crumudgenly mutterings?

[michael clubb]

I'm pretty sure there was a time when what you said was what you meant. For example, if you said "I'll be there at 10oclock", you were actually there. If a politician said "This is a once time tax to pay for the new bridge.", they actually meant it was ONE TIME, not one time per year for the rest of your life. When a business offered a service and named the price, that was it. It wasn't that price PLUS, start up fees, activation fees, service fees, usage fees, non-usage fees, automatic (and unrequested) upgrade fees, etc, etc, etc.  My question is this; What do you suppose happend to the concept of saying what you mean and meaning what you say?

[Bob Stepp]

Money..

[Quinn]

Instant gratification. We prize happy over honest.
If you tell me what I want to hear I can go back to watching Oprah.
If you tell me the truth I might have to actually think about it...

[hi michael, nice to see you]

[Stir Young]

Too many lawyers....they have passed along doublespeak to other sectors of society now.

I'm the victim.

[Chez moi]

You're a victim? Here, sign this, I can get you a settlement, and I'll only take 60% if we win!

Small print:
*Of course if you lose, you have to pay the court costs.*

[michael clubb]

Chez, I just noted that your message came through at 4oclock in the morning here. What time was it where you are?
c'est moi

[Chez moi]

It was 1 p.m., Michael.

[Snagg]

I'm a firm believer that the last traces of the Golden Age of American Capitalism vanished around sixty years ago. Back then, the deal was: You made a product, somebody else made a similar product, and the customer picked the one that was the best for them. That was free-market competition, and it was fair. Not everybody needed the same thing and everybody understood that.

Nowadays, the cutthroat competition for the biggest number at the end of the day has changed the American business model to a ruthless "Fuck the customer and run" attitude. "Make a lot of promises that you have no intention of keeping, get rid of competition by merging with your competitors, strip all choice away from the customer, back them into a corner, take their money, screw them as hard as possible and keep an army of lawyers on retainer to handle the idiots who think that they have a right to complain about it."

Just venting here.

[P.A.]

Well put Snagg.

[Chez moi]

Oh, look, a rant.
,-D

It's okay, that's what curmudgeons do.

Let me remind you youngsters that snake oil and bait & switch weren't invented yesterday. And don't tell me you're too young to remember Upton Sinclair, a superior muckraker* of his day. If you eat a few less rat whiskers per weenie today, it's thanks to folks like him fighting big biz. He also wrote on the oil industry, among others.

Who remembers? We still have BP and KFC today. It's not new. Keep ranting.

*Another very old word

[P.A.]

I used to read some passages from The Jungle to my classes when we were studying that period. The girls usually acted like they were going to get sick and the guys faked not being bothered.

[Jaylee53]

Upton Sinclair was light years ahead of his time.....


BTW..always thought being a "curmudgeon" was a 'guy' thing...What does that leave us "women of a certain age" moniker....hags...old bags...? Don't say "crones". Crones means wizened ones....

[Bob Stepp]

You could be Mrs. Curmudgeon.