Quote from Ricter:
Sounds to me like you don't know how to shop. But millions do, and for them your statement "discounts are irrelevant" is false.
By the way, turkey at the supermarket near you is $0.98 a pound today (half the price in your alarmist Thanksgiving inflation thread). If you're family is one of those who has turkey for Christmas I suggest you buy it now. That will leave plenty of time for you to thaw and cook it. ; )
Discounts are irrelevant. You obviously have no idea how prices work at the supermarket level. Allow me to educate you (again).
Suppliers/manufacturers sell products to the account (Grocery/Convenience/Mass/Drug) at list price. List price is usually given nationally, based on things like full truck pricing, or half truck pricing, etc. Pretty standard. After the price list, suppliers/merchandisers offer trade discounts. An example of this would be how Publix in the south offers BOGOs (buy one get one) or "Buy 10 for $10" (meaning the discounted price is $1). In these cases, these merch events are paid for by the manufacturer - they can come Off Invoice or billed back, but the result is the same and they do indeed lower prices, but they are unique to the chain in which they are offered (Kroger, Safeway, etc). If you were to do an average US price on something, you would stop at this price and include these discounts.
Sometimes, particularly around holidays or big promotions (like Shop-Rite's "Can Can" event in the NE) retailers will margin down (meaning they lower their price without manufacturer $$). They do things like "Buy 10 of these products and get $3 back" or gas rewards. These events cannot be calculated into an average US price because there's no real way to say how much of the $3 (in that one example, for instance) goes towards the price of any one item.
You were including these merch events in your random internet advertisement shopping, and that's nice. Good deals there. But that isn't indicative of the national average price to all consumers, of which Bloomberg has access to in it's data. This, incidentally, is what I do for a living. I manage the pricing and trade for all of our accounts across class of trade, so I know what I'm talking about.
So again, who to believe? Ricter or Bloomberg. I think that's easy for everyone on this forum to decide. Turkey prices now, of course, would be discounted heavily. Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas dinner is about ham.
Lastly, I'd be careful on that whole "you're/your" thing. You seem to do that a lot lately. Remember, "your" implies possession, whereas "you're" is "you are" contracted.
