News from all over...but with overpriced gourmet chocolate!!!
Atlantis Redux
The human cost of global warming is becoming more apparent, as news comes that the inhabited island of Lochachara has sunk beneath the rising ocean waters. While the first uninhabited islands disappeared eight years ago — islands in the atoll-nation Kiribati, located in the Pacific — this is the first time people have been demonstrably made homeless by consequences of global warming. The island had a population of 10,000, many of whom fled to the neighboring island of Sagar, but that island has already lost 7,500 acres to rising waters.
The Emperor’s New…Chocolate?
The psychology of buying and pricing is odd (not surprisingly). Price something too low, and people won’t touch it waiting to see what’s wrong with it. Price something too high and people won’t buy it because they can get something similar for less money. Apparently, though, pricing something too high — something like chocolate — works quite well if you a) pick a commodity that people love; b) choose something that most people know has both good-quality and poor-quality variants; and c) make heavy use of buzzwords and play upon ignorance. Texas chocolatiers Noka appear to have done just that. Their chocolate starts out at $309 a pound and the price rises sharply. However, according to some careful research and deductive reasoning, a Dallas food website appears to have determined the origins of the chocolate, and (if that is accurate) has further calculated that the markup on this chocolate is over 1000% (that’s one thousand per cent). So, seriously, What’s Noka worth?
Corporate Scroogery
Corporations are not people. They follow slightly different rules of behavior. That aside, I know that I will work a bit harder, a bit smarter, and add a bit more polish for a client who demonstrably values my contributions to their efforts. I’ve worked for large corporations, itty tiny family-run businesses, and everything in between…but I’ve seen some amazingly dumb behavior from the former. Apparently, so have many others: Slate has collected their tales of eyerollingly poor corporate judgement when it comes to bonuses, office parties, and holiday employee appreciation.
Keywords: | Holidailies | global warming | corporate behavior | chocolate |
Posted by Laughing Muse • 428 views • Share this link • Newer • Older
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