Tapsearch Com EditorCoupons and the working poor
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Newspaper Ombudsman misses real story about the volume of coupons in the newspapers
An Article by Ted Diadiun, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Readers Representative, prompts me to write about the contradictions, newspapers ignore.
Ted Diadiun says the most compelling thing in the Sunday edition is not about news that reporters worked hard to find and report. He says the coupons that come with the paper that saves people money are the most compelling thing. Just using a few of Sunday coupons can more than make up the cost of a whole week on newspapers. The average value amounts to $343 per Sunday. Diadiun goes on to tell what the newspaper does to guard advertisers from readers who take advantage of the system. The paper even limits the number of subscriptions that one person can get and does not release back issues of the paper.
This should tell him something more about the use of coupons in general and all the advertising the newspaper delivers with the news sections. Many times the advertising weighs about three times more than the regular paper.
The advertising also tells a story of its own that all the reporters who work hard to find and report a story, failed to find this one.
There is really nothing free and every coupon used represents a lost for someone else. This is obvious even in the way , the newspaper has to protect their advertisers. Some reporter should also do a story about where the money goes after it is spent at retail. With so many products we use and eat in the USA coming from outside the USA, the money spent at retail quickly fans out to the places where the products are made or grown. It also fans out to the investments in these foreign countries. Cities and towns who have promotions for people to shop locally, tell people that the money spent in local businesses, adds three times more money in the community. It is even more than that if the products or food are from local resources. Local value added economies add about five to seven levels of added value.
Coupons play a big part of this process. Coupons mainly come from large corporations who can guide shoppers to buy their products and are also used to block out smaller competition. We live in a lost leader economy, where large companies can sell under costs for a long time to capture a market and keep out smaller competition that do not have the money to defend themselves. Massive trans national companies play a game that the smaller businesses can not play.
I grew up in a family food business. There were four other food stores, a bakery, a hardware store and a drug store all one just one block. Similar situations were on every block in our city. As a young teenager, I figured out that a small store can make it working at a 27 to 30 percent gross and still come out with about a 20 percent net profit. The larger chain stores as they were called in those days worked at a 35 percent gross and were only able to make a net profit of about 5 to 7 percent. The ads from those days show that prices would be cheaper today if the small vendors were not put out of business by larger ventures who could sell under costs for long periods of time to gain volume while capturing a market. After the larger company captured more of a market, they raised their prices.
This is the real story about coupons and newspaper advertising. Once the classified pages had many pages of help wanted ads. Now there are just one or two help wanted pages. Many main streets in our cities are full of empty stores and empty factories. Many look like they are in a third world country.
It makes no sense for a newspaper to talk one way about restoring our economy while all this is going on. They put on certain image in the news sections but support a lost leader economy in the other sections and promote shoppers to shop their way out of their jobs. Things like coupons means someone wins but more in the end lose. Some reporter should make a connect the dots and tell us why 43 million are on food stamps and 41 percent of those 24 to 34 are now in the working poor class.
The news sections are dwindling away in the process with the Monday edition that follows the Sunday coupon day, not worth buying.
For more resources searcher under tapsearcher, tapsearch.com, tapart news, Ray Tapajna or arklineart.
Newspaper Ombudsman misses real story about the volume of coupons in the newspapers
An Article by Ted Diadiun, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Readers Representative, prompts me to write about the contradictions, newspapers ignore.
Ted Diadiun says the most compelling thing in the Sunday edition is not about news that reporters worked hard to find and report. He says the coupons that come with the paper that saves people money are the most compelling thing. Just using a few of Sunday coupons can more than make up the cost of a whole week on newspapers. The average value amounts to $343 per Sunday. Diadiun goes on to tell what the newspaper does to guard advertisers from readers who take advantage of the system. The paper even limits the number of subscriptions that one person can get and does not release back issues of the paper.
This should tell him something more about the use of coupons in general and all the advertising the newspaper delivers with the news sections. Many times the advertising weighs about three times more than the regular paper.
The advertising also tells a story of its own that all the reporters who work hard to find and report a story, failed to find this one.
There is really nothing free and every coupon used represents a lost for someone else. This is obvious even in the way , the newspaper has to protect their advertisers. Some reporter should also do a story about where the money goes after it is spent at retail. With so many products we use and eat in the USA coming from outside the USA, the money spent at retail quickly fans out to the places where the products are made or grown. It also fans out to the investments in these foreign countries. Cities and towns who have promotions for people to shop locally, tell people that the money spent in local businesses, adds three times more money in the community. It is even more than that if the products or food are from local resources. Local value added economies add about five to seven levels of added value.
Coupons play a big part of this process. Coupons mainly come from large corporations who can guide shoppers to buy their products and are also used to block out smaller competition. We live in a lost leader economy, where large companies can sell under costs for a long time to capture a market and keep out smaller competition that do not have the money to defend themselves. Massive trans national companies play a game that the smaller businesses can not play.
I grew up in a family food business. There were four other food stores, a bakery, a hardware store and a drug store all one just one block. Similar situations were on every block in our city. As a young teenager, I figured out that a small store can make it working at a 27 to 30 percent gross and still come out with about a 20 percent net profit. The larger chain stores as they were called in those days worked at a 35 percent gross and were only able to make a net profit of about 5 to 7 percent. The ads from those days show that prices would be cheaper today if the small vendors were not put out of business by larger ventures who could sell under costs for long periods of time to gain volume while capturing a market. After the larger company captured more of a market, they raised their prices.
This is the real story about coupons and newspaper advertising. Once the classified pages had many pages of help wanted ads. Now there are just one or two help wanted pages. Many main streets in our cities are full of empty stores and empty factories. Many look like they are in a third world country.
It makes no sense for a newspaper to talk one way about restoring our economy while all this is going on. They put on certain image in the news sections but support a lost leader economy in the other sections and promote shoppers to shop their way out of their jobs. Things like coupons means someone wins but more in the end lose. Some reporter should make a connect the dots and tell us why 43 million are on food stamps and 41 percent of those 24 to 34 are now in the working poor class.
The news sections are dwindling away in the process with the Monday edition that follows the Sunday coupon day, not worth buying.
For more resources searcher under tapsearcher, tapsearch.com, tapart news, Ray Tapajna or arklineart.
