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The Death of the Honest Businessman

By Bill James
September 4, 2011
            In the 1980s I lived in a small town.    Somebody that I didn’t know came to town and tried to run a service station, so when I needed a car battery replaced I gave them my business.  
They didn’t bolt in the car battery properly, however; two or three days later I was just driving along the road, minding my own business and shooting my 30.06 out the window at some ill-mannered cows, when all of a sudden my car battery came loose and started bouncing all around the engine.    This interfered with the proper operation of the vehicle, and there are cows that are alive today due to this miracle.   Probably not today; it’s been 25 years.  
            Anyway, I went back to the service station, and asked if they would fix the problem.   They somewhat grudgingly agreed to replace the car battery, which was less than 60 hours old at the time of its adventure, but refused to pay for the rest of the damage to the vehicle, which was a couple of hundred dollars.    What could I do?   I’m not going to sue them for $250.
            But I knew that that service station would be out of business in months—and it was.   You just can’t do business like that in a small town.   In a small town there are a very limited number of potential customers, and those potential customers have a very high level of knowledge about every business with which they trade.    They know whether the businessman is honest and ethical, and if he isn’t, he’s out of business. 
            In a city, of course, it is different, not because city people are different but because the risk/reward calculation is different. In a city a businessman has hundreds of thousands of potential customers, and each of those potential customers has very little knowledge about all of the businesses in town.    An unethical businessman can thrive by grazing constantly on the stream of new suckers.  
            At the start of the 20th century something close to 90% of the American population lived on farms or in small towns.   By the time my memory starts this was no longer true, but the ethics that dominated commerce were still the ethics that had been forged in small towns. Businessmen would not lie to you, in general; they would not cheat you, they would not mislead you, and they would stand behind their products.
            In the modern world the swindling of customers by businesses is endemic.   People take it for granted that businessmen are unethical and businesses will cheat you and steal from you without conscience. You sign a contract for phone service, or internet service, or cable TV service, and God knows what you are agreeing to.   The contract is written in language that they understand but you can’t.  You sign a contract saying you don’t need a modem; you get home, get your bill, you’re being charged $4 a month for a modem you never got.  It’s a game.   You go to buy clothes; there is a rack of neckties with a big sign saying "Clearance sale--$3 each." You get to the cash register, those two neckties are $22 each.   Oh, well. . .we didn’t mean those..   These three neckties here, on the far end of the table; these are $3 each.  
            I went to a Big and Tall store, there was a big sign "EVERYTHING IN THE STORE—ONE HALF OFF" and, at the bottom, in small print "regular sizes only."   I pick out $150 worth of clothes, get to the cash register, it’s $380.   What?   Oh, that was only regular sizes.   We’re trying to close out our regular-size merchandize.
            What do you mean, it only applies to your regular-sized merchandize?   It’s a Big and Tall Store.   And anyway, these are socks; it says right on them, "fits sizes 11-17." We live in a constant battle to avoid being cheated by thieves running businesses.   There is a motel near my home that has a billboard, "Singles--$29.95 a night." They haven’t rented a room for $29.95 since the Carter administration.   It’s $29.95 a night if you book three weeks in advance and pay cash for a room with a twin bed, but the only room they have with a twin bed is the room where the night clerk lives when he is off duty.   Nobody expects to rent a room for $29.95; everybody knows that’s just a shorthand way of saying, "We’re a cheap, dirty motel."  
            Motels are models of integrity compared to hotels; hotels will charge you $5.99 a night for the convenience of having a mini-bar in your room from which you could, if somebody else was paying for it, select a small basket of cheeses for only $17.95.   You order a $7 breakfast it’s listed at $11.99 plus $4.99 for the coffee, but the real cost is more like $40 once you add in the delivery charge, the room service fee, the tip and the mandatory gratuity.  
Airlines sell you a first class seat; my contract with a company with which I consult calls for me to fly first class, because frankly I am too big to sit in regular seats.   The airline sells you a first-class ticket, cancels the flight, puts you on another airline, you wind up sitting in a seat the size and general shape of a waste basket. What happened to the hundreds of dollars that you paid, or somebody paid, for the first class seat?    Nothing; they just keep the money.    This happens regularly.  
            You rent a car for $199 a week; you "reserve" it in advance.   You get to the desk, no $199 cars are available. These other cars are available which are exactly like the $199 cars, except different somehow, only they’re $299 a week. You can rent the $299 car, or you can have a seat and wait to see if one of them $199 beauties comes in.   And we have your credit card.
            Even restaurants now will try to bamboozle you, slip $4 items onto your bill, charge you $4 to pour your wine, try to make you think that an entrée is $12.95 when it’s actually $12.95 without the meat, $18.95 with it.   You spend $70 on a meal with your wife, it’s $95.  
            My point is that in regard to ethical business practices we are slipping backward at an alarming rate—and the government is doing nothing about it.   Large, successful national businesses now are devoted to fleecing their customers.   This was not true 50 years ago.   Republicans talk constantly about "de-regulating" businesses, getting the government off the backs of the businessmen.   What are you, friggin’ nuts?   Who is it that you’ve been doing business with, who doesn’t need to be regulated?
            As most of you know, I’m at least 40% conservative, and I think the Republicans are right on many issues.   I do not want the government doing things that businesses do better, and the things that businesses do better, in my experience, are "almost everything".   The city of Los Angeles has put in red-light cameras that have issued tickets for $400 million—and the city has managed to lose money on the deal.   That’s government for you. 
            The worst businesses are the ones that present themselves as models of integrity: The TV news shows.   They lie to you so often they’ve entirely lost track of the fact that they’re doing it.   A stunning development in the Clara Rogers Case, right after the break!!  It’s actually right after the fourth commercial break,  22 minutes later, and the stunning development turns out to be some crazy neighbor who thinks she saw Clara moon-walking through the suburbs with Willie Nelson.    "Experts" turn out to be hacks and frauds.   There’s an all-new episode of House debuting tonight. . .only it turns out that’s it’s not a new episode, at all; it’s just a re-run from three years ago.   How does this differ from fraud?    Some network snake has realized that the words "all-new debut episode" and "stunning development" have no legal meaning, and thus can be applied to anything without consequence.
            What they haven’t yet realized is that after they lie to me a certain number of times, I lose interest in whatever they have to say.   I don’t understand how networks can fail to process this: that when they lie to me, I stop watching.   Am I alone here?   Doesn’t anybody else get tired of this stuff?
            There are two businesses in America that are the targets of constant attacks by the left:   Walmart, and McDonalds.    They’re under attack for selling fatty food, busting unions, mistreating employees, running local businesses out of town; you name it, they get hit for it. I am certain that many of these complaints are valid.
            But this is what people miss about Walmart:   Walmart will not lie to you.    You buy $30 worth of stuff at Walmart, it’s $30.   Same thing with McDonalds; there’s no deception here.   Nobody is claiming this is eggplant and spinach.   What you see is what you get.   And that is very much of the secret of those companies, the reason that they keep moving forward despite the efforts to stop them: people trust them.
            What government should be doing, if anybody wants my opinion, is regulating businesses. That’s high on the list—but I don’t mean selling permits to do business, or telling businesses what they can sell and what they cannot sell, or telling them who they have to hire and who they can fire.   What I mean is, kicking them sharply in the balls when they mislead customers.   
            I advocate laws that create stiff penalties for businesses that mislead their customers.   What should be prohibited is not any specific practice to mislead customers; it is the misleading of customers itself.    Putting up a sign that says "Neckties--$3" on a table that is mostly filled with $22 neckties is deliberately misleading customers.   Selling a passenger a "first class" seat and delivering a coach seat and making no effort to refund the money is misleading customers.    Pricing electronic services so that no one can say what anything actually costs is deliberately misleading customers.   It is fraud, and there is no reason for us to tolerate it.  
De-regulate business?   Shit, I can think of 50 national chains that ought to be regulated out of business in the next 30 days; I’m fine with it, recession or no recession.    And if anybody needs more regulation, it’s the bankers; they’re the first people who ought to be regulated.   Banker shouldn’t be able to go the bathroom without the fear of an investigation if he accidentally pees on the floor.   You’re handling other people’s money.   There should be no leeway for playing games with it.  
 
