Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Less Knowledgeable Megan

Shorter Megan McArdle: No, I've never heard of loss leaders. Why do you ask?

11 comments:

Pete said...

The shorter is brilliant. Except that it tempted me to investigate the longer. But then if I hadn't done that I couldn't compliment you on the shorter, could I? Hmmm, it eeez a puzzlement.

blivet said...

Wow. She copied and pasted a rewritten press release, added "me too," and that's her blog post. Even for Megan McArdle, that's bad.

Downpuppy said...

Megan's post would be an embarrassment at The Wausau Pennysaver, but The Atlantic has no such hangups.

Downpuppy said...

She copied a (fairly bleeding obvious) comment into a whole new post.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/02/grocery-highs-and-lows/71649/

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Oh hurray! Wegman's is going to save us from inflation, another example of the magical, invisible hand of the market!

Like Pete, I got suckered into reading the longer, and the comments.

Is there a help desk someplace where I can locate my lost I.Q. points?
~

Daisy Deadhead said...

Are the elite classes really this dumb about the way common retail practices work? (Not to mention the way retail-PR works?)

Well, damn, explains a lot.

Susan of Texas said...

I'm still trying to figure out this mystery we call McArdle.

It's odd, yet typical. She's heard of loss leaders yet it doesn't occur to her that Wegman's would use them, and when they do it's a stroke of genius?

It will be interesting to see if other chains follow suit.

What an astonishing idea. I know--let's call it a price war!

Tom M said...

Next thing ya know, she'll be onto BOGOs. Call when she figures that one out.

Brad said...

This is kinda funny insofar as I used to live within Wegmans' sphere of influence. Alas, I lived on the wrong side of town, couldn't afford "the best supermarket in the entire world," had to shop at the P&C (makers of the worst store-brand margarine ever), and, despite their "war on inflation," don't see them as allies of the truly cash strapped.

More to the point, why on earth is the Atlantic paying someone to write about New York state grocery prices? Will they fly Meg out to Minnesota to tell me whether Cub or Rainbow represents a better value? Because, you know, I'm too stupid to read the flyers I get in the mail every week and need a Booth MBA to help me figure it out.

Seriously, "customers will remember Wegmans as the company that helped them out a little when times are tough" is basically a joke. Now that I'm in a competitive large metro area I've got two major supermarkets sending me ads every single week offering me a few cents difference over a chicken, a gallon of milk, or whatever. No one I know would be loyal in the sense McMegan envisions. The winning supermarket is either a few blocks closer or a few cents cheaper this very week on a given household's staples.

BTW, my carping about Wegmans represents a rather particularly time (long ago) and place (far away). Best wishes to current Wegmans shoppers!

Clever Pseudonym said...

You've got to love how Megan describes a simple marketing ploy as "genius." It's a feat of brilliance to lure shoppers in with promises of savings! But she thinks it's the best supermarket ever, so even though most people in the country haven't heard of it, don't give a shit about it and won't be affected by this one way or another, it's still worthy to publish in the Atlantic.

Jeebus, how low into the bowels of idiocy and self-absorption does this moron have to sink before she gets fired? It's damn near every day where I read someone pointing out her stupidity or simple errors and scores of others following with claims that she's the single reason they pulled the plug on their subscription. She can delude herself all she wants and claim it's just liberals who don't like her politics or mean, jealous people with no life. Meanwhile, in the real world, it's her sloppy writing, mundane observations such as the one highlighted by Susan's shorter, the factual errors and mistakes she makes on a daily basis, among her many other incompentencies in the field of journalism, that will continue to earn her criticism and drag the Atlantic deeper into the quicksand that's sucking away their credibility and any semblence of respect they've got left.

RIP, journalism, as long as this twit is employed as one.

Mr. Wonderful said...

The company is no longer opening stores in New York, perhaps because the state's business climate is routinely ranked among the worst in the nation.

Or, alternatively, perhaps because New York state has become a blasted plain of roaming zombie hordes foraging for human flesh amid the ruins of a post-nuclear holocaust.

It's a shame there's no way to find out the real reason. I have my theory, and Megan has hers.