848
Shamelessly stolen from Reddit (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
151 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
An image of dolphins gleefully springing forth from the water, a rainbow over their heads. The top text reads “how it feels” The bottom text reads “to in form a customer there is no military discount”.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 45 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I'm not from the U.S., but why would people from the military get a discount? If you do that as a store, why not doctors and nurses too? Why stop there and why not include firefighters, government workers or teachers?

And who compensates you as a business owner for these giveaways? If your store happens to be close to an army base, do you just accept the disadvantage of giving away part of your profit?

It sounds pretty stupid. People should get paid enough to pay full price for their stuff. Especially by the government. Especially in a country that allocates an enormous part of their GDP to their military.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 12 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago*

    Teachers did actually get benefits in my country until 2016. It was a pretty decent system.

    If you are a landlord then having an operational school nearby increases local rent prices so you do get to profit from charging teachers less rent.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 year ago

    Many Americans have an uncanny reverence for the military and those who served. I guess that reverence seeped its way into many a retail store’s management.

    I think it’s just about optics for the most part.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I could be wrong here... but around the George W. Bush administration + 9/11 and the government painting everything they do as something to protect "against the terrorists!!!!" that's when a lot of things started happening.

    That's when the view of the military seemed to flip and it's just been stuck that way. Movies like Top Gun were made as a PR stunt to make the military look better. The same is for basically every cop show out there: make cops look like the good guys. Anywho, every company went out of their way to really show "how much they support the troops" by giving a discount. And every smooth-brain started saying "THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE" every single time. The hero worship was/is real, and it shouldn't be, and it's a real problem. (Totally different conversation, but it's led to an influx of people joining the military, or trying to, who really shouldn't). Before Bush + 9/11, I don't recall military discounts outside of, like, businesses that were owned/operated by vets.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I've heard that some food joints would offer military discounts back when people were figuring out how bad Vietnam was especially with how many vets were coming back broken and homeless. Theres at least one place near me that's had a veterans discount as far back as '78, they also let folks camp out in their parking lot since it was a bit bigger to accommodate the firetrucks since they were in a more central location than the fire station at the time.

    Rambling aside, veterans discount started out as a way to help conscripted veterans during and after the fustercluck that was Vietnam and then was hijacked at some point.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    why not doctors and nurses too? Why stop there and why not include firefighters, government workers or teachers?

    Some places do this.

    Who compensates you

    In a round about way - everyone else. Though it's possible you just make less profit 5% of the time.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent