Stupid Pilot Tricks - Insurance Co. Trying to Back Out

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
The customized price isn't the Bad Thing. The deception and misuse of a
very
one-sided information exchange (Amazon knows everything useful about you,
you
know nothing useful about the decisionmakers at Amazon) that is the Bad
Thing

I don't see how it's one-sided. Assuming there's no collusion with other
retailers going on (which would be illegal), the consumer can know
practically everything they actually need to know simply by comparing prices
between Amazon and other retailers.

Pete

The customized price isn't the Bad Thing.
The deception and misuse of a very
one-sided information exchange (Amazon
knows everything useful about you, you
know nothing useful about the decisionmakers
at Amazon) that is the Bad Thing

I don't see how it's one-sided. Assuming there's no collusion with other
retailers going on (which would be illegal), the consumer can know
practically everything they actually need to know simply by comparing prices
between Amazon and other retailers.


It's one sided inasmuch as Amazon (or any modern retailer in this age of
networked computers) tracks and correlatess your interests via (say) your past
purchases, your zip code, your bank, whether you own or rent, your traffic
ticket history, in short any publicly available information they can get their
hands on and correlate or infer. This gets compared by machine with an entire
nation of other purchasers; in far more detail than your local greengrocer
could. Then they are the ones that make the initial offer, take it or leave
it. The retailer doesn't "need to know" my political affiliation, what brand
of car I drive, or how many condoms I purchase, but it sure helps them infer
how much I might be willing to pay for something they are selling.

I might get to know my local greengrocer as a person just as well as they get
to know me. But I will never get to know the executives (who make the initial
and often final offer) at the national retailers to this degree of detail, nor
do I have reasonable access to the other data which would allow me to correlate
the information, nor do I get to make an initial offer to Amazon (take it or
leave it), nor are there nearly as many alternative deal partners for me as
there is for a national retailer.

It is very one-sided.

It would take a natoinal boycott to influence the behavior of a national
retailer; a single shopper has next to no effect. However, a single retailer
can have a profound influence on the behavior of many individuals at once.

Jose


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There is no reason that he =should= be buying it for exactly the same
price.

The idea of a fixed price, as opposed to each transaction involving
negotiation, is a relatively recent innovation. How this innovation has
become a Law of the Universe, I cannot say.

Somewhere I read that it came about in the Puritan days. Or Pilgrim
days? What's the diff between them, anyway? The story is that the
leader of the group got tired of all the time wasted dickering about
prices on market day and persuaded the people to set fixed prices for
goods.

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

It's one sided inasmuch as Amazon (or any modern retailer in this age of
networked computers) tracks and correlatess your interests via (say) your
past
purchases, your zip code, your bank, whether you own or rent, your traffic
ticket history [...]

I guess if you can't stick to factual statements, there's not much point in
this discussion.

It's one sided inasmuch as Amazon (or any modern retailer in this age of
networked computers) tracks and correlatess your interests via (say) your
past
purchases, your zip code, your bank, whether you own or rent, your traffic
ticket history [...]

I guess if you can't stick to factual statements, there's not much point in
this discussion.


Ok, maybe not your traffic ticket history. And I don't work for a major
retailer. But the "privacy" agreements one gets in the mail or read on the web
are pretty explicit that they share their information with "... and
unaffiliated third parties as permitted by law." I have no doubt that they do
so.

Jose
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(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

AES/newspost wrote in message ...
In article t,
"Mike Rapoport" wrote:

Why should they pay a claim if they are not required to?

Fair question -- but from a broader social point of view, if an
expensive object (like an airplane) that has some small but significant
change of causing massive damage to innocent third parties is going to
be exist and be operated at all, maybe (or for sure, IMHO) it should be
impossible for it to operate, or even exist, without at least liability
coverage for damage to others.

So maybe a legislative requirement on any company providing any kind of
aviation related insurance should be that all their policies must always
contain third-party liability coverage -- insurance on a plane should be
required to include liability coverage for others no matter who operates
it (even if it's stolen); insurance on a pilot should include liability
coverage for others, no matter what plane he operates (or in what
condition).

Seems a bit strange to require a certain type of insurance when no
insurance is required at all today.


My impression is that in Europe auto insurance coverage goes with the
car, not the driver. If so, good idea.

Same in the U.S. If you (one person) go out and buy 5 cars, you will
find that each car causes your rate to increase. The reason is because
the car creates liability indepenent of the driver.

Our governor just vetoed drivers license for undocumented immigrants on
grounds of inadequate insurance provisions: also a good idea,
independent of views on whether undocumented immigrants should be given
drivers licenses at all.

The illegal alien license was just a silly back door solution to avoid
addressing a real problem. If X number of immigrants are required to
run the state of California, then the feds need to come up with X
number of work permits. Making people live in a half-illegal status is
just stupid. If they're as needed as we're told, they need work
permits (i.e. be legal).

-Robert

On 06 Oct 2004 06:01:55 -0700, Bob Fry
wrote:

Somewhere I read that it came about in the Puritan days. Or Pilgrim
days? What's the diff between them, anyway?

The Puritans were a religious sect (very pure, as you can imagine).
The Pilgrims came to America (very seasick, as you can imagine).

I am reasonably sure that the Pilgrims were Puritans, but it wasn't a
necessary condition. It does not seem that Miles Standish, for
example, was very pure. Didn't he dally with Pocahontas? Or was that
John Alden? Or Priscilla? I forget.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! www.vivabush.org

On 06 Oct 2004 09:38:08 GMT, (Teacherjh)
wrote:

it sure helps them infer
how much I might be willing to pay for something they are selling.

Are you saying that Amazon has different prices for different
customers? I doubt it.

I do applaud, however, your correct use of "infer"

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! www.vivabush.org

Cub Driver wrote:
On 06 Oct 2004 09:38:08 GMT, (Teacherjh)
wrote:


it sure helps them infer
how much I might be willing to pay for something they are selling.


Are you saying that Amazon has different prices for different
customers? I doubt it.

I do applaud, however, your correct use of "infer"

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com
Viva Bush! www.vivabush.org


It's too much to say that the charge different prices for different
customers in general, but they have experimented with the idea. It
didn't go over well in their initial trials.

"Customers of Amazon.com, the behemoth e-commerce retailer, were
recently startled and quite upset when they learned that the online
mega-store was charging different customers different prices for the
same DVD movies.[1] Amazon, it appears, was engaging in a form of
“dynamic pricing” – an innovative pricing mechanism made possible by
recent advances in information technology."

Read more he
http://www.vjolt.net/vol6/issue2/v6i2-a11-Weiss.html

-Aviv

Are you saying that Amazon has different prices for different
customers? I doubt it.


Amazon did at one point. It caused a bit of a furor and the practice was
dropped.

Somebody said that "you can find out everything you need about Amazon by
comparing prices" (in reply to my comment that they knew far more about you
than you knew about them). When pricing is based on your personal history, in
order to find out "everything you need to know" you'd need to know the prices
that Amazon (or any other retailer) is charging your neighbors, and what their
personal history is. That information is not available to you, making it one
sided.

I saw the nose in the tent flap; the camel is out there.

Jose
(imagine the impact of newspaper articles "customized for you" to your personal
history... it's not farfetched at all)




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