Honjii's Harangues

How dumb do they think we are, or how dumb are we?

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Before I delete the email in my spam folder I need to scan through the list.  It’s a waste of time for which I harbor deep resentment toward Yahoo, the service I use for  my personal email.  In the not too distant past they upgraded and improved their system.  Since the implementation of these improvements many of my wanted emails,  from contacts in my address book, end up in my spam folder; yet for reasons that puzzle the hell out of me, the Nigerian letters always make it to the in-box.   While I scan the spam I notice the subject lines and wonder who are those so gullible as to even read, let alone fall for the scams that arrive daily.

Over the last couple of weeks a new subject has caught my attention.  It reads: Someone sent you a Palm Reading.  I have to tell you, I’m skeptical, because as far as I know both of my palms have been in my possession at all times.  Yes, I do sleep, but my very large, very protective dog sleeps next to my bed and if someone tried to borrow my palms while I slept the sound of barking and growling as she was pinning the (probably screaming) palm thief to the floor would surely wake me, palms intact.  I like to think of myself as smarter than the average  bear, but I can’t believe even the most intellectually challenged wouldn’t see the flaw in this approach.

Than again, we are, for the most part, a gullible bunch.  I recently got a Groupon offer for a two for one admission to a traveling King Tut exhibit.  It seemed like a good deal, and I almost bought it; until I went to the website for the exhibit and read that the items on display were authentic reproductions.  I thought, OK, the display consists either of authentic artifacts from Tut’s tomb or reproductions of them, they can’t be both;  If I’m going to spend my money on a King Tut exhibit I want to see the real stuff.  I’m an artist, I can make my own damn reproductions if I so desire.

For the past year or so I have seen and heard ads on radio, TV, and the internet for companies offering to pay cash for your gold.  You simply mail it off to them and when they receive it they appraise it and send you money.  When I first saw the ad I was dumbfounded at the boldness of what was so obviously a ripoff.  Who would be dumb enough to fall for that?  A week or so ago I heard a promo for the evening news indicating they were doing a story investigating these companies because they appear to be a scam.  DUH!  What took so long?  The fact that they had to do a story on it is pathetic and indicates that a whole bunch of people just sent off their valuables and really thought they would get money back.  Are you kidding me?

By the way if any of you reading this have any diamonds or other precious stones you don’t want, I’ll pay top dollar for them.  Just use my contact form and I’ll send instructions on where to mail them.

We as consumers should pay attention to what we are buying.  Read labels.  You’d be surprised how they contradict the claims the companies are making, in their advertising, even on the very same package on which the label appears.  They are betting you’re not going to read the important stuff and obviously they’re right.

The toothpaste aisle is a great example.  The two major brands, Colgate and Crest, both have an array of toothpaste choices.  There are those for whitening, extra whitening, cavity prevention, sensitive teeth, enamel protection, tartar prevention, stain prevention, many combinations of the above, and more.  I looked at the active (and inactive) ingredients of most of the different formulas and found they were the same.  The thing to read next is the price tag and choose the lowest one.

There is a product called V-Fusion, a juice containing fruits and vegetables, made by the V-8 Juice people.  It is 100% juice.  After it had been on the market for awhile, they came out with a lite, low calorie version.  If you read the packaging and the ingredients you find that it is 50% juice because they watered it down by 50%.  The price, however, is the same as the original version, so if you want fewer calories, buy the original stuff and mix it with water and save  your  money.

It should be no surprise that businesses are cashing in on a society gullible enough to believe there is an invisible man in the sky who created the earth and everything on it in seven days a mere six thousand years ago,  that science is evil, and who never question anything they are told.  I’m starting to feel like an idiot for not cashing in on the stupidity of the American consumer.

H. L. Mencken said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

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