Steal My Deal

Every year new opportunities find consumers who are looking for ways to save money and improve their lives. Those opportunities often manifest themselves as special one-time sales, promotional giveaways, and sweepstakes. Some companies turn to these types of marketing campaigns only during recessions or periods when their sales slump. After all, the companies are taking risks by incurring unusual expenses that may not be recouped through sales.

The thing is, if you’re looking for a good sale you should check out companies that have strong reason to offer you a sale: their inventories are high, they are rolling out new versions of old products, poor economic times are hurting their industry, etc. These kinds of consumer incentives often come with steep discounts in the prices of otherwise high cost goods. Some companies even take a loss on price just to keep revenue coming in, as allowing inventory to sit in a warehouse doesn’t bring in any revenue at all.

And not every company is struggling to make ends meet. You may luck out and find a great deal by a company that is celebrating a major anniversary or milestone. For example, in 2009 Penguin Windows created a Summer Home Improvement Sweepstakes to match its 25th year in business. The Penguin Windows campaign offered $25,000 in prizes for new customers or prospects. As with any sweepstakes you did not have to buy product to be entered into the competition.

Consumers had other options to consider, too. For example, the major automobile manufacturers struggled with new car sales all year long and they offered incredible deals on their inventories. Prices on television sets, radios, and other electronic merchandise also dropped. So whether you found a great deal with Penguin Windows or some other high end vendor, hopefully you saved a lot of money in 2009 and contributed to the economic recovery we all looked forward to.

Theodore Herzl, the visionary who founded Zionism, was an assimilated Jew, who did not consider Palestine the optimal choice for a resurgent Jewish nationalism.

When the British offered to him a homeland in East Africa (today’s Uganda), he accepted and proposed it to the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basle in 1903. After bitter recriminations, the Congress decided (295 for, 178 against) to send an “investigatory commission” to the territory to inspect it and report back.

Herzl vowed that the Uganda scheme is not a substitute for the reclamation of Palestine as the historic homeland of the Jewish people. But his actions defied his speech. He pursued the British proposal to his death (in 1904) as did many other prominent Jewish leaders, organized in the Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO).

The plan was decisively abandoned only after the Balfour Declaration which granted the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine under the British mandate.

Yet, in the meantime, other territorial plans emerged: in Canada, Australia, Iraq, Libya, and Angola. Close to 10,000 Jews settled in Texas. Stalin created a “Jewish Homeland” in Birobidjan. Even the Nazis tried to revive some of these “solutions to the Jewish question” - notably in Lublin, Poland and in the island of Madagascar.

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com