Thread: I'm getting sick of our country losing it's identity

Originally Posted by pop058

Ever noticed that bed/mattress joints (40 winks, bedsRus, etc.) seem to have sales on all year round ??

My sister worked for a bed/mattress company at one point.
They would actually put the prices up and then 'discount' them.
Illegal, unethical, but normal practice in the industry apparently.

A sale doesn't have to means stuff is cheaper, it just means they want to sell you stuff so they will have made a sale.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

And Rugs a Million, who've been having a closing down sale for how many years?

and it must've worked,, cos the NEW owner continues using it

Originally Posted by rick130

My sister worked for a bed/mattress company at one point.
They would actually put the prices up and then 'discount' them.
Illegal, unethical, but normal practice in the industry apparently.

The free market growth capitalist economy is all about charging the highest price possible. If that involves pretending that the price could be higher ‘but we’re giving you a discount’ it’s just a strategy. Buyer beware. No point getting knichers in a knot over the price when this is the system we all vote for with our hard earned everyday as well as at the polling booth.

Sales only exist because we are suckers. They’re not really an opportunity for a bargain because prices are dictated by supply and demand. The price is just the price no matter how it’s presented.

I’m actually surprised there aren’t more ‘reverse sale’ pricing structures similar to the airlines. Whereby you get a lower price if you get in early and the price rises the longer you wait.

The growth capitalist economic ‘aspirational identity’ is actually the central focus of ‘our country’s identity’’ and there’s not much chance of losing that I’m afraid.

The majority of cultural occasions in Australia are focussed around the economy. The majority are also imported from elsewhere.

As such a young ‘nation’ Australia is yet to create its own identity IMO. Who are we beyond the economics of material consumption and commercial festivals?

I'm not sure any ANZAC's would agree with you about lack of identity,,

and as for new traditions how about these guys?

Originally Posted by rick130

My sister worked for a bed/mattress company at one point.
They would actually put the prices up and then 'discount' them.
Illegal, unethical, but normal practice in the industry apparently.

A large floor covering retailer got sprung and fines many mons ago. they advertised a sale that was something like 50-70% off. ACCC fined them as they could not provide proof that they ever old those products for 50 to 70% more prior. Another floor covering retailer used to put Bait advertisements in the newspaper, claiming millions of $ clearance 100's of rolls of carpet normally $150 per metre now $15 per metre. When the bargain hunting droves came in to the store the customers wanted to see these bargains and were shown remnants pieces and off cuts rolled up, nothing to do a house lot. It peed off a lot of customers. The boss told the staff, it gets customers in to the store, it was their job to convert them into sales on the other products. Or seconds were sold to customers and customers were never informed. Competitors would complain to the manufacturers as they couldn't compete on 1st quality and real price.

It's funny, I find our country to be too money/wealth/materialism focused and yet I was watching a YouTube vid the other day of a US resident living and studying here and she found Australia far, far less materialistic than the US.
She was based in Newcastle and hailed from the US mid-West.

It was an interesting perspective.

In a similar vein, a German friend moved back there last year after living in Oz for a couple of years.
We were chatting on messenger-phone and it kept dropping out.
She appologised, saying it was typical, the German mobile phone system was crap (not a lot of 3G, let some 4G) and several generations behind here.
That shocked me.

We all need to step back a little at times to get perspective, to see the big picture.

Yes, it's good to step outside the norm and learn how others see us.
When we lived in Thailand numerous Thais we knew were surprised that all Aussies weren't like the drunken sex-obsessed male ockers they were used to seeing behaving badly in Pattya and other fleshpits.