According to this article in the NY Times, Supermarket chains like Kroger, Safeway and Ahold (Stop ‘n Shop) are experimenting with with personalized pricing for their customers.

What’s personalized pricing? It’s providing different pricing to customers based on their specific buying habits like this:

At a Safeway in Denver, a 24-pack of Refreshe bottled water costs $2.71 for Jennie Sanford, a project manager. For Emily Vanek, a blogger, the price is $3.69.

The difference? The vast shopping data Safeway maintains on both women through its loyalty card program. Ms. Sanford has a history of buying Refreshe brand products, but not its bottled water, while Ms. Vanek, a Smartwater partisan, said she was unlikely to try Refreshe.

So Ms. Sanford gets the nudge to put another Refreshe product into her grocery cart, with the hope that she will keep buying it, and increase the company’s sales of bottled water. A Safeway Web site shows her the lower price, which is applied when she swipes her loyalty card at checkout.

Safeway added the personalization program to its stores this summer. For now, it is creating personalized offers, but it says it has the capability to adjust prices based on shoppers’ habits and may add that feature.

Basically it’s “on the fly” coupons targeting customers likely to try a specific product.

So what’s the downside?

If your a regular customer of a brand or product, say Tide for example, you may have to pay more for a box of the detergent than someone buying the product at the exact same moment. The pricing model is expected to extend to other grocery chains — and over time could displace standardized price tags.

Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said shoppers should be cautious. The pricing at grocery stores and other retailers is not transparent enough to give consumers any real power or choice, he said, and “there’s a sense of fairness that’s derailed here.”

In a 2005 survey conducted by Professor Turow, most adult respondents did not know that retailers could legally charge different prices, and more than 90 percent said they would dislike it if their supermarket charged different prices to different people within the same hour.

Retailers say the groundwork has been laid with individualized coupons, which are resoundingly popular. Sites like Amazon have also made consumers comfortable with custom offers and varying pricing, they say

So if personalized pricing is the future for retail, how can you win?

Some shoppers are already figuring out ways to beat the system. Two women, both of whom live in the Denver area, were among the first customers that Safeway asked to test its pricing program in return for a $50 gift card.

Like any good shoppers, these ladies are already starting to game the system: One noticed that she received cheaper prices on ground coffee when she alternated between Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts brands rather than buying just Starbucks.

Either way wih technology , retailers are trying to get the shirt of your back

In the No Shit Sherlock category AP reports Social Security “Not the deal it once was” for workers.

People retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It’s a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press

If you retired in 1960, you could expect to get back seven times more in benefits than you paid in Social Security taxes, and more if you were a low-income worker, as long you made it to age 78 for men and 81 for women.

As recently as 1985, workers at every income level could retire and expect to get more in benefits than they paid in Social Security taxes, though they didn’t do quite as well as their parents and grandparents.

Not anymore.

A married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

Social Security benefits are progressive, so most low-income workers retiring today still will get slightly more in benefits than they paid in taxes. Most high-income workers started getting less in benefits than they paid in taxes in the 1990s, according to data from the Social Security Administration.

Obviously all of us that really counted on a Govt. backed Ponzi Scheme to fund our lavish retirement are both shocked and saddened at this sudden and unforeseen turn of events:

The trustees who oversee Social Security say its funds, which have been built up over the past 30 years with surplus payroll taxes, will run dry in 2033 unless Congress acts. At that point, payroll taxes would provide enough revenue each year to pay about 75 percent of benefits.

To cover the shortfall, future retirees probably will have to pay higher taxes while they are working, accept lower benefits after they retire, or some combination of both.

“Future generations are going to do worse because either they are going to get fewer benefits or they are going to pay higher taxes,” said Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official who has studied the issue as a fellow at the Urban Institute.

So how can we game the system…. why the answer is perfectly clear…..

Live longer. Benefit estimates are based on life expectancy. For those turning 65 this year, Social Security expects women to live 20 more years and men to live 17.8 more

Because that is of course something we have total control over. It also reminds me of this joke:

Why do husbands die sooner then their wives?

Because they want to