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With majestic purple hues and soaring slender stem, this dignified and graceful February birth flower dates back to Ancient Greece. Iris was the messenger of the gods and the personification of the rainbow (the Greek word for Iris), and acted as the link between heaven and earth. The iris’s three upright petals symbolize faith, valor and wisdom.
Scam. Fraud. Ripoff. These are the words being used by thousands of people who found “surprise” charges on their credit card or bank statements after making an online purchase. Consumers say they were unwittingly duped into third-party “e-loyalty” or “rewards club” programs, often costing $14.95 per month or more. Most people were unaware of it until they checked their bills.
FTD and 1-800-Flowers were summoned before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee to explain their involvement with these so-called “post-transaction marketing” schemes. Many consumer complaints have also been lodged against another major flower seller, Pro Flowers, over the same issue. These companies sold out their customers to various loyalty marketing firms, including Affinion, Ezsaver, Webloyalty, and Vertrue.
It’s not just limited to the flower business. Other companies cited as making money from the scheme include Buy.com, Priceline, Travelocity, Avon, eHarmony, Hertz, Pizza Hut, Victoria’s Secret, and others.
Here are links to more information, which in turn have further references.
Note that MoonFlower Florist is a member of the Teleflora network, which is not involved in these nefarious goings-on. In any event, since we have our own website, MoonFlower.ca, we have complete control over our own database. We absolutely do not sell or pass on any website visitor or customer information to anyone. At MoonFlower Florist, we truly value and appreciate your business.
You may have heard the news that economists are declaring that “the recession is over”. Hmm … doesn’t feel like it, does it?
Technically, meaning in the economists’ definition, a recession is a least two consecutive quarters of decline in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is also known as “negative growth”, although an increase is never called “positive shrinkage”, but that’s another story. Thereafter, as soon as a quarter comes along with GDP growth at or above 0%, the recession is declared to be over. In Canada, that happened in the third quarter of 2009, when GDP growth was 0.3%. That’s not a whole lot, but it’s a positive number nevertheless.
The trouble here is that real GDP growth in Canada over the last 10 years averaged about 3.1%. The Q3 2009 gain of a mere 0.3% is positive, but still way below average. If you’re used to 3.1%, 0.3% just doesn’t cut it.
What’s worse is that it’s difficult to see when things will get back to normal, namely, something like the good old average that we’re used to. For one thing, all those government economic stimulus and bailout programs won’t be around in 2010. Governments have also run up big deficits because of those programs, which taxpayers will eventually have to pay for. Plus, unemployment remains high, so there’s fewer income earners to foot the bill.
So here’s a proposition for economists. Instead of saying “the recession is over” when GDP just limps into positive territory, change the decision point to when GDP growth returns to the 10 year average, or even gets within 50% of the 10 year average for that matter. This is a much more realistic way of describing what’s going on. It would be good for your PR, especially after having so utterly missed calling the recession in the first place.
Originally from Asia, where they’ve been cultivated for the last 2,000 years, this winter birth flower is a richly colorful and fragrant gem. Representing pride, beauty, admiration and gratitude, the carnation’s multilayered, feathery soft petals conceal a hardy core – an appropriate paradox for this first-month-of-the-year flower.
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