The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 1996:

When Mike Elliott brought an order form for Girl Scout cookies to work, he wasn't looking for trouble.

Mr. Elliott ... started asking co-workers to buy a few boxes on behalf of his girlfriend's eight-year old daughter. "I worked for four or five hours, and suddenly this lady came up to me and said that a guy who worked 50 feet down the line from me was selling them cheaper," Mr. Elliott says. "The first thing that everyone thinks is: You're trying to rip me off."

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, price wars are breaking out over Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties. "It's devastating," says Penny Bailer, executive director of the Michigan Metro Girl Scout Council, which serves the Detroit Metropolitan area....

Officials say they can't adopt the simple solution setting one national price because their parent organization, Girl Scouts USA, follows the Sherman Act, which prohibits price fixing.

[Ed.: Economist Ralph Reiland has determined that the Girl Scouts must sell over 80,000 boxes of cookies to pay their liability insurance.]

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