Well, not everything. Nobody shops taverns to find a Coors Light for 25% off. You don’t expect it. You just order the brew and pay the tab. Same is true for a lot of goods and services. Go to the doctor, see your attorney, call a plumber or electrician. Then pay the bill, whatever it is, because that’s what it is. You may resent it, but you don’t shop around for a sale on these things because they don’t exist. The power company doesn’t have a sale on electricity. Ever. But nearly everything else out there is marked down, cut, slashed, shaved and trimmed. Why is that? Because getting something for less or for nothing appeals to one of our most basic instincts: greed. Everybody wants a deal. Paying full price is cause for depression and loss of self esteem. We don’t even care that List Prices are inflated to begin with. We still play the game. The discount boys have taken sales to a new level by persuading consumers that everything is always on sale, trusting that we’ll behave like cattle and stampede to the water hole. Which we do without a moment’s hesitation. It might be interesting for someone to open a retail chain called “Never On Sale” where merchandise is always priced fairly, where service is exemplary, where people who work there do well enough to have careers and where the stores make a profit. In fact, what would happen if nothing were ever on sale, per se? Why, sellers would have to come up with other ways to compete and attract customers—things other than price. My, my, this might lead to face-to-face negotiating, where salespeople actually talk with customers, learning what they need and steering them in the right direction.