ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603150019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SHEESH. THESE are distrustful times.
In The Wall Street Journal, we read that Girl Scout cookie orders are creating "Workplace Strife" in parts of the country because some workers are hawking their kids' cookies for $2.50 a box, others for $3 a box.
"Thin Hints of 'Ripoffs','' the headline forewarns. And, sure enough, the report confirms that some parents/agents, bringing order forms to work to boost their daughters' sales, find themselves suspected of chicanery by co-workers who learn they can get the cookies cheaper from some other mom or dad.
Not even cookie momsters are above suspicion these days. In fact, each Girl Scout Council is free to charge whatever it wants for the cookies, and where the borders of council regions meet, prices sometimes differ. The price difference is justified, the higher-priced councils argue, because their expenses differ.
Alas, even when assured that they are not being cheated, some folks cancel their orders with one person and take their business elsewhere - like to the next desk over, which is offering low, low prices. Forgotten, apparently, is the fact that these sales are fund-raisers for a good cause. It's a lesson in cold, market economics.
Here in the heart of Virginia Skyline Girl Scout Council territory - covering 361/3 Virginia counties plus a county and a town in West Virginia - no one is hearing any complaints. At $2.50 a box, the price is rock bottom, as fund-raisers go. The council hasn't raised its prices since 1989, when a box went up by 25 cents.
That's pricing strategy, girls, and it may account, in part, for this year's already hefty sales. So far, the council has sold more than 1.66 million boxes, compared to last year's 1.4 million boxes sold. And the fund-raiser goes until the end of March.
Would that increased sales were matched by increased trust among our citizens across the country. The Washington Post in a recent series of stories reported that "America is becoming a nation of suspicious strangers." According to an opinion poll, the percentage of those who say they trust other people fell from 54 percent in 1964 to 35 percent last year.
Yet aren't most people, most of the time, still good Scouts?
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB