Sy Syms was right "An educated consumer is our best customer."
Growing Old
Tainted Money
If you are of a certain age, you will remember the television and radio ads for Syms clothing. Remember his tagline, "An educated consumer is our best customer?" But in today’s online world, is that possible? Was it ever possible?
“The supposedly informed consumer has always been a misnomer. Purchases are fundamentally asymmetrical interactions. Sellers will almost always know more than you do, and they are free to hide most of it. When buying a home, taking a car in for repairs, choosing a doctor, or deciding whether you actually need a separate eye cream or it’s all just moisturizer in a smaller tub, you will generally end up playing whack-a-mole with your own ignorance. And that’s to say nothing of situations in which an informed decision would require, for example, understanding a product’s supply chain in order to avoid buying things made through forced labor.”
From the Atlantic, The Death of the Smart Shopper
We all grow old, I suppose, some sooner than others. And, of course, there is the common narrative that as we age, our political views harden and become more conservative.
“We’re often led to believe that getting older is in itself somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger self, but sometimes I think it might be the other way around. Maybe the younger self finds it difficult to inhabit its true potential because it has no idea what that potential is.”
A short piece from Marginalian, Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older
As it turns out, tainted money still abounds. The money, in this instance, is fouled by coming from a company making vapes, and the recipient, the American Cancer Society, wants no part in it.
“WASHINGTON — A popular Chinese vape company says it is donating thousands of dollars to the American Cancer Society in an effort to stop youth vaping, but the cancer organization says it never agreed to the partnership, and it’s ordering the company to stop.”
From Stat, Vape maker Elf Bar wants to donate to the American Cancer Society, but it doesn’t want tobacco money