* * *
 
            Also as many of you know, I’m prone to rant about red-light cameras.   Here’s a link to an extremely good article on the subject:
 
            Having endorsed the article enthusiastically—I think this may be the first time I have used this platform to link to somebody else’s article—I now need to back away from it a little bit in several directions.     The article says that "governments initially justified them under the rubric of public safety—the cameras were supposed to make intersections safer. . .but the fig leaf of safety frittered away as study after study showed that the cameras made little difference and in some cases actually made intersections less safe. Drivers, knowing cameras were watching, tended to jam on their brakes suddenly at yellow lights, causing accidents."   I would prefer to believe that that’s true, and intuitively I have known from the first moment I heard of a red light camera that businessmen would promote them by doing specious studies that heroically overstated the safety value of their product, but by the same rough skepticism, I know that people who write polemics very often say things like "study after study has shown" no matter how muddled the evidence actually is.  
            The more serious issue is that parts of the article are stated in right-wing cant that is likely to drive a wedge between Red-Light camera opponents and those who should be our strongest allies.   The article talks about Red Light cameras as a further intrusion of the Nanny State into our daily lives, which is code to portray Red-Light cameras as being foisted on the population from the left. The reality is that it is businessmen who are selling these things, in league with avaricious local politicians.   In the 1980s, when businesses got a toehold running private prisons on contract from the government, who was it that took the lead in opposing that?   It was, of course, the left.
            Well, this is the same thing, isn’t it?   It’s turning over a police function to private business—and it should be opposed on those grounds; police powers cannot be delegated to people who could misuse them to generate income.   There is too much opportunity for abuse, and businessmen are not universally ethical.  The real problem with Red Light cameras is not that they don’t promote safety—for all I actually know, they may promote safety—it is that they create a profound confusion between the goals of public safety and the pursuit of wealth.
            Also in the 1980s, there was a period in which it was a popular idea that police should seize items used in a crime and sell them to raise money for police departments.   A more terrifying concept would be difficult to come up with—and who was it that took the lead in opposing this?   It was, again, the left—and these policies were in due course prohibited by the courts as a threat to civil liberties.
            Well, this is the same thing, isn’t it?   It creates the same terrifying confusion between what is being done in the broad interests of the public and what is being done in the financial interests of the state, thus allowing the government to shake money out of your pockets on the pretense that they are legitimately punishing you for violating laws that you never had the slightest intention of violating.   
            Governments should be fanatically careful as to when they punish and who they punish. A wise father does not indiscriminately punish his children.  Educated and sophisticated people know that punishments backfire frequently and at a high cost. This is careless and indiscriminate punishment. It is both stupid and immoral, and we need to put a definite stop to it.  
 
 
Small Towns and Post Offices
 
            The Parking Lot bus at the Kansas City airport used to stop and pick up passengers who had not yet reached the booths where passengers were supposed to gather and await the bus.   One day they put up a bunch of signs. "In the interests of efficiency," the signs said, "our buses will no longer stop to pick up passengers other than at the designated collection points." Think about it.   How is this "efficient"?    It’s more efficient for them; it’s less efficient for you. If you’re 30 seconds late for the bus, it drives on by and you go wait ten minutes for the next one. This is not efficiency; it’s just a reduction in service.  
            Rob Neyer is on kind of a campaign now to help keep small-town post offices open; they are being closed in the name of efficiency.  "How many bombers would we have to give up," Neyer asks, "to maintain post offices in our smallest towns?"   Why is it always the bombers we have to give up?   This nation spends a hell of a lot more money on totally unnecessary medical tests than it does on bombers; why doesn’t anybody ever want to give up a radiologist? 
            Anyhoo, there used to be a full set of schools in every small town in Kansas, schools that were built by the local people of their own initiative and at their own cost.  In the late 1950s the state legislature of Kansas, in the name of ‘ficiency, voted to "consolidate" the schools into larger school districts.   This was being done all over the nation at that time. The people of Kansas rose up in arms, forced the school-consolidation law to a public vote, and soundly defeated it.   Undeterred, the legislature put another school-consolidation law on the ballot; it also was defeated.   Finally, they figured out a solution. They put a school-consolidation law on the ballot that asked the voters "Would you rather consolidate the schools under this plan, or would you rather consolidate the schools under that plan? It’s up to you."   Then, since the public had "approved" the plan and voted on it, the courts ruled that the law was immune to a public referendum, and the state could proceed with closing schools.
            And murdering small towns.   Once the schools were gone, the little towns turned to dust.   It was "efficient" to close the small-town schools—from the standpoint of the money spent on education—but the school was the heart of the small town, the absolute heart of it. Whether this was efficient or not depends on your point of view.   From my standpoint, it was merely a reduction in service.  
            Were the small towns doomed from the beginning?   I don’t know.   If you can live further from where you work, how does that hurt small towns?   If you can travel easier where you need to be, how would that hurt small towns? When we improve long-distance communication, how does that hurt a small town?
            If you took government funding away from Atlanta and gave it to Memphis, what effect would that have? Small towns don’t have airports, generally, or harbors, or tourist attractions, or convention centers, or subway systems, and because they don’t have these things, they don’t get money for them.  They have schools—or used to have—and post offices.   But if, in the name of E-fish-NC, we eliminate those services, what chance does Lake Wobegon have? 
 
 

COMMENTS (43 Comments, most recent shown first)

Phaladeepika
While this is not exactly to the point of this (very fine) article, I have similar gripes that extend to both theLeft and the Right

The error of the Left is: when human needs are being met, those who pay for them automatically benefit.

The error of the Right is: when money freely exchanges hands, neither force nor fraud has taken place.

This article clearly illustrates the consequences of the "error of the Right."
11:48 PM Jan 18th
 
Brian
Criiminal statutes vary from state to state, but in my state assault is defined as follows: the actor, with intent to injure another, does injure another or a 3rd person. Just about every important word in there is defined in a separate statute. Self-defense is defined in a separate statute. Dangerous weapon or deadly instruments are spelled out in the statutes, and in fact a knife has to be 4 inches in length. However, you are right, something can also qualify based on its actual use or threatened use. Any terms that are not sufficiently defined by stautue are defined by the courts, with the guideline that any ambiguity is to be resolved in favor of the defendant. Juries are instructed with all of the above definitions.

Now, geting back to the proposed statute, how are you going to define "deceive"? Remember, you are the one who purposely wanted it to be vague. Vagueness is a real problem here because we are talking about advertising, which is a form of speech. (Less protected than political speech, but still speech.) There is a whole area of law as to whether a statute is "void for vagueness" under the First Amendment. And to save these statutes, courts will often construe the crime as narrowly as possible.

So where do we run into trouble? In the interest of space, I'll use just one example: fine print. You hide something in the fine print because you are hoping the customer will miss it. Does a business know if they can do this or not?
10:10 PM Sep 18th
 
bjames
"Constitutionally, criminal statutes have to place potential defendants on notice as to exactly what behavior will be punished."

OK, but. . .what exactly does that mean? Does this mean that, for example, "assault" must be defined as "striking another person in a downward motion in such a manner and with sufficient force to cause a level-3 contusion?" Or does "assault with a deadly weapon" specify that "a deadly weapon means, if a club, an instrument at least a quarter-inch in diameter and at least eight inches in length, or, if a sharp instrument, an instrument of sufficient acuteness that it can easily penetrate the surface of a watermelon?"

No, not at all; rather, the legal definition of "assault" is "the threat of bodily harm, coupled with a present ability to cause harm." Or some such. . ."Unlawful touching" is a common formulation. It's as vague as anything one can possibly imagine--and "deadly weapon" is equally vague. There are 25 deadly weapons on my desk. . .a roll of Scotch tape, a printer cord, a lamp, any of which can be, potentially, a deadly weapon.

The law does NOT spell out in detail what is a deadly weapon; rather, it prohibits you from using ANYTHING as a deadly weapon.

The same here. The law should not spell out WHAT you may or may not do to deceive the customer; rather, it should prohibit you from doing ANYTHING to deceive the customer. The law must give fair warning of the conduct it proscribes. The proscribed conduct is deceiving the customer.
8:56 PM Sep 16th
 
Brian
If it's a criminal sanction, then I think you lose the ability to make the provision vague. Constitutionally, criminal statutes have to place potential defendants on notice as to exactly what behavior will be punished.

So the specific practice of the falsely advertised going-out -of business sale can be addressed criminally. I don't think you could criminalize "deceptive practices"​
10:58 AM Sep 14th
 
bjames
Monahan is right that I was not arguing for additional basis for civil suits, but for criminal action against deceptive business practices.

A small example of this actually working: in Kansas there is a law against having a "going out of business sale" unless you are ACTUALLY going out of business, which of course is common in many areas. When people discover it's against the law out here, they often ask, "Why is the government getting involved in that?"

But why should businesses be allowed to lie to people as a basis for doing business? Once every 15 years the government prosecutes somebody for violating the law, and the rest of the time people just obey the law and it's never an issue.
7:55 AM Sep 14th
 
monahan
I'm confused why everyone seems to believe that the regulation of business that Bill suggests would lead to an increase in lawsuits.

When you or I breaks a law, the police don't sue us, they simply levy a fine. I would think the same would apply to businesses-- a business is found intentionally misleading patrons they are given a fine, and if they choose to fight that fine, they go to court the way an individual would.

As far as the person who paid for a $22 tie that they thought was $3, well they don't get to claim absurd damages. They get their refund and move on. The courts, by and large, do a very good job of not awarding disproportional damages anyway... we just hear about the crazy exceptions because they tend to be extreme examples of very large infractions and very serious damage.
1:31 AM Sep 14th
 
Brian
As a judicial decision, it was mind-boggling and horrific. What the Constiution requires is that states have a "Republican Form of Government". In this case, the Warren Court took that to mean that it guaranteed "one-man, one-vote." That is just wrong. The plain meaning of those words do not require the one-man, one-vote result. No one can argue that all states at the time of the decision didn't have Republican forms of government.

To the extent that it might be felt that the Equal Protection clause mandated this -
1) No honest person can interpret the intention of the framers of that amendment as requiring the one-man, one vote result. Frankly, they probably rolled over in their graves when the decission came out.
2) To interpret the 14th amenment as requiring this result would then also by definition declare the US Senate as unconstitutional and also the Electoral College as well. No one thinks this is the case, do they?

This, perhaps more than any other Warren Court decision, was an example of making up a constitutional provision that just didn't exist.

As a matter of policy, it is also a bad idea. The framers of the Constitution correctly recognized that a dictatorship of 51% was still a dictatatorship. And they were dealing with balancing rural interests against urban interests. Both of those concerns still exist today. The old system was a significant part of the system of checks and balances to make sure one group didn't become too powerful and just take from anothergroup of fewer members.

Look, if something needs to be changed, use the Amendment process built into the Constitution. I, for one, would be interested in changing the Electoral College:

1) Eliminate the electors, and just assign the votes
2) 2 votes from each state, winner-take all. The remaining 438 assigned proportinally based on the national popular vote.

Then you would have to campaign in every state.
10:10 AM Sep 11th
 
markj111
I do not understand your objection to one man one vote. The old system was horrific and gave rural voters disproportionate power in Congress. It was a factor in the implementation of Prohibition.
5:02 PM Sep 10th
 
moscow25
I agree about the problems with basic dis-honesty in business. We have come to expect it. Companies have come to realize that you will rarely complain and will never do anything about being cheated for $10 or even $100.

That said, shouldn't we avoid a general legislative solution if at all possible? I recently read about how disputes with local businesses are resolved in Japan (for example, noise complaints for loud music from karaoke bars): citizens can lodge a complaint, which is heard by a local official -- city councilperson -- free of charge. The arbitration is not binding, but often results in a cash settlement and/or change in business practices. The business is not obligated to agree to the hearing or to the settlement, but they usually do, and risk being sued or tarnished regardless, not just on the blogosphere. There is a record of a complaint, and a record of a proposed settlement from the arbitrator. It's a process that resolves many serious disputes.

The government is involved, and actually provides a free service, but without passing more rules or legislation, and it leaves room for discretion, as well as judgement. The local government provides leadership.

Maybe this isn't the American way, but I like a system where I can complain about frequent but minor dishonesty, without having to get lawyers involved. Verizon charged me a bogus $200 fee and wouldn't return it. I paid (and cancelled my service, which cost anther $100). Amazon Prime promises me free overnight shipping on everything, except when, well, they'd rather not bother. Eventually there will be a class action suit, the lawyers will get $50m and I'll get a 10% off coupon. That particular dishonest business practice will go on the DL, but it won't be any bother to me.

In one form or another, it would be nice to bring back arbitration for some of these disputes. When's the last time we had a chance to complain to an impartial arbitrator about anything? Even you, Bill?
9:43 PM Sep 9th
 
bjames

JDW's comment:


Interestingly, one of the issues is that LA only gets 1/3rd of the revenue from the lights which... are operated by a Private Business. Outsourcing. That's modern government for you: the thing probably could have worked if it wasn't outsourced to a company looking to profit.



Nobody would ever have SUGGESTED the installation of these cameras if it wasn't for private businesses looking for money. The whole thing was driven by greed from the very beginning.
3:56 PM Sep 9th
 
Cooper
Indiana folks will tell ya different -but the biggest reason schools were consolidated was bettering the odds of winning the 1 class state basketball tournament.
Why have 2 high schools in a town or area when 1 gives you a better chance at going farther in the tournament?
4:57 PM Sep 8th
 
bjames
1) I want to thank Brian, evanecurb and mcgrathben for their contributions to the discussion, and I agree with 99% of what you said.

2) The supreme court’s one-man, one-vote decision is among the worst—and most inexplicable—in the history of the court, in essence ruling that states were barred from using power-balancing mechanisms substantially identical to that included in the constitution.

3) For my part, I do not doubt that those who forced school consolidation upon us did so in a sincere effort to improve the schools.

4) I do not doubt that there were very serious failings of the old schools. My high school graduating class had 18 people. Among the failings. . .I never had, and never had the opportunity to have, a class in European history or world history. In elementary school (Grades 1-8) we alternated between Kansas history—which was a total waste of time—and US history. In secondary school (Grades 9-12) we alternated between US history and “government” or “civics”.

5) On the other hand, there are very serious failings of the schools we have TODAY. To argue that because there were serious failings in that system we needed to abolish that system and go this one is no more compelling than to argue that because there are serious failings in the system we have today, we should abolish it and go back to what we had before.

10:43 AM Sep 7th
 
Brian
As to the small towns, I couldn't agree with you more. One issue is that a town has no political power. States used to be able to have legislatures that were modeled after the Congress, where each town could have a representative in one house of the legislature, regardless of its size. Much like the US Senate, where Maine sends as many Senators as California. The idea is that urban interests could not overrun suburban or rural interests. Also, that a town was a separate sovereign unit that had a right to its own voice. However, in the "one man, one vote decision of the 1960's, states are no longer able to do this. As a result, if your population falls below a certain percentage of the state's population, no one cares what you think. You have absolutely no say in government on issues where the interests of cities and towns clash.

Not saying that's what happened in your case, because you indicate it happened in the 1950s. But it is a problem today.

I don't want to romanticize small-town education. There are certainly inept town Boards of Education. Small towns can be ill-equipped to deal with issues such as learning or other disabilities. Many of the schools that you love would not pass a building inspection. But the regionalization you refer to was not undertaken to assist the small towns in any way . Its purpose was to redistribute resources from the towns to the cities for the benefit of the cities.

And its effect is to try to solve the problems cities face which are often very different from those of a small town. The "solutions" are applied to cities and towns in a "one-size-fits-all" approach. And of course, since it is government we are talking about, the "solutions" to the cities' problems often make things worse even for the cities.
10:58 PM Sep 6th
 
evanecurb
Bill:

Thanks for defining small. I know that towns of that size used to have their own high schools. My Dad's graduating class had 27 people in it. My college roommate's class had 40. They both said their schools weren't really very good, academically. Perhaps a county-wide school would have been better in terms of academic offerings. In fairness to both of them, I can't say that they would have preferred a county wide school because I never asked.

With respect to factories, I stand corrected. I guess I was thinking of towns with a few more people than you were.

From a social standpoint, you may be right about the importance of the school. I don't know, having never lived in a small town.

From an efficiency standpoint, I think the politicians and school officials who mandate consolidation (or any other cost-cutting program in schools) in the name of efficiency should be held accountable by measurements such as cost per student, average SAT score, and other statistics that are relevant to the issue at hand.

I've always assumed that county-wide high schools were a more efficient use of taxpayer money, but I've never seen a study of it.
10:52 PM Sep 6th
 
mcgrathben
Trailblzr's argument can be salvaged if you split it in two and reverse the sequence:
1) the teaching talent pool has been diluted because of social forces.
2) unionization has made even the diminished talent more expensive.
Together they amount to an argument about the potential sustainability of the earlier model. I can't speak for the factual basis of either component...
4:45 PM Sep 6th
 
bjames
Trailblzr switches in the middle of his comment from arguing that teachers are more professional now than they used to be to arguing that they are less professional than they used to be.
3:49 PM Sep 6th
 
jdw
"As most of you know, I’m at least 40% conservative, and I think the Republicans are right on many issues. I do not want the government doing things that businesses do better, and the things that businesses do better, in my experience, are "almost everything". The city of Los Angeles has put in red-light cameras that have issued tickets for $400 million—and the city has managed to lose money on the deal. That’s government for you."

Interestingly, one of the issues is that LA only gets 1/3rd of the revenue from the lights which... are opperated by a Private Business. Outsourcing. That's modern government for you: the thing probably could have worked if it wasn't outsourced to a company looking to profit.
2:56 PM Sep 6th
 
Trailbzr
High schools for small towns are too expensive now, because teachers won't work for nothing any more. Before unionization, teachers would earn more over the summer than during the school year. During the first half of the twentieth century becoming a teacher was the epitome of professional accomplishment for half the working-age population due to gender discrimination in the rest of the labor market. Many people who would have become teachers until 1960 are now doctors, lawyers and accountants.

1:38 PM Sep 6th
 
bjames
Factory closings are totally irrelevant to the problems of small towns. SMALL towns don't have factories, and never did.
12:44 PM Sep 6th
 
bjames
Tens of thousands of towns of less than 300 people had their own high schools from 1900 to 1950. When you add the internet and the other many aids that we now have to long-distance learning, why is it suddenly "unrealistic" that they could have their own high schools now?
12:41 PM Sep 6th
 
jwilt
I live in a part of Maryland that was effected by Hurricane Irene, and this piece struck a cord. I have several friends and coworkers with Allstate homeowners insurance. Their deductable is $500.

Except when they are under an official government warning of a named tropical cyclone. At that point their deductable becomes 5% of their assessed home value. For a $300k house, which is typical around here, their deductable goes from $500 to $15000 the minute the government says "tropical storm warning." Of course nobody reads that fine print, and the first time they realize this is when the assessor comes out to look at the 20' hole in their roof from an oak tree.

The wonderful part is that my county was the only one in the immediate area under the warning. The adjoining counties were under a watch, so all of Allstate's customers there got to keep their $500 deductable.

Like Bill, I'm 40% conservative and wondering if there isn't another way besides just trusting the crooks and spending most of my waking hours pouring over fine print.
11:01 AM Sep 6th
 
garywmaloney
Some of this is self-correcting -- Angies List, for example, is the most prominent of several consumer websites, where individual customers praise or slam local contractors and businesses for providing good, mediocre or bad services.

Another reaction has been the proliferation of discount websites and options for travel, all kinds of purchases, etc. Bill might consider writing about the impact of one of the HUGE changes of the past 50 years -- that so many PRICES are now negotiable.​
11:50 PM Sep 5th
 
evanecurb
Bill: I agree completely with your position on business ethics. Misleading someone is akin to lying to them, and therefore is fraud. I disagree that this is anything new. Deceptive business practices have always existed, but that doesn't mean we have to accept them. I am also with you on Wal-Mart, but McDonalds is not a great example. Their promotional material about the healthy nature of their offerings is not a shining example of truth in advertising.

With respect to small towns, I think you need to define small. It is probably not realistic to think that a town of 1,000 or fewer citizens should have its own high school. It would be tough to offer any courses other than the basics. Elementary schools - I can see that. I live in a county with only one high school, one middle school, and one elementary school. The bus ride from my home to any of the schools must be 45 minutes or something like that, depending on stops. I think that's too long for a kid to be on a bus.

I am not sure what the fuss is about regarding schools and post offices in small towns. I think what has killed most of our small towns has been factory closings. The thing that I don't get is why more people who work online or otherwise don't have an office per se don't move to small towns. Housing is cheap, crime is low, and it's very peaceful. I know small towns aren't for everyone; I just expected the at home workforce to lead a rebirth of them - it hasn't happened, though, and I don't know why.
11:34 PM Sep 5th
 
ventboys
Amen, brother. I started really noticing this paradigm shift early in the 2000’s, and in my opinion it started at the top. Clinton, for all of his faults, took public opinion polls – and he listened to them. Bush (and his administration), on the other hand, was vocally against public opinion polls. He basically did whatever the hell he wanted to do, and the public be damned. I could name several (several dozen, actually) examples from my own personal experiences, but that would be redundant. We all have them, because we all are living in this consumer climate.

I do have one example that fits the subject at both ends:

Comp USA in Spokane used to put out flyers for 399 dollar computers. I went in to buy one, and of course they were out of stock. I looked around, and I found one that was listed at 469. I took it up to the check stand and they rang it up for just over 700 dollars. I pointed out the sticker price, and they gave me a bunch of mumbo jumbo about service plans and internet access. I asked them to just give me the computer, without the extra plans. The checker told me that they can’t do that, because the sale price was dependent on taking the service plans.

I asked him if they sold any computers as is, without extra service obligations. He said that I could buy any computer without a service plan, but the sale prices wouldn’t apply. I pointed to my 469 dollar computer, and asked him how much it would cost. 45 minutes and 3 “managers” later, they still couldn’t tell me how much it cost. By now I was livid, so I demanded LOUDLY, so that the entire store could hear me, that they tell me what the price was on the computer. They kicked me out of the store. I ended up hiring a guy to build me a computer, since none of the computer stores actually sold computers. It was a lot like the phones are now; they would give you a computer cheap, if you buy a bunch of overpriced services.

A couple of years later I was looking for a computer again, and I went to Best Buy. I found one I liked, and I talked to a service rep. I asked him how much it cost, and he told me that it was the sticker price plus tax. It took me a few repeats to get it in my head that they actually set the price honestly, with no hidden fees.

