Michael1942's Blog

Years ago it was a common practice for unscrupulous butchers to put a thumb on the scales when weighing a purchase. When city officials set up a method of monitoring these situations by inspections of the facilities and their weighing equipment, this practice ceased or went underground to a point of near extinction. The current legal method appears to be just giving a little bit more than you asked for but asking your approval before finalizing the sale. This asking if its OK is just another “thumb on the scale”. If we as consumers would pay closer attention we would realize that we are getting thumbed in more ways than one. Take “2 for” sales, you are offered more of a product than you require by offering additional product for a buy one (or two or more) and get one or more for the same price or less. This is thumbing but sometimes we do receive some value for this thumbing if the product is something we definitely use regularly, other times not so much. Our political system works the same way, through the use of advertising like phrases and honest sounding catch phrases which result in thumbing the scales but with no oversight other than our own common sense.