Do they take me for a simpleton? From The Vault: November 2010 Kenner Star

    I am looking at a news article from 1988 on the USA TODAY website. The headline reads: “Have you noticed products are getting smaller, but prices remain the same?”
    Stop the presses!
    Excuse me?
    Can you say “hypocrite?”
    The article itself was actually first published in the Los Angeles Times and reads as follows: “Across the supermarket, manufacturers are trimming packages, nipping a half-ounce off that bar of soap, narrowing the width of toilet paper and shrinking the size of ice cream containers. For example, the makers of Skippy peanut butter added a large dimple to the bottom of the jar that allowed them to cut 1.7 ounces without any obvious changes to the packaging. The question is whether consumers who notice they are getting less for their money will stop buying the product.”
    While this news article was not a USA TODAY investigative piece, the mere fact they ran the story is ironic here in 2010. I mean, have you picked up a USA TODAY lately?
It’s hardly wider than a roll of the aforementioned toilet paper. I used to be able to sit at my breakfast table, and hold the paper in front of me with a firm grip on both the left side and the right side. Now I can hold it in one hand without folding it in half.
    I’m not complaining that the paper has fewer pages because, I realize, nationwide, newspaper advertising has gone into the dumper. I am used to section A of the Times-Picayune’s Monday edition being only four pages - that is, one sheet of paper folded in half. But the width of the paper is almost as big is as it used to be.
    I walked by a drugstore counter recently and saw President Obama on a postage stamp. I said to myself, “Are they making Obama stamps now?” Then I realized I was looking at Time magazine, with the president on the cover. Okay, so, I’m exaggerating a little. But, they’ve chopped down Time so much it seemed to me I could put it inside my wallet like a book of stamps.
    And even though our newspapers and magazines are literally downsizing, the cost is not cheaper. In fact, prices have gone up. I remember when USA TODAY went to a dollar. It was before they started taking a scissors to it. In the old days it was 50 cents. And much bigger.
    I’m guessing you get my point. Instead of raising prices, manufacturers are shrinking their products and keeping prices the same (or, in the case of USA TODAY, raising the prices just before they shrink the product). It’s happening all over, and for many years. The reason it took so long for America to catch on, is just that: we were used to prices going up, not staying the same, so we didn’t notice everything was shrinking.
    The first thing I noticed getting smaller was cereal boxes. Then candy bars. Then liquid soap, where they make the bottles taller, thinner and put dimples in them, and an 11.5 ounce Dial Soap dispenser looks actually bigger, but is only 9.5 ounces. Same thing with shaving cream and dishwashing liquid. The container looks taller and has a headline that says, “Now, 25 per cent more FREE!” But, the cans are merely taller, and still hold only 14 ounces, or whatever the old measurement. In this case we think we are getting more for the same price but we are getting the same, which, I suppose is better than getting less for the old price. I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies, “A Man for all Seasons,” in which King Henry VIII cries out, “Do they take me for a simpleton?” Apparently, yes.
    So, what’s the solution to all of this? Are we doomed to see everything get smaller and smaller and more expensive? If we are, the least they could do is be honest about it. My solution is this: truth in labeling. No, not those nutrition labels, which are so complicated and confusing we never know if they’re telling the truth or not. I’m referring to the big label, the brand name, the front door. For instance:
    Seven Up would become Six Up
    Motel 8 would become Motel 7
    Motel 6  – Motel 5
    WD 40 - WD - 39.95
    Colt 45 - Colt 33 and a third
    A-1 Steak Sauce - A.5 Steak Sauce
Let’s cut to the chase and go straight to:
    Chanel No. 4; Heinz 56; Coke Minus One; Vicks Formula 22; Seagram’s 5;  Half-a-Day Vitamins; Product 18; Two Musketeers; and 7 O’clock Coffee.
    Our shrinkage should not be limited to supermarket products. We might downsize many other things that have shaped our lives. We would come up with such things as: The 6 and a half Commandments; The Eleven Days of Christmas; Lincoln might have said “Three score and seven years ago”; Our children will read The Two Little Pigs.
    Movies would be a prime target: 2001 The Movie would be discounted to 1999; George’s Orwell’s 1984 would become 1957 (a much better year in my mind); Jane Fonda in 9,000 B.C, (which actually should be 11,000 B.C. because you go the other way when it’s B.C.); The Magnificent 3; Gone in 30 Seconds; Oceans 10; The 3:05 To Yuma, not to mention  High Dawn (think about it).
    Shrinking, of course, can create problems. For instance what will Walt Disney World do with It’s A Small World?  (It’s A Smaller World?). Will it be Louisa May Alcott’s “Littler Women?”
    I suppose the most honest label I could propose would be, “Now, 25 per cent less shampoo at a much higher price!”
    Oh well, I guess I better get back to my USA TODAY before it disappears completely.