Jophiel wrote:
I don't think alma is comparing the surcharge to a tip. I think Gbaji made an argument in another thread about how an extra buck on your tab might be the breaking point between being able to afford to go out and eat or not. The response there being that if a buck was going to topple your household finances, you probably shouldn't be trying to toe the brink of fiscal ruin by budgeting out your final discretionary pennies anyway.
Yeah. That's what Alma keeps insisting I was saying. Complete with all sorts of the same "if one dollar breaks you, you shouldn't be eating out at all anyway" logic. The actual point I was making is that every penny of a bill affects the decision to pay it versus spending that money on something else. It's not about being able to afford it, period, but that as the cost rises for the same product (regardless of what it is) the likelihood you'd rather spend that money on something else instead increases. I could afford to eat out every single day if I wanted to. I don't, because I'd rather save the ten thousand or so dollars I'd spend a year doing that on something more useful and productive.
Most people make spending choices well before the point at which they physically can't afford something. Alma doesn't seem to grasp that though. He seems to think that everyone just looks at the money they have and the cost of something and if the former is more than the latter, they buy it. I suppose maybe some really stupid people manage their money that way, but most people don't.
Having said that, this has
absolutely nothing to do with this thread. My point here is that it's not about people's purchasing choices at all, but about raising awareness of the cost of Obamacare. I keep saying this, and people keep responding with stuff like "But will this increase or decrease business at the restaurant chain?". I don't know, and honestly don't think that's much of a factor. IMO, the bigger point to the "gimmic" is to get people to realize that Obamcare affects the costs of things other than just the bill they pay for health insurance.