Equal time

Here's a well-written response to the boob who wrote a couple of weeks ago in the Flier about how Giant Food hates suburbia--well, it at least makes us pay more for stuff than it makes District residents pay.

Grocery chain's pricing follows economic principles

The letter from (Hayduke--name left out to protect the foolish), "Giant stereotypes customers according to where they live," compares Giant's prices in the District of Columbia and the suburbs. To him, the difference somehow suggests a focus on the monetary status and sophistication of residents: D.C. is poor and unsophisticated, while suburbanites are rich and sophisticated.

Perhaps the true discrimination comes from (the guy)'s assumptions on the correlation of sophistication and monetary worth.

The fact is that Giant researched the market and determined how much it could profit based upon what the market could bear. That's the law of supply and demand.

Actually, only because I'm a stickler, what Giant is doing is technically called price discrimination. But that's a principle of microeconomics, and not the type of discrimination the first writer was implying (or even knows about).