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Costco as seen thru a flies eye- More money stuff. Update May 28, 2016.
Greetings and Jambo!
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Do your eyes pop out when watching 47 large screen TV's? A visit to Costco
Big box stores or superstores the likes of Walmart and Costco make their profits in a sector where profit margins are less than stellar. Food stuffs are traditionally a low markup item and although these super stores sell more than just food, the methodology of just how these giant retailers stay in business is by selling in bulk. This is also known by the famous quip as “making it up in volume”.
This generally means if you sell a lot of a low markup item, you still make a profit. Make a few cents profit selling an egg may not sound like much, but sell a zillion eggs and you’re talking real money here.
I love going to superstores as I am sure most of you do. The rest of you might find it a necessary evil in order to save money. I hate the crowds of course and the long walk you will likely take from the parking space you managed to find a block away due to all the customers, but the experience is obviously enjoyable for many.
My 91 year old dad loves it. He loves all the sample food they give out and if you go on a weekend, you can literally have a full meal there by the time you traversed all the aisles. I know he loves it because he is the only one I know who will travel 50 miles to get there and walk out with a bag of peanuts and a steak, the total worth about 15 bucks.
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My last trip was the usual trip, meaning I have never gone there without dropping a few hundred dollars and more often than not, up to $750. I imagine many have had similar experiences.
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My last trip was the usual trip, meaning I have never gone there without dropping a few hundred dollars and more often than not, up to $750. I imagine many have had similar experiences.
Anyway I entered the Costco in Roseville and was greeted by 47 TV screens all airing the same program, “The Price is Right”, an old game show where contestants pick between door #1, #2 and #3 for crazy prizes.
Talk about viewing the world through a fly’s eye. (Flies have like a zillion eyes and so it is thought they see multiple images of everything which is why it is so hard to swat them. How do you sneak up on a fly waving a zillion fly swatters?)
Anyway I’m zoning out at seeing door #3, actually 47 door #3’s opening up revealing….. “A BRAND NEW CAR”! Well actually 47 brand new cars.
My eyes are bugging out watching 47 of everything so I blow past the TV section with my corneas still intact only to see the plant section. For a second I thought I saw 47 plant sections but that was only a temporary after effect of the TV department.
So I find myself looking up at a 16 foot tall bottle palm thinking “Who has that big of car to fit this thing in anyhow”.
Keep in mind the plant is an “impulse buy” for most of us. I myself have never bought a plant at Costco basically because I go there to buy toilet paper and staples like everyone else does and don’t even think about buying a plant there. But Costco being Costco does everything big so I see the size of plant and say “uh no”.
The booze section is usually next and although I like Vodka I just can’t bring myself to buy a 3 foot tall, 5 gallon bottle of it. The image that would give to me AND everyone in line would be that I live on the stuff and am a raging alcoholic, of which neither is true. I would rather pay more at my local grocery store then buy that HUGE of a bottle of booze and carry it out front of everyone!
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As mentioned, super stores make profit by selling MORE stuff but at a lower profit than smaller stores. They succeed by FORCING you to buy more by only selling huge quantities of everything.
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As mentioned, super stores make profit by selling MORE stuff but at a lower profit than smaller stores. They succeed by FORCING you to buy more by only selling huge quantities of everything.
I needed Cumin spice that day and in a not so rare moment of insanity, bit on their Cumin container and bought their smallest size, a one quart size of Cumin.
It’s so big I likely have to leave it in my will, unless I discover a zillion ways to use Cumin which I highly doubt.
I imagine other oddities like hearing aids in three packs (think about it), two shrink wrapped one gallon bottles of Listerine (makes the checker pull back a bit), a bottle of 10,000 One a Day Vitamins pills (about 27 years’ worth), a box of 50 onions (why you need so much Listerine), half a cow, an 8 LB cheesecake (ugh), 400 hot dogs or a 20 lb. pack of frozen pot stickers. I mean really! Do people actually eat that much stuff?
I guess~
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But Costco convinces people we need a quartz size bottle of Cumin which is one reason they are so successful. They play on people eyes being bigger than their stomach
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But Costco convinces people we need a quartz size bottle of Cumin which is one reason they are so successful. They play on people eyes being bigger than their stomach.
So now instead of ever shopping for Cumin again, we now need a longer last will and testament in order to cover the left overs when we die from Cumin poisoning.
They do have quite a system there, no grocery bags, just boxes, pull carts for over shoppers and fork lifts for those that really go overboard.
Ah, the super box stores, you gotta love em.
Now if I can only find the exit door out of the 47 of them I blurringly see……
Jambo!
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As you vote for your candidate, here are some words written a long time ago on how to control a society in the writing entitled "How to create a social state" by Saul Alinsky author of the book, "Rules for Radicals"
(This is some scary stuff)
There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state.
1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people (DONE)
2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live. (HAPPENING FOR DECADES)
3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty. (DONE)
4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state. (SLOWLY WORKING ON IT)
5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income). (WORKING ON IT STEADILY)
6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school. (DEPT OF EDUCATION- PRETTY MUCH DONE)
7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools. (ALMOST DONE ENTIRELY)
8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor. (YEP)
Now, think ... it does not a take a rocket scientist to see the US today has followed these points to a "T". Wake up America, is your candidate walking in line with this mantra or against the progression of it?
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The War on Cash is a term used by many analysts detailing the progressive regulations being enacted by monetary authorities to slowly reduce then (it is rumored) eliminate cash entirely from society. The reason given for the addition of each new regulation is to reign in tax dodgers and cut off terrorism money. The real reason assumed by many people however may be to garner complete control over every citizen on the globe by the monetary elites.
The regulations are far reaching and many. Tracking cash deposits in bank accounts, asking for identification when purchasing money orders, requiring monies over a certain amount be declared when crossing borders, reducing the size of cash transactions, requiring the reporting of cash transactions, eliminating large denomination bills along with a host of other new and onerous rules are increasing.
Many countries are doing away with large denomination bills such as Europe which just did with the 500 Euro bill. The US did away with ten, five and one thousand dollar bills years ago. Our largest bill is now the one hundred. (Considering inflation, just imagine for a moment when decades ago you could get a $10,000.00 bill!)
Go to your bank and try paying a bill with cash. Prepare to show your ID.
Buy a prepaid visa at your local grocery store and prepare to have your driver’s license scanned and in many cases be required to give your social security number and name on a website before the card is activated. The largest unregistered prepaid Visa went from $100 to $25.00 just last week.
Credit card and other electronic methods of payment are being encouraged and the variety of methods being increased (think Apple pay). Social security numbers which once were promised never to be used as identification are now usually required for everything. Check in at an airport and scan a credit card, ANY credit card and your personal information, ticket and boarding pass pops up regardless of whether you used that card to buy the ticket. Obviously they are all tied together! Check into a number of major theme parks and you are asked to be fingerprinted upon entry.
Cell phones are tracked, your purchases are tracked, your habits and haunts are tracked. Your electronic trail is marked and easily read. Cash is the only thing that is not trackable and THAT is the purported reason somebody wants it gone entirely.
Not that there is one person in control of everything, but the implications are frightening. If cash is eliminated, your footprint is unavoidable, your paths easily monitored. Taxes will be easy to garner, they just debit it from your accounts. Bailout a bank or public fund? Easy, they push a button and you pay. No need to adjust public interest rates, they just charge more interest on your balances. Avoiding income taxes will be impossible and if the government needs additional funding, they just take it “for the good of the country”.
Although currently we can still use cash and the no one or entity can debit our accounts without our consent, the wheels could be argued to be in motion for a cashless society. The elimination of cash would make the “Big Brother- 1984” scenarios from the George Orwell’s then futuristic novel that much easier to implement.
Although funding for terrorism and tax evasion certainly uses cash and cash like products to move and acquire off the grid funding, the vast majority of cash transactions by far are by law abiding citizens. Many argue that as the wheels of possible tyranny progress ever so steadily, our basic freedoms, and now possibly our freedom to use cash that was rightly earned, is slowly being taken away. The implications are frightening.
Wishing all of you the best!,
Marc
PS: Wish to discuss your portfolio? Email me. I will schedule a sit down, no-cost or obligation consult!
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Money Matters airs June 2nd, 2016 at NOON Pacific Standard Time on KMVR FM and worldwide on the web.
