easy for you. That's not how I roll. I did nothing wrong so they can watch all they like; get my good side on camera. This woman did, though, and her excuse is hilarious:
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Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
manqiangrexue said:
No issues. Firstly, I always use the self check-out. Secondly, big ticket stores like Kroger and Walmart will always honor any marked price and take it on the chin even if they knew it was a mistake a checkout. Asian supermarkets, even the big ones like H-mart and Great Wall/Jusgo will NOT. I once saw a NICE $16 pair of kitchen shears at Walmart that was in the $0.88 cent sale basket. I took it and it rang up $16. I said it was in the basket and they sent someone to check. There were 3 more pairs there so they said they will remove the other 3 but it will be 88 cents for me. The machine wouldn't let the cashier give that steep a discount so he just charged me 88 cents for a miscellaneous item on the receipt and let me take the kitchen shears. I love them to this day; those damn things cut through the bones in a chicken wing like they're baby carrots! On the other side of things, 2 weeks ago I was at Jusgo and saw that they marked some mushrooms $0.99 but were actually $1.29. My effing GOD! For 30 cents, I got into a shouting match with multiple cashiers and the vegetable section manager before the general manager was summoned and gave me that 30 cent discount!! All this with like 30 people in line watching LOLOL
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Manqiang. You're a man after my own heart. If only my wife was like you. My bank balance wouldn't be in such a sorry state.

When I was working in retail, before moving to education. I was a manager of a medium sized store. And often, staff would make mistakes, but my instruction was do not caused a scene and quietly honour the price. But quickly check all stock and correct any errors afterward.

In my early years as a manager, we have had one customer who saw something on TV once think she knows the consumer law. And started to brag that we have to honoured the price shown. This is not true, in the U.K. anyway, not too sure about US. (But I'm sure is the same). As I had study law as a subject in my economics degree. I know a little more than her.

There's a thing known as "invitation to treat". And since I'm the offerer, and she's the offeree. There's no contract up to that point. So an offerer can withdrawn at any time prior to the actual exchange.

But it caused a scene in my outlet, that's when I told my staff to let it go. So this woman, probably till this day think she knows about consumer law.
 
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A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
localizer said:
It's why trade wars fail. It's why China should also continue to embrace free market economics.
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A trade war against a much smaller country can work.

Take the examples of:

1. USA versus Canada/Mexico. Canada and Mexico folded pretty quickly.
2. China versus Australia. Just starting.

But China is some 25% larger than the USA in terms of equivalent output.
In a whole host of industries, China produces or consumes more than the rest of the world combined, never mind the USA.

It's why the US launching a unilateral trade war against China was destined to fail.

But yes, it's also in China's interest to embrace free trade now, because China is now the biggest economy and gets the most benefits from free trade.
 
manqiangrexue

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Gatekeeper said:
Manqiang. You're a man after my own heart. If only my wife was like you. My bank balance wouldn't be in such a sorry state.

When I was working in retail, before moving to education. I was a manager of a medium sized store. And often, staff would make mistakes, but my instruction was do not caused a scene and quietly honour the price. But quickly check all stock and correct any errors afterward.

In my early years as a manager, we have had one customer who saw something on TV once think she knows the consumer law. And started to brag that we have to honoured the price shown. This is not true, in the U.K. anyway, not too sure about US. (But I'm sure is the same). As I had study law as a subject in my economics degree. I know a little more than her.

There's a thing known as "invitation to treat". And since I'm the offerer, and she's the offeree. There's no contract up to that point. So an offerer can withdrawn at any time prior to the actual exchange.

But it caused a scene in my outlet, that's when I told my staff to let it go. So this woman, probably till this think she knows about consumer law.
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Yeah, I'm sure any store can refuse to sell you anything for any reason at their discrepancy (unless you're black, then it's racism), but I just told them that they should honor the price as a matter of principle and I will insist until and unless the general manager tells me that it's just not going to happen, which has only occurred once in my life at H-mart.

I got my girlfriend hooked on the "find great deals" challenge. Once in a while, I'll get a text from her when she's shopping; something like, "Vacuum packed USDA prime ribeye marked down to $5 per pound from $20. Grab?" And I'll reply, "Ya... ALL of it." LOL Last step with her is to wean her off the iphone/Apple crap and we'll be golden.
 
PiSigma

PiSigma

"the engineer"
quantumlight said:
I make around 95k these days but subjectively it feels like Im at same standard of living as when I was making 40k back in say 2012....

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The same bag of groceries that cost me $30 bucks now costs me $75 bucks...

Back in 2014 a state of the art GPU like the Nvidia gtx980 I got brand new from frys for around $600... yet in 2020 to get a top GPU like the rtx3090, you can only buy from scraplers and so the $1499 msrp becomes $2299...

You have to compare a basket of goods and its important to compare it to the things you typically purchase the most... this is why the US official inflation numbers is fake just like their unemployment numbers are fake.

Real inflation is close to 10% a year now, but the vast majority of people get like 3% raise if they are lucky....

Packages are getting smaller, you notice everywhere corners are getting cut, tiolet paper not as thick and its size shrunk down each pile square much smaller, airplane seats less inches, less legroom...movie tickets are more than what you could have gotten it on VHS two decades back...netflix was $7.99 now its $17.99, ten bucks could feed a family of four at McD, now it barely buys a single meal if that... a can of soda was 25 cents, now bottled water is rountinely five dollars or more... these are all reductions in quality of life, the shadow inflation....
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My salary pretty much tripled since I graduated in 2007, but the cost of things also doubled.

I keep a very detailed budget and expense list. It used to be $400 for groceries a month which is now $900. I haven't really changed what I buy.

I agree with the video cards. But inflation is calculated with a basket of goods weighted by "importance", means it's all BS. What I value (video card) is not what my wife values (milk). You will notice those price changes if you buy things once every several years with its $1000 jump. Milk prices been holding steady for almost a decade now, but meat and vegetables are going up.

But governments will say milk is a staple, so must stay stable, and is weighted more, thus low inflation. Clothing is another big item that has been stable in price, which shows a low inflationary value. However, if you buy good quality clothing for work (pre-2020) the prices have been going up very quickly.
 
Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
AndrewS said:
It's why the US launching a unilateral trade war against China was destined to fail.
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Which is why US is so desperate to get all the western economies to "ganged up" against China. It had some successes, particularly with the Anglo countries the big five. (Well, big one, medium two, small one and miniscule one really).

This is where the recent deal with Europe is such a strategic masterpiece. (I know some members here did think it's a win-loose in favour of Europe). But it's a master stroke. Which is why the only one that's doing the crying over this deal is the U.S.
 
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