Comp USA has been out of business for years, and their partners at AOL aren’t exactly kicking butt either. Best Buy, as far as I can tell, is doing fine.

11:25 PM Sep 5th
 
Zeth
We have to take the country back from the lawyers before we can make any progress anywhere. Republicans need to quit thinking Democrats are the enemy and Democrats need to quit thinking Republicans are the enemy, and we need to tell the lawyers we won't tolerate another moment of their bullshit.
11:08 PM Sep 5th
 
Brian
But if you make the laws vague, lawyers will scrutinize them to prohibit practices that were never meant to be prohibited. Look at the antitrust laws. Somehow the courts felt that Congess meant to apply them to football and basketball but not baseball, despite the fact that baseball was the only sport that existed professionally at the time the original anti-trust acts were passed. Apparently the distinction was that Justice Blackmun could name several all-time greats in the Curt Flood opinion.

Some thoughts:

1) Can you sue a professional sports team for using players who took PEDs?
2) Can you sue a college team who charges admission for games that subsequently has results voided by the NCAA?
3) Can a fan sue for their money back in the game that Jeter pretended to be hit by the pitch?
4) Can you sue a magician because it's not really magic?
5) How about lipsynching?

The minute of lawyer language that follows the 30 second commercial is due to exactly the type of vaguelegislation that you propose.

I think it is actually better to move slowly and ban specific practices, like the airline ticket switch, rather than let the courts create whole areas of laws that no one intended.


3:30 PM Sep 5th
 
bjames
Suppose that you fail to lock your door, and another man enters your house and takes your possessions. Do we then say, "Let the homeowner beware? Why didn't you lock your house? Why did you have your money in your house, rather than in the bank? Because you failed to lock your door, the other man had every right to take your property. You should have been more careful."
3:10 PM Sep 5th
 
bjames
The real issue raised by Segrin's post is this, though: Do you choose to live in a world in which you have to constantly watch your ass to prevent unethical businessmen from taking advantage of you, or would you prefer to live in a world in which we deal with one another on a straightforward and ethical basis?
1:54 PM Sep 5th
 
bjames
The relevant laws should be written in the vaguest possible terms, not prohibiting specific practices, but simply prohibiting deceptive business practices. If you write them in specific terms, in the modern world, lawyers immediately begin to scrutinize them to figure out what they fail to prohibit. What you have to prohibit is the intent to deceive.
1:46 PM Sep 5th
 
bjames
It is not a reasonable expectation that a customer will double-check the work of a professional he has employed to perform mechanical work on his car--nor is that the law.
1:36 PM Sep 5th
 
Bucky
ScottSegrin, I don't think that's a valid argument. For example, I don't know much about cars. I know about many things, but that's not one of them. If I pay my money, I expect that the shop will do a good job. Sooner or later, all of us run up against the wall of our own ignorance.
And in the case of the flights Bill mentioned, of what exactly was the buyer supposed to be wary?
I would say that a person has an ethical obligation, as buyer and seller, but that too many sellers are not holding up their end.
9:26 AM Sep 5th
 
ScottSegrin
What about letting the buyer beware? Did you check to see if your new battery was fastened down properly or did you just drive off assuming that it was? Did you buy the $22 neckties or did walk out of the store leaving them lay on the counter and forcing some clerk to have to go put them back? The preventing of screwing of customers by businesses is a shared responsibility.

Plus, the screwing is mainly in the eye of the beholder. If we turn the task of policing this over the the government, well... if you there are a lot of law suits now...
7:04 AM Sep 5th
 
greggborgeson
Great article, especially the perspective you provided on why more business used to be more ethical.

In addition to the type of regulation you suggest, the tax-incentive systems needs to be turned on its head. Acquisition of competing businesses should be economically [b]discouraged[b], not encouraged. Favorable real-estate tax deals should be offered to [b]small[b] employers before large employers. Let's be real: if one big Home Depot is more efficient than the 30 local hardware stores it replaced, the biggest aspect of that efficiency is that instead of the 300 employees required by the 30 small hardware stores, Home Depot only needs 150. Our government is subsidizing job-loss, not job creation.
5:19 AM Sep 5th
 
chuck
The 1st part of your article is exactly what I just experienced on a trip to Hawaii. Our plane's departure had been delayed 15 hours, so we arrived in Maui at 4:40 a.m. and rented the car before sunup.
Upon returning it 3 days later, the Alamo agent looked it over and circled a dent on the door frame- one that I would never have noticed myself. I know that it was not something that happened any time I was with the car. He said they would be filing a damage claim for it. I had declined Alamo's insurance coverage. And they said I would have to pay for the cost of daily rentals during any time it is in the shop- God knows how long they can drag out the fixing of a dent.
I protested that there was no paperwork to the effect that an agent and I had done any walkaround of the car before I took it off their lot- you've all done this, where you and the agent agree on what is damaged on the car, and they mark it on a car diagram. The Alamo guy said that Alamo had discontinued that practice.
I had to laugh- bitterly...of course it was obvious why they would discontinue such a sensible practice...people aren't going to see these things on their own, and Alamo can claim any damage they want to- even claim the same goddamn dent on customer after customer. How the hell was I supposed to see a miniscule dent at 5 am in the dark after a redeye flight? It's entirely possible this dent was put there on their lot by a guy hitting it with a suitcase as he was getting into his own rental next to it.

