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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Attendant Service just seems weird to me as a Brit, as it’s not really a thing here.

Most states don’t do it so it’s virtually not done here either.
On the plus side, it does essentially legislate some jobs into existence.

 privateer4hire wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Attendant Service just seems weird to me as a Brit, as it’s not really a thing here.

Most states don’t do it so it’s virtually not done here either.
On the plus side, it does essentially legislate some jobs into existence.

Do the people performing said service expect a tip? (As a Brit, getting that sort of thing wrong is one of the things that prevents me going back to the US at some point.)

No. You just pay for the gas/petrol/whatever.

Also there is a (small but maybe growing?) idea that tip service is just inherently wrong. Like... why don't servers just get paid a decent wage and not rely on tips?

 Lance845 wrote:
Also there is a (small but maybe growing?) idea that tip service is just inherently wrong. Like... why don't servers just get paid a decent wage and not rely on tips?

That and the way that some major US retailers will show prices on products without tax are two things that have always baffled me that people in the USA put up with. UK side serving staff get a wage, a tip is purely optional and generally only given for good service if you want; the staff don't have to rely on it for their income; meanwhile prices are always shown with tax, its not like the tax is optional. The only stores that don't are those where they expect people to have tax rebates, and typically you've got to be "in trade" to be shopping in those stores anyway.

 Overread wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Also there is a (small but maybe growing?) idea that tip service is just inherently wrong. Like... why don't servers just get paid a decent wage and not rely on tips?

That and the way that some major US retailers will show prices on products without tax are two things that have always baffled me that people in the USA put up with. UK side serving staff get a wage, a tip is purely optional and generally only given for good service if you want; the staff don't have to rely on it for their income; meanwhile prices are always shown with tax, its not like the tax is optional. The only stores that don't are those where they expect people to have tax rebates, and typically you've got to be "in trade" to be shopping in those stores anyway.

Well, in america the way the government taxes cigarettes it's kind of understandable that the tax isn't showed on the price. On average state and fed taxes make up 44% of the cost of a pack of cigarettes in america. some states have higher taxes and some localities add their own.

 Matt Swain wrote:

Well, in america the way the government taxes cigarettes it's kind of understandable that the tax isn't showed on the price. On average state and fed taxes make up 44% of the cost of a pack of cigarettes in america. some states have higher taxes and some localities add their own.

But what makes it understandable to not show that tax on the price? Most countries tax cigarettes at a particularly high rate, but still display the price that you actually pay on the price tag.

 Matt Swain wrote:


Well, in america the way the government taxes cigarettes it's kind of understandable that the tax isn't showed on the price. On average state and fed taxes make up 44% of the cost of a pack of cigarettes in america. some states have higher taxes and some localities add their own.

That doesn't really explain anything though. Pretty sure the UK and most other countries charge significant tax on cigarettes too. I understand different states set their own sales tax rates so what you pay for an item in one state may be different to what you pay in another. There's still a final price you'll end up paying before you leave the store. It's genuinely baffling to me why that price isn't the one displayed to the customer on the shelf.

The only reason I can imagine that businesses in the USA don't want to include tax in the price on products on regular retail shelves is to make their prices appear cheaper. Thus hoping that customers will not do the mental arithmetic correctly or at all and will end up putting more in their basket/trolley. Then at the till will decide to overspend.

Considering that many people often only shop with a rough idea of budget it likely does work in tricking people to overspend, esp on some high tax goods.

Especially when you consider that many products have different tax bands. Before you even get to variation in states, you've got to consider that some products are going to be taxed differently.

 Overread wrote:
The only reason I can imagine that businesses in the USA don't want to include tax in the price on products on regular retail shelves is to make their prices appear cheaper. Thus hoping that customers will not do the mental arithmetic correctly or at all and will end up putting more in their basket/trolley. Then at the till will decide to overspend.

Considering that many people often only shop with a rough idea of budget it likely does work in tricking people to overspend, esp on some high tax goods.

Especially when you consider that many products have different tax bands. Before you even get to variation in states, you've got to consider that some products are going to be taxed differently.

Not many tax bands here, mostly alcohol, gasoline (petrol) and cigarettes when it comes to higher tax rates. And usually cigarettes, gas & alcohol prices do include taxes (mostly because they don't want to itemize the layers of taxes on those products, and make them obvious, because that just upsets people). Beer is often exempt from alcohol taxes and falls under the general sales tax.

In general, sales tax is a state thing, usually somewhere in the realm of 5 to 8 percent, depending on state. Most states (43 of 50) exempt grocery items from sales tax... often (but not always) including candy, but rarely soft drinks (the latter may also have a recycling fee attached, depending on the state, which used to be you could get back if you returned cans). My current state exempts clothing (and drugs) from sales tax, mostly to encourage people in neighboring states to shop here, to the point that manufacturers set up shop in 'outlet malls' in the first town along the highway from the state border (think a bunch of branded shops like GW stores, except for specific clothing brands).

A few states have no sales taxes at all. Local taxes happen, but they're largely tied to big cities

State income tax is where things get really weird.

----
But yes, pricing here is very psychologically driven. Most products are labelled at $X.99 so you're definitely paying one less whole dollar, because that actually works on people. Never mind that you're paying only 1 cent less on paper, and 5 to 8 cents more (per dollar) after taxes.

It also, you understand, has to do with the American attitude toward taxes, which, based on the founding of the country is considered inherently wrong, but an unfortunate necessity (at best). So the business owner is widely considered to be 'in the right' for just displaying the cost of the item, and the government is doing you (and the business owner) wrong by adding the tax on top of the _real_ price. So its clear who's 'really' sticking you when it comes to checkout.

Or at least that's what businesses want people to conclude.

I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

 AduroT wrote:
I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

Unless there was some specific need to show the tax amount on the price tag, and assuming that scenario was a thing that might actually happen, I would expect that most stores would just absorb the cent, as it would generally be cheaper than relabelling everything.

 insaniak wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

Unless there was some specific need to show the tax amount on the price tag, and assuming that scenario was a thing that might actually happen, I would expect that most stores would just absorb the cent, as it would generally be cheaper than relabelling everything.

Well, it wouldn't be one cent. Phildelphia, for example, instituted a local tax of 1% a decade or so ago, and that's going to add up across purchases surprisingly fast (If 500 people spend $100 a day in your store, you're out $500 each day at 1%). State sales tax changes come up for voting every decade or so, and while they don't often pass, a 0.5% change isn't unknown. Its easier not to deal with that at all, beyond a sign at the register blaming the state/city. Neither absorb the tax nor spend money changing labels. Just keep on with the show that it has nothing to do with them, log the amounts in receipts (and software) and carry on.

Voss wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

Unless there was some specific need to show the tax amount on the price tag, and assuming that scenario was a thing that might actually happen, I would expect that most stores would just absorb the cent, as it would generally be cheaper than relabelling everything.

Well, it wouldn't be one cent. Phildelphia, for example, instituted a local tax of 1% a decade or so ago, and that's going to add up across purchases surprisingly fast (If 500 people spend $100 a day in your store, you're out $500 each day at 1%). State sales tax changes come up for voting every decade or so, and while they don't often pass, a 0.5% change isn't unknown. Its easier not to deal with that at all, beyond a sign at the register blaming the state/city. Neither absorb the tax nor spend money changing labels. Just keep on with the show that it has nothing to do with them, log the amounts in receipts (and software) and carry on.

It's not as simple as "always absorb the loss" and "always update the prices" - insaniak's point was there's a tipping point where spending the resources required to update all the price tags outweighs how much you lose by absorbing the loss, and that's when you make the effort. If the change is $0.01 per item, then you're probably a way off that being worth updating. If it's 1% on big ticket items - cars, for example - then it is probably worth doing.

Frequency of change is another factor as well - if, as you say, you're looking at changes once a decade or so, then updating makes more sense, as the cost of doing so is spread over a longer period. If you see changes yearly, on the other hand, then maybe it isn't as worthwhile, especially if the change is small.

This is a case where I wonder if tech could be used to make this more efficient/transparent - rather than having the paper ticket at the front of the shelf confirming the price, why not have a digital board along there, where you can show the item & price, and update it from off the shop floor? At that point you can probably avoid putting a price sticker on individual items, and you're good to go. I'm probably missing something here, but there you go...

Honestly I've not seen any shop pricing every single product in a long time. Most are now using a simple price label on a shelf/rack/strip/block of the same product. So instead of updating a little yellow price tag on a hundred of a product you just swap the little card slip in the sheath once and its done for every single one of those products.

Not to mention big businesses are changing prices all the time on products. Supermarkets do it all the time, prices shift up and down alongside deals and offers that also shift up and down. It's all part of destabilising the concept of how much an item is worth and on making some products appear cheaper so you feel empowered at making that choice of supermarket; even if by the end you've paid about the same price or more than normal because other products have slipped up in price or aren't on offer this week etc....


Plus how often do the states change tax rates? I'd imagine they aren't changing them every week nor even every month. So again its not going to be a continual nightmare of price changes every 5 seconds.

As for the cost of relabelling; an efficient store would just change the price tags at the same time as they check stock, restock and tidy up the racks before opening.

 Dysartes wrote:

Voss wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

Unless there was some specific need to show the tax amount on the price tag, and assuming that scenario was a thing that might actually happen, I would expect that most stores would just absorb the cent, as it would generally be cheaper than relabelling everything.

Well, it wouldn't be one cent. Phildelphia, for example, instituted a local tax of 1% a decade or so ago, and that's going to add up across purchases surprisingly fast (If 500 people spend $100 a day in your store, you're out $500 each day at 1%). State sales tax changes come up for voting every decade or so, and while they don't often pass, a 0.5% change isn't unknown. Its easier not to deal with that at all, beyond a sign at the register blaming the state/city. Neither absorb the tax nor spend money changing labels. Just keep on with the show that it has nothing to do with them, log the amounts in receipts (and software) and carry on.

It's not as simple as "always absorb the loss" and "always update the prices" - insaniak's point was there's a tipping point where spending the resources required to update all the price tags outweighs how much you lose by absorbing the loss, and that's when you make the effort. If the change is $0.01 per item, then you're probably a way off that being worth updating. If it's 1% on big ticket items - cars, for example - then it is probably worth doing.

Frequency of change is another factor as well - if, as you say, you're looking at changes once a decade or so, then updating makes more sense, as the cost of doing so is spread over a longer period. If you see changes yearly, on the other hand, then maybe it isn't as worthwhile, especially if the change is small.

This is a case where I wonder if tech could be used to make this more efficient/transparent - rather than having the paper ticket at the front of the shelf confirming the price, why not have a digital board along there, where you can show the item & price, and update it from off the shop floor? At that point you can probably avoid putting a price sticker on individual items, and you're good to go. I'm probably missing something here, but there you go...

I was in a French supermarket about 15 years ago where all the prices on the shelf were displayed on LCD screens. It still amazes me this is the only place I've seen that in all the time since. Even taking the analogue way of working into account, Overread's point is correct. No large shops around here price every individual item. It's always done on the shelf. When I worked part-time in retail I used to have to change prices every Tuesday morning. It was annoying and laborious but didn't take that much time to do.

Here in Europe, meanwhile, many supermarkets have LCD price tags on the shelves that can be updated automatically.



If the store wants to increase the price of every product by 1%, it's just a matter of pressing a button and every price tag in the store updates. The tags link to the same database as the checkouts and stock control system.

EDIT: Didn't see Slipspace's post before I posted. It's not just French supermarkets (although I think they are most common here), these LCD tags are widely used all over Europe now. I've even seen them in the UK (can't remember which supermarket it was, though).

