Dave wrote:
I was tactful the first time around, simply asking what other business West
was in. Some people have trouble taking a hint.


heh heh well I'm not the one to be taking lessons on tact
from, but at least I can take a hint!

[snip]

I think expecting a brick-and-mortar store to match on line
prices every day is pretty much a textbook definition of
"unrealistic expectation." It's also a good recipe for
making sure that you won't have a local retailer, if enough
people share your expectation.


This is an issue that goes back long before the internet.

Sure.

... My grandparents
ran a retail store in a small Midwestern town, and I remember their
complaining about people who would drive 30 miles to get a lower price from
a chain located in a larger town, making it more difficult for the small
town merchant to make a profit.


At least, they were probably smart enough to avoid a price
war. One of the rules of the "new economy" seems to be that
every market is always in a constant state of price war.
It's a race to the bottom.


And guess what, the price of the products we buy covers the
expensive advertising and we think we're getting a good
deal... anybody else see the humor in this?


I think there's more to it than that. It derives not from advertising but
from a Protestant ethic that has a fallout in many areas. We tend to
emphasize Christ's preaching about where a man's treasure is there will his
heart be also, and driving the money changers from the temple, leading to a
general feeling that haggling is unseemly, because it shows an obsession
with treasure on earth. To take my grandmother's pithy description of those
she complained about, "they know the price of everything and the value of
nothing."

Sure, there is certainly that element... another element
IMHO is the aspect of conspicuous consumption. If you just
buy a thing without worrying about the price, then obviously
you make the impression on others of being rich enough to
not worry about money... "Price is no object."

Shucks, nowadays there are grocery stores that don't even
have the prices of goods marked on the shelf, much less on
the item. People just put it on their credit card and find
out whether they can afford it or not at the end of the
month... if then!

DSK