CORPORATE CHICANERY--

Have you looked closely at the size of a "half gallon" ice cream container recently?

Yup, with just a casual glance it appears normal but it certainly is not.  It's shrinking; first recently to 1.7 quarts and often now to 1.5 quarts.

Do these marketing gurus think they are fooling the public with their shenanigans?

If they leave the price the same and shrink the product 25% in size that's a whopping increase in their profit while they spew the usual line about holding their retail prices in check to benefit the consumer.

Yeah, right!

Next they will come out with a giant, economy-size package of a full half gallon with only a "slight" increase in price while the corporate big-shot, bean counters chuckle behind the boardroom doors about how easy it is to to dupe the hapless consumers.

A couple of my favorite candy bars were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and York Peppermint Patties.  Today's versions are dwarfs at best.  You could wrap the York product in aluminum foil and pass it off as one of those silly dollar coins.

Here's one I'm really keeping my eyes on.  Compare the width of your toilet paper roll to the width of your bathroom fixture in which it rotates.  Around Fogeyland it appears the roll has shrunk easily 1/2 inch, maybe more.

I'll leave it to your imagination what could result if this shrinkage is carried to its potential extreme.

In the interest of good journalism--at least today's version--I did a small marketing survey.  I asked Sue if she could think of any product that has NOT undergone this shrinking process.

After a thoughtful moment she concluded, "Nope."

And, so it goes.