True, these packets are free, and true, it's tough to notice that 0.125 ounces of sweet & sour are missing from your fries/nuggets, but this is a dire sign indeed. The GDP numbers may say that the recession is over, but sauce packet shrinkage is in full effect.

At left is a side-by-side roll comparison sent in by Richard. The width of each roll has been decreased from 4.5 inches to 4 inches.

Jack notes:

Both say "24 Double Rolls = 48 Regular Rolls" but the previously purchased rolls have 300 sheets each that are 4.5 inches by 4 inches. The new packages have rolls that contain only 286 4 inch by 4 inch rolls. The older rolls had 900 square feet, while the new ones only 762.6 square feet.

So let's see - on each roll I get 137.4 fewer square feet, 14 fewer sheets, and each sheet is half an inch narrower(!), yet the price is approximately the same (about $10 a package on sale, if you have a coupon). Good job, Northern, you've just convinced me to start buying the store brand, or at least some other brand that doesn't try to short me on the size of the rolls.

Apparently, the difference is fairly obvious once the new roll is placed on a spool, so we're not sure who Georgia-Pacific, maker of Northern, thinks they're kidding.

The bag now contains 10 ounces of chocolate goodness instead of the previous 12, but the recipe on the back of the bag was left unchanged. Oops. "The shrink ray found its most important target but failed to remove all evidence. To adjust I just need to be sure to use only 1.67 eggs," Mike observed.

(Photo: The GlassPeople)

In case you can't read that, send your ugly resume + a reason why you deserve the makeover to helpme@goodinc.com.

You can read other articles, including ones that didn't make it into the reduced-capacity issue, at www.good.is.

We noted in July that food prices were expected to rise. The justifications offered by the companies at the time were that the price increases were necessary due to the rises in the cost of production and commodity prices.

When we wrote that post, gas was about $4 per gallon. The price has fallen dramatically since September, to around $2 per gallon, about what it was in 2005. So fuel costs are no longer a justification.

The Times article cites a few examples of products whose main ingredients have also decreased in price, yet the products themselves have gotten more expensive (and gotten smaller). Kraft macaroni and cheese, for instance, went up by 9% this year, even though cheese and wheat prices have dropped by 38-68%. There's a chart that lists the drops in commodity prices over the last year; pretty much everything but chicken wings and pineapples have decreased in price.

Manufacturers blame the price increases on futures contracts they unwisely bought, and now they're paying too much for cheapened ingredients. Bad speculation strikes again!

Grocers, name-brand food producers at odds over prices [L.A. Times]
(Photo: billadler)

Thank You Network

(Citibank)

Citibank put a lot of marketing money into convincing customers that its "Thank You Network" was all hugs and sunshine, but it turns out it's the same as any other program backed by a credit card company. Their fixed-point flight redemption offer is going away on March 1st, and earlier this month Adam discovered that they've already lowered the cap from $4200 to $2800, although there was no mention of this change on their website when he logged in to redeem his points. The fine print says they can change terms at any time without notice, and apparently they have, too bad for you if you've been saving up points for the past couple of years.

Citibank's "ThankYou" network (www.thankyou.com) has offered a fixed-point flight redemption offer for a while. 140,000 points, for instance, has netted a roundtrip business class flight valued up to $4200 between the continental U.S. and Hawaii.

Apparently, on March 1st, the ThankYou network will no longer offer fixed flight redemptions. I learned of this only second-hand, from a forum on the web (FlyerTalk). I never received ANY notice from Citibank, and in fact, when I called to confirm the rumor by calling Citibank (the # listed on my credit card), I was told that it was untrue and that nothing was changing.

But here's the more frustrating clincher. When I called to book a flight yesterday, I was on hold for over an hour (!) and the agent refused to book the flight, saying the cap had been changed from $4200 to $2800. I explained that I had not heard of this, and that the site still showed $4200. No dice. Talked to two managers, but they refused to honor the listed price cap.

I was told that:

- Citibank deemed that it no longer wished to honor the earlier offer as of this past Monday.
- Citibank maintained the right to change its redemption levels at any time, for any reason, and without notification.

Home Depot Rewards

(Mastercard)

Home Depot has also decided to reduce the value of your points, only they're taking a more Target-style approach. Jason noticed that not only will he need to redeem more points for gift cards than he used to, but that the value of his points drops if he opts for larger card values. Translation: it's "cheaper" to order two $25 gift cards than one $50 gift card.

I recently logged into my Home Depot rewards card to find that I have 12,000 + "reward" points to spend. In the past I would trade 10,000 points for a $100 Home Depot gift card. Recently, they decided to revamp the rewards system— now the $100 gift card "costs" 12,000 points. But that's not the point- check out the rest of the choices:




3,500 points for a $25 gift card (140 points/$)
8,000 points for a $50 gift card (160 points/$)

HUH? Is that $50 gift card somehow "special"? Perhaps it's a "convenience charge" ala Ticketmaster. "Only one card to keep track of!" That's worth at least 1000 points!

Even better,

55,000 points for a $600 gift card (91 points/$)
125,000 points for a $1250 gift card (100 points/$)

Are they just betting on the idiocy of their customers? I guess so...

We're concerned by the quotes around "4 LB BAG" on the top right. It could just be misuse of quotation marks for emphasis, but it reminds us of last week's story about TV manufacturers adding "class" after the inch listing so they can list a 31.5-inch screen as a 32-inch screen. Are these chicken wings actually 3 pounds, 8 ounces, and they're rounding up?

Thanks, Stephen!

The Times writes that advertising circulars for Best Buy, Circuit City, and other stores are listing TVs as inch "classes," rather than actual measurements, to allow them to shave half an inch off the actual screen size. Take this one from Best Buy: Dynex® - 32" Class 720p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV - Matte Black. It then goes on to say 32 inches twice more:

Experience your favorite action movies and sports shows in high-definition on this 32" LCD HDTV that features an ultrafast 6.5 ms response time for fluid visuals and wide 176° viewing angles that help make any seat the best in the house.
What's Included

* Dynex® 32" Class 720p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV
* Stationary base
* Remote with batteries
* 5' detachable power cord
* Owner's manual

Scroll down further, though, and it lists a "31-1/2" screen size measured diagonally from corner to corner, ideal for medium-size rooms." These inch class listings exist for Samsung, Toshiba, and other big manufacturers. The Times reporter contacted the stores and manufacturers and got varying explanations. Best Buy said:

We also started using the word “Class” to describe the size of the television if the screen size was not, in fact, exactly the size at which that television is classified . . . . If a 32″ television is actually 31.5″ we think a customer might want to know that even though it might not seem like a big deal to some people.

This is troubling news. At least with the grocery shrink ray, the reduced size wasn't deceptively labeled (imagine a Breyer's "Half-Gallon Class" that only contained 1.5 quarts).

The Mysterious Shrinking TV [NYT]
(Photo: Getty)

Brian points out in his letter to the company:

One of two things is happening Mr. Niblock; either the people responsible for manufacturing your labels are making mistakes, or your company is falsely advertising the quantity of some of their buckets of paint.

According to the Journal, some establishments are subtly reducing their "pint" glasses to 14 ounces, rather than the full 16 ounces that comprise a pint, either by using smaller glasses or using heavy-bottomed pint glasses (called "falsies") that have reduced capacity. Other bars are giving patrons extra head on their pours in order to fill up the glass. When confronted, restaurateurs were alarmingly frank: A representative for Hooters (which, really, should understand that its patrons value size) explained, "We can get 20 more beers out of a keg that way." Another defended the decision to switch to the 14 ounce glasses: "Someone who comes in and wants a beer doesn't want a huge glass. Fourteen ounces is enough." As a connoisseur of forties, mug nights, and gallon daiquiri Sundays, we must stress how wrongheaded a sentiment that is. Some pint fans have begun outing the faux-pint establishments and the Oregon legislature is considering having the state agriculture department monitor violations, but in the meantime, might we suggest a flask?

A Pint-Size Problem (Thanks to Gwen!)
(Photo: Getty)