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Being straight
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There are those who give us correct information. They say nothing but the truth, but they omit certain details. They say what they want to say so that you're convinced of the correctness of their ways.

Notable among these are the telemarketers. They tell you how wonderful their product is. They may call you up about a new health insurance plan, for example and they tell you what their plan offers.

They leave out information, however, regarding the other health plans that are available, including the one that you have at the present time. When you would look at the entire picture you might find that theirs is really not superior to yours. Yes, it offers wonderful things, but it leaves out certain things. It also does not explain the fine print.

Cell phone plans are similar. Basically, all cell phone plans are the same at the bottom line. None are substantially cheaper or more expensive. But when you go into a cell phone store or a retail outlet they will tell you how wonderful their particular phone is and how wonderful the plan they have is tailor made for you would be. When you look into it in greater detail you find out that it really is the same as every other one. Even the one that says that they charge less per second or per minute is not true. You pay for the plan in order for them to charge you less per minute and you have to follow certain requirements in order to gain the benefit of it.

Banks that tell you that you can reduce their service charges by joining a certain plan omit the fact that the plan itself costs money to join, similar to cell phone plans, and when you consider the money that you pay to join the plan and the monthly maintenance charge for the plan, it is questionable that you are indeed saving any money. All that you are saving might be the frequent line items that the detailed charges but not the charges themselves.

Supermarket sales are also misleading. They give part of the information. They might have a loss leader which is indeed cheaper and when you get to the store you discover that it is out of stock. In the meantime you are already there so you buy other things. In other cases there might be a few items that have been advertised at a good price, but when you arrive at the store you discover that your coupon entitles you to only a quantity of one for those particular items. You need more, so you buy others at the regular price and while you're in the store you continue to buy. They've gotten you into the store. They have fooled you and you go ahead and patronize them only because of the way that they fooled you. They told you about the price of the item and it's true, but they left out the quantity. In other words, they told you part of the story. Sometimes the coupon even says the quantity limit, but you neglected to read the fine print. In other words, the store is covered. Supposedly they did not cheat you.

The amazing thing is that many of us return to that store time and again with coupons and we let them cheat us time and again or we neglect to read the fine print time and again.

Political candidates may tell us about their platform. They tell us what they are going to do but they omit other things that they are not going to do which would not be in your favor. They're selective about the information based upon the audience and based upon the message that they want to get across. If they promise additional social services for example, they neglect to mention the fact that these social services are going to cost money and that your taxes will have to rise in order to cover those services. They tell you what they want to say.

In every case we would be much happier if we would know the entire story. We would be happier in the long run if they would tell it to us straight. Yet, nonetheless many of us continue to believe politicians and their promises and we go along with the process.

Perhaps we are at fault. We should be more careful and alert, but it is all too easy to accept the blame on ourselves. It isn't really our fault, although we tend to smack our forehead when something like this happens and ask ourselves how we could possibly have been so foolish about the issue. It isn't really our fault. It's our society's fault. Our society that allows people to get away with giving us partial information.

We're never happy about this situation but the people who give the partial information can always say that they are operating in a society in which everybody else offers partial information. In order to survive they have to advertise and publicize themselves in a similar way.

Perhaps.

Then shouldn't we work towards an honest and just society? That society could start by giving us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The whole truth - and not just part of the truth.

Where do you want to go now?

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