In the business climate of today, corporations and even small businesses have a tendency to gouge the customer, with markups sometimes 4 to 5 times or more than the cost of the item.  The trend is, quote the price low, and once you get the client into the establishment, they start putting on add-ons and things that used to come with the item, so that the final price is inflated beyond recognition.  They're doing it with houses, cars, appliances, home furnishings, and even some mattresses are sold by 5 year financing, just like cars (how much should you pay for a mattress that was made for about $100.00?!).

THE RATE OF INFLATION IS ABOUT 1.51%

    It has spilled over into the professional field, with medical costs priced out-of-sight for the working class citizens of this country, not to mention insurance premiums and prescriptions.  Lawyers are touting "No Cost To You".  They don't mention filing fees and other hidden fees.  Cost of food has been creeping up day-by-day at every market in the country, so that working class families are eating cheap food, containing lots of fat. And the government is concerned about people in this country being obese?!  Most of the food in the markets today is either force fed or force grown and have no taste and nutritional value.  Thus we have health problems.  The farmers and ranchers are not causing the exorbitant prices of food - the middle men i.e. large corporations are responsible.  They are gouging you from living in a decent manner.

The reason(s) for this is the outrageous salaries, bonuses and "golden parachutes" given to CEOs and administrators.  For Shuffling Papers?!  Most corporations are monetarily like upside-down pyramids with the preponderance of the money going to the top and barely minimum wages at the bottom.  You might describe it as "the golden clad knights" at the top and the "ragged clad serfs" at the bottom.  The same thing is happening in our educational system: big money at the top, less for the students, paying for K-12 basic schooling, paying for transportation to and from school and gouging tuition for higher education, and still I run across applicants for jobs who can't sign their names.

    It seems as though corporations and businesses want only the affluent (1%) to buy their products by pricing them out of the range of ordinary people (99%), thus squeezing out the working class and the elderly fixed income group from having quality merchandise for a reasonable price.  There is no defendable reason for this gouging!  Most corporations, companies and businesses import their goods from countries where labor costs are infinitesimal compared to the USA.  They have also set up branches in these countries to guarantee a steady supply of merchandise.  Still wonder where skilled labor and the working class jobs went?  Look overseas!  In this manner they get the item you buy at a fraction of the cost than if it was made here, but still charge you as though it was made here.  For more insight into the buying and selling practices of large corporations, businesses and companies read the book entitled "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman.

A new business practice has been introduced in the USA; the art of turning full time workers into part time workers.  The reasoning behind this is to avoid paid vacations, pregnancy leaves, lunch breaks, and of course medical insurance coverage.  This applies to the ordinary working person, not to the chosen few who work(?) in upper management (not to mention CEOs making on average 1000 dollars an hour to shuffle papers).  So as you can see its not inflation causing the gouging, its not cost of goods or labor (which are cheaper overseas) nor the farmers and ranchers that are squeezing out the working class; its the worship of the almighty "buck" by large corporations who have been posting millions and even billions of dollars in profits at the expense of the majority of American citizens.  Not bad for a corporation, which now is an "individual person" who can donate any amount of money to buy any politician that the 'Powers That Be" of the "he/she" corporation chooses!

Maybe it seems as though the old adage "You get what you pay for" is now untrue and similarly "You get what you vote for" has gone by the wayside also.  How can we change this?  Vote for people who will represent the US citizen instead of themselves.  Outlaw lobbyism, outlaw perks in politics from corporate lobbyists and most of all reverse the law designating corporations as people who can donate as much money as they want to favored candidates (when they do bodily functions the way I do, then I'll go along with it).  These few common sense suggestions might begin to preclude the corporations buying our politicians and thus our government who allows these corporate structures to gouge us.  Why do they do it, because they can!  You have to buy it anyway, because most of it is now part of the necessities of life!  S'NUF SAID FOR NOW!

A.M.B.S. DOES NOT GOUGE FOR ITS GOOD HONEST WORK AT FAIR FEES

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