Posted on 12/23/2018 3:43:05 AM PST by reaganaut1
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In cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, high-quality retailers often avoid majority-black neighborhoods. In segregated cities like Detroit, some residents say that trying to find something as basic as a Gap can feel impossible. Without mainstream stores, many customers in urban black neighborhoods are left to shop at low-quality and exploitative outlets that fleece their patrons during the holidays.
I saw this for myself when I walked into a holiday sale at Rent-A-Center in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Oversize flat-screen TVs lined the walls and overstuffed couches filled the floors. The large “No Credit Needed” sign on the window made me feel as if I might actually be able to afford something.
While walking me through the season specials, a sales representative pointed out an advertisement selling Beats by Dre headphones for $20 a week. It sounded reasonable enough until I read the fine print that explained after a 61-week payment plan the headphones would cost $1,219.39.
You can buy the headphones outright for $349.95 or less. So that’s not just an exorbitant markup. In some states it could be illegal.
In a current California class-action lawsuit against Rent-A-Center, lawyers argue that the company’s customers, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, are charged prices that violate the state’s rent-to-own pricing laws. The legal documents say that a Rent-A-Center in Northern California ultimately charged, after installments, $1,379.54 for an Xbox that normally retails at $299.99, and $2,834.19 for a television that sells for $717.60.
I have not been tempted to finance an Xbox this way, even though I grew up in black neighborhoods south and east of Atlanta — areas with no shortage of rent-to-own stores. I was lucky, though, to hear this simple advice from my dad from an early age: Spend cash, not credit.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is called patience. If you use Walmart’s layaway program you get the goods and don’t pay interest. Of course you don’t get it immediately
Racism? I'll bet the author never even considered the possibility of another explanation, and certainly not the obvious one.
In California — “Anything below $950 keeps the crime a misdemeanor”.
Which one?
The free stuff during the yearly riots?
The Above average rate of shop lifting?
or the reason D.C doesn't have a walmart- Walmart was going thru the permit process and it was blocked because the neighborhood didn't want a place where their sons and daughters and grand kids could easily get an arrest record? yes- they stopped a walmart from being built because they feared their kids would shop lift and get caught.
https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2013/07/20/blocking-walmart-from-washington-dc-would-hurt-poor-n1645107
Every time there’s a little social burp in an ethnic majority neighborhood there are riots and looting. Also, the theft rate in ethnic minority neighborhoods is much higher than in majority Caucasian neighborhoods. (My first job was at a K-Mart grocery store next to “the projects.” We never made a profit and eventually the K-Mart and our store went under while K-Mart was still a top retailer.)
There used to be a mall sharing the parking lot at Tampa stadium. When black schools played the malls would be mobbed and looted by “flash crowds,” so many people they started closing down for those games. They got sued and told they had to remain open during those games. All of the stores left the mall and it is now part of the parking lot.
Believe me, if stores could operate at the same or similar profit margin in ethnic neighborhoods, they would. But, they can’t. To have a store in your neighborhood requires that you, the customer, respect the rules of society. No respect, no store. It’s not racism, it’s economics.
or is it this negative Rap Video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHhaYiVtfIs
> after installments, $1,379.54 for an Xbox that normally retails at $299.99
We need to find out who forced them to pay installments instead of saving a little every week. Maybe it was the KKK? The Proud Boys? Global warming?
https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2018/09/14/woman-killed-by-friends-while-fleeing-walmart-shoplifting-spree/
“Without mainstream stores, many customers in urban black neighborhoods are left to shop at low-quality and exploitative outlets that fleece their patrons - “
Gee, I wonder why mainstream stores haven’t set up operations in such neighborhoods? I mean, certainly crime has nothing to do with it.
No mention about just what sort of merchant victimizes people with such practices...
All I can think about is the CVS in - was it Hampton Virginia? - that was looted during the “Black Lives Matter” kerfuffle. The accusation was that if CVS didn’t rebuild it was being racist. Opening that store in that neighborhood had to be one of the worst decisions they ever made.
This drivel might have easily been written in the 60’s and had some relevance to something other than abject stupidity. The author considers it blatant racism that Nordstroms and Macys are not located on every corner in the hood. Is this really worth the cost of ink and paper?
Not buying stuff on credit that you can’t use to make money (e.g., a car needed to get you to work) is simply a bad idea.
Those stores wouldn’t be and aren’t in any neighborhoods that don’t go for such irresponsible purchases. (E.g., wealthier and various immigrant neighborhoods.)
What do you mean by that?
Oh, the huge manatee! Children exiled to Devil's Island for stealing a loaf of bread during the famine in our inner cities!!! It's worse than anything Stalin ever did!
>> In segregated cities like Detroit, some residents say that trying to find something as basic as a Gap can feel impossible.
Do black customers want The GAP?
Tuesday Morning?
Hallmark gift stores?
>>fine print that explained after a 61-week payment plan the headphones would cost $1,219.39. You can buy the headphones outright for $349.95 or less. So that’s not just an exorbitant markup. In some states it could be illegal.
$350 is too much for headphones. Buy speakers instead.
But since a rapper was part of the Beats company (before selling out to Big Corp) “it’s worth it”.
Can you link me the article this is based on? I'd like to see who was being quoted. thanks.
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