Sales tax here is expressed as $.01 per dollar. Every dollar of the price is taxed an extra X cents, which currently is 6 or 7 Iirc depending on which city in the metro you’re in. So that $.01 tax increase isn’t just $.01. So yeah, basically 1%.

Stores adjust the price on all their inventory all the time. This is not a real problem.

 LunarSol wrote:
Stores adjust the price on all their inventory all the time. This is not a real problem.

Exactly, sales change weekly and the store employees go around taking down and putting up new tags without it being the end of the world.

I remember watching the front of the shop employees go through that routine all the time when I was working in the pharmacy.

 ScarletRose wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Stores adjust the price on all their inventory all the time. This is not a real problem.

Exactly, sales change weekly and the store employees go around taking down and putting up new tags without it being the end of the world.

I remember watching the front of the shop employees go through that routine all the time when I was working in the pharmacy.

Also generally speaking when laws change there's a deadline to implement them and they kind of phase in over time. Something not all dissimilar happened when calorie counts were being added to menus along with the price.

Hate to say it - because I love the film to bits, but hands down it would have to be most of ALIENS.

Where to begin? Leaving a military vessel completely unmanned by taking everyone planet side? An untested and incompetent officer given charge of both a navy warship and a platoon of marines? Ripley having any trust in a company she knows - the hard way - for its deceit, "we don't know what you're talking about", bribey and murder, and also has its hand in bioweapons? Why the need for a queen when there is a derelict ship containing thousands of eggs? Colonising planets for the last 57 years - and long before that - but everyone treats Ripley as a fruit cake for claimed to have seen an alien lifeform...yet the marines are aware of "xenomorphs" and have even gone on "bug hunts".

Jurassic Park also comes in for a kicking!

Sam Jackson( bless'im! ) switches off the power to the whole park and needs to go and switch it back on at the utility shed, at the end of the compound...

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead mate."

Laura Dern( bless'er ) thinks Sam has been gone a while and wants to just check up on him and see how he's doing...

"Whoa, whoa - hang on there! Its not just a walk in the park, y'know! Let me grab a gun!"

Voss wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Mummy Returns.

Why didn’t the ancient Egyptians just meltdown the bracelet?|

Would’ve saved a lot of bother!

Ah. One of my least favorite tropes.

Never, ever 'curse' your worst enemy with immortality and/or untold magical power. It's just really stupid.
Have a 'Weekend at Bernie's' with his corpse instead. Humiliate his name and legacy.

Kind of adjacent, in the first Frasier Mummy they use a forbidden spell that had never been cast before - so how did they know how to do it? In a literate society like the Egyptians I guess there could be a lost papyrus somewhere, but if it's never been used, how do you even know it works?

Of course now as I write this up it seems a lot more plausible than it did at the time.

Oh, speaking of Jurassic Park, in Juarassic World when they stumble upon a garage with a jeep from the original park that's been sitting there for 20 years and they're able to start it up... So it was in a tropical setting and didn't rust solid? And the fuel didn't turn to gel? And all the gaskets and tubing wasn't disintegrated?

NONSENSE!!!

 bbb wrote:
Oh, speaking of Jurassic Park, in Juarassic World when they stumble upon a garage with a jeep from the original park that's been sitting there for 20 years and they're able to start it up... So it was in a tropical setting and didn't rust solid? And the fuel didn't turn to gel? And all the gaskets and tubing wasn't disintegrated?

NONSENSE!!!

Oh my god, sorry if this was brought up before, but in Jurassic World 2 they transfuse blood from a T-Rex to a velociraptor. Their justification was that "they were both therapods." That's like successfully transfusing blood from a lemur to a human because "they're both primates." I yelled these things out loud. Nonsense!

When Mr Stereotype Evil Terrorist builds a bomb, why don’t they paint the wires the same colour upon completion?

Or, if really taking their time, just use the same coloured wires from the get go.

Go on. Last second your way out of that one, Mr Clever Clogs Hero!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Go on. Last second your way out of that one, Mr Clever Clogs Hero!

Easy - you just guess which one to cut, take a deep breath, start to cut, and then at the very last moment change your mind and cut the other wire.

Haha! Tricked you!

Those were dummy wires. The real wires are all internal!

Hmm...this one is an internal consistency thing and not a 'that wouldn't work' thing.

But how is Superman (1978) able to fly so fast that he can circle the Earth many times a second and 'break the time barrier', but not fly fast enough to divert two ICBMs heading in opposite directions? The writing is actually kind of a mess at the end of that film.

 AduroT wrote:
I’m imaging the horror that would be changing the price tags on every single item in the store when the city increases the sales tax by $.01.

Most big retail companies change hundreds of prices every day. Generally tax rate changes are a lot more rare than that.

SamusDrake wrote:

Where to begin? Leaving a military vessel completely unmanned by taking everyone planet side? An untested and incompetent officer given charge of both a navy warship and a platoon of marines? Ripley having any trust in a company she knows - the hard way - for its deceit, "we don't know what you're talking about", bribey and murder, and also has its hand in bioweapons? Why the need for a queen when there is a derelict ship containing thousands of eggs? Colonising planets for the last 57 years - and long before that - but everyone treats Ripley as a fruit cake for claimed to have seen an alien lifeform...yet the marines are aware of "xenomorphs" and have even gone on "bug hunts".

Where to begin? Leaving a military vessel completely unmanned by taking everyone planet side?

Seemed like a SOP to me. The ship is automated. This was not a combat operation, but a scouting force to check on the colony. Also, the Company made sure that as few people as possible were on the mission, to contain any info leaking out. Burke wanted this find to be his.

An untested and incompetent officer given charge of both a navy warship and a platoon of marines?

- Ripley: How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?
- Gorman: Thirty eight... simulated.
- Vasquez: How many *combat* drops?
- Gorman: Uh, two. Including this one.
Gorman is not totally untested. He has one combat drop under his belt at least…

Ripley having any trust in a company she knows - the hard way - for its deceit, "we don't know what you're talking about", bribey and murder, and also has its hand in bioweapons?

Ripley did not trust the company at all. She decided to go along with the team only after days/weeks/months of nightmares… She did not trust the Company at all, but she did have some trust on the Colonial Marines. At least she hoped that they were going to kill the aliens instead of studying them. And since Burke had to try to “impregnate” Ripley and Newt in secret, obviously the Company did not have a full control of the Colonial Marines.

Why the need for a queen when there is a derelict ship containing thousands of eggs?

Because the Alien life cycle centers around a queen establishing a hive?

Colonising planets for the last 57 years - and long before that - but everyone treats Ripley as a fruit cake for claimed to have seen an alien lifeform...yet the marines are aware of "xenomorphs" and have even gone on "bug hunts".

From wiki: “The Alien (also known as a Xenomorph XX121 or Internecivus raptus)
The term xenomorph (lit. "alien form"—from Greek xeno-, which translates as either "other" or "strange", and -morph, which denotes shape) was first used by the character Lieutenant Gorman in Aliens with reference to generic extraterrestrial life. The term was erroneously assumed by some fans to refer specifically to this creature, and the word was used by the producers of some merchandise.”

So, yes, the humans have encountered xenomorphs before and gone even on “bug hunts”. They might have been literally bugs, i.e, insects or just resembled insects, so they are called “bugs” because of that.
But the bug hunts the marines talked about did not reference the species in the Aliens movie. The marines had not encountered that species before. That is why they were so nonchalant and confident about it. They literally did not know what they were going up against. They obviously did not put much weight on a civilian “truckers” explanation on what the creature was capable of.
They did not think Ripley was a fruit cake for seeing “alien life form”, but just thought that she was exaggerating what the creature was capable of. (As Hudson put it; “How can they do that, they are just animals?”.)
It is obvious that humanity has encountered “alien life forms” before as they even had a generic term for them (xenomorphs).