As I see it, this is a land of great opportunity. A place where hard-working, dedicated people with dreams can make them a reality. Here, then, is my dream.
First, I'll need an idea. Just heard about a guy in California that charges people to rip mp3s off their CDs for them. This seems like an excellent high-yield, low overhead service that I can provide for people with large collections and/or no time to do it themselves. I'll work hard, build up my clientele, customer service, and speed, and seek out more ways to help people with their home music needs.
As I build my bankroll I'll start looking for ways to improve my bottom line, such as hiring minimum wage workers to rip the CDs for me and thereby increase my productivity. Company picnics and annual grocery store holiday gift cards will keep the workers happy so they won't notice that I don't have to pay for overtime any more if I don't feel like it (I can just retitle them as adminstrators). There will be few regulations I'll have to follow since the regulatory boards over my company will be filled with anti-regulation lobbyists, and what few are left will be entirely voluntary, i.e. toothless. I can dump whatever toxic residues I like without having to clean up after myself, and any nearby residents that try to sue will be dismissed by my team of lawyers as frivolous, money-hungry whiners.
I won't have to sweat workplace injuries either, because repetitive stress syndrome is a myth and the newly appointed head of OSHA used to lobby against it. I'm sure any problems will be capably handled by the pathetic health plan I choose based on what it costs me and what kind of kickbacks I get. Besides, thanks to the heavily publicized (and comparitively minscule) charity donations I'll make no one will believe them anyway.
I'll also begin dedicating a portion of my budget towards lobbying against gay rights (I'm not paying any more benefits than I have to), lobbying carefully crafted bills that prevent any one else competing with me, and donating heavily towards whatever political party will sign off on my bills.
Once my company gets big enough I'll move the whole thing overseas and hire Asians for pocket change. I'll put my corporate headquarters in a PO Box in the Cayman Islands so I won't have to pay U.S. income tax, then I'll use my connections to get contracts (without all that bidding nonsense) for government contracts towards copying secure files to safe offsite backups.
Then it's time to get serious. I'll start crafting legislation to block any and all CD copying (besides mine), explaining how it's piracy and evil and probably a terrorist thing. I'm with the angels, of course, because I have government contracts and friends in high places. I'll make some propaganda video that looks like a newscast and send it to local news studios, and I'll hire columnists to write glowing articles about my bill and why it's so very, very important to the safety of each and every American.
Shouldn't be a problem to pass, since by then the people voting on it will all either owe me money or their election. I should even have a few billion left to throw at removing whatever regulations are still standing, just for fun, and killing off any tax codes that might in any way adversely affect me. What hurts my business, hurts the country's economy.
Eventually I'll be secretly called to the White House to confer on decisions about my industry. Guess how that'll go. I'll probably get a cool nickname, and if I put enough money into the right groups I might get my completed invented issue mentioned by the President as a growing concern.
Meanwhile I'll be buying out my competitors and strong arming the rest. No problem with anti-trust laws, not for some time now. Soon if you want a CD burned to disc you'll do it through me, or by buying my buggy and security-hole-ridden software that's still the best thing on the market, largely because by the time I'm done it'll be the only software left on the market.
When I go public I'll hire the company that audits me to also advise me on how to hide things from their audits. I'll hide my liabilities by moving them to "limited partnerships" (which I'll secretly own). Insider trading and jiggