$99 Xbox 360s, LCD TVs after rebates

Here in America, we like to see cause and effect. Use a gun--go to jail. Sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.

Joining this pantheon of maxims is "Buy a phone, get some money off your next purchase." First Circuit City came up with a $199 notebook. It costs $399 ordinarily, but if you sign up for 12 months of Vonage, you get the notebook for $99.

CompUSA, Motorola and the main cellular carriers will come out with their own formulation this Friday, according to an ad scan at Black Friday 2006.

Under these deals, consumers must buy a Motorola Razr for $29.95 (after $220 of instant savings) and sign up for two years of service at Cingular, T-Mobile or Sprint. There are also parameters for a family savings plan, but you need at least a masters in trigonometry to figure them out.

Once done, you get $200 of products that cost $300 or more. So that means you can get a 23-inch Olevia LCD TV from Syntax-Brillian for $99 or an Xbox 360 for $99.

If you don't have a cell phone (and there are people in America without them) or don't have much of an upgrade penalty for cancelling, it's not a bad deal.

What it means for the phone companies is a different manner. Vonage and the cell carriers are essentially paying $200 for customer acquisition. A lot of companies in the ga-ga Internet deals paid this too. Don't do the crime if you can't pay the time, as Baretta might say.