[joey2665]

Originally Posted by jeffk

The point is that Hermit Woods was transparent as to why they are raising their prices. If you disagree with the policy and price, don't shop there. B&J does it in the background by building their "social program" costs into the base price. Purchasers of either product are still paying for these programs whether you know about it or not. B&J's customers might want to put their heads in the sand about it and B&J's helps them do that by not breaking out the costs as an add-on charge. If B&J's has bumped their prices 5% to cover the cost of supporting their causes, isn't the effect the same?

For that matter, most banks, insurance companies, and other large businesses support music, plays, and lots of other local activities. Many are truly altruistic but if they don't they are not considered to be "good neighbors". They use a portion of the money I pay them to do this. I don't have a choice about it. What's the difference?

In addition, if I am a stockholder of one of these businesses, the management is taking some of the money that I should have received as returned profit and diverting it to other uses.

In short, businesses of all kinds are taking more money from us than they actually need to provide their products and using the surplus in ways they see fit. I agree that Hermit Woods doing it in such a obvious way can bug some people but the actual practice is typical for business.

I disagree in this instance. Again what any company does with its profit is up them and their shareholders to decide. They charge a price and I choose to purchase or not purchase that product. This is a specific surcharge for a specific purpose for a normal cost of doing business, "labor" which is always included in the sale price. This transparency in my eyes is NOT true transparency but a company making a political statement and passing it along directly to the consumer