Any of you that rent cars (and decline the insurance) beware of this scam- only rent from companies that go over the car with you and note damage.
1:22 AM Sep 5th
 
mauimike
Here's some information that you can use. Don't but plumbing products from Home Depot. I've been doing handy man work for over 30 years and garbage disposals that used to last 10 years last 2. Water heaters that lasted 10 - 12 years break down after a year and a half. "Chains such as WalMart, Best Buy, Target and Home Depot have items manufactured "to their specification," meaning that the brand name is almost devoid of meaning." From "Cheap," by Ellen Ruppel Shell. The products are made cheaper, Home Depot pays less from, they look the same and Home Depot can sell it at the same price. The regulators get bought out and are then used by the big companies to keep other businesses out and to regulate competitors out of business. Its a very corrupt world out there. "Hard times for an honest man, very, very, very hard times." John Mellencamp. Your other plea for government action looks to be going nowhere. We're looking at 5 or 6, 16 team conferences? You might want to check out Bill Kauffman and the Boys at Front Porch Republic. They believe in small, local and freedom. The internet and other forms of social media might be the key. The word doesn't have to come from on high anymore. Information can easily be spread horizontally.
1:00 AM Sep 5th
 
Brian
"but I don’t mean selling permits to do business, or telling businesses what they can sell and what they cannot sell, or telling them who they have to hire and who they can fire. "

That's the type of regulation that conservatives oppose. And generally, by the way, the type of regulation that the businesses themselves push for. Those regulations create star-up costs that make it too expensive for competitors to enter the market.

I don't think too many people object to prohibiting unethical or deceptive business practices. I certainly don't. But how specifically do you write the law? What is the penalty? Who assesses the penalty?

What happens with the $3 Tie? Are you as the victim willing to sue them, or appear to testify at an administrative hearing against them?

Here's a thought: my state, and I'm sure others, have a statutorily designed civil penalty for shoplifters. It's several hundred dollars, and applies even if you get caught stealing just a candy bar and the candy bar is returned. Maybe if a business tries to cheat you out of any amount the damage is assessed at $500 or 3 times the amount, whichever is more. If they fight you in court and lose, they pay treble(triple) damages and your attorneys fees.

The only downside is that people may be tempted to sneak a $400 suit onto the $6.99 rack and then claim almost $1200 in damages.

That's why we'll have to put red-light cameras at every sale rack...
11:21 PM Sep 4th
 
CharlesSaeger
For once, you're giving this lefty pause. Personally, I don't care much about McDonald's, since hating McDonald's is something of a granola passion -- I'm no vegetarian, and I have kids. Wal-Mart earns our ire due to serious government greasing through Tax Increment Financing -- let Wal-Mart build here without having to pay taxes and get jobs! -- and paying its workers like garbage, something CostCo proves you can avoid doing in the same business. But many of those little companies that Wal-Mart is driving under also get government help, and regularly screw their workers, and lie like hell about their deals.

Privatization just means business shifts from one sector to another, and you have less say over the private sector than the public.
7:48 PM Sep 4th
 
Bucky
Having worked on military bases downrange for years, I can attest that privatizing many jobs on those bases did not add to efficiency. A KBR worker in a kitchen might make three times as much as it would cost a soldier...and it's not like the food was fantastic.
Ditto for people working at the gyms, or maintaining facilities, or on and on. They would often do the exact same work as service members but at a much greater cost.
1:56 PM Sep 4th
 
macthomason
Add-on fees. They're everywhere. I get a tuition rebate for graduate school -- but it doesn't pay for the various fees. Airlines are notorious for their surcharges, of course.
11:13 AM Sep 4th
 
cderosa
Compelling column, Bill. I like how you untangled the red light camera issue from the polemics. I'm not much in the mood for anything from the Weekly Standard these days, and it's good to remember we can still find some common ground.

On a related note, I hope you will be energetic in redressing the reduction in service we subscribers have experienced in stats section of this site, even if it means forgoing the BJOL radiologist and the wing of B2s I know you have your eye on.
11:08 AM Sep 4th
 
glkanter
In East Cleveland, Ohio, the purveyors of the Red Light Cameras get a slice of the action. Except the cash-strapped city was spending the $ elsewhere, and owed them a bunch. The solution? Some sort of settlement involving more cameras.
The Ohio governor wants to privatize the lottery, the turnpike, more prisons, and more charter schools.
Sadly, we've learned that privatization is not more efficient, by definition. It can be. But all we've seen is the $ grab.
For shame.
"Deregulation" was used interchangeably with 'greater competition". All it really meant was less regulation.
More shame.
11:05 AM Sep 4th
 
Trailbzr
My pet peeve is the way drugstores use a multiplicity of programs like instant rebates, bonus bucks and double manufacturer's coupons to make it so confusing that I don't really know how much my total will be until I get the receipt.

And regular readers might know, I'm not someone who suffers math anxiety.


9:49 AM Sep 4th
 
DanaKing
I wish I had written this. I agree completely. I just wish I had written it. Thanks.
9:19 AM Sep 4th
 
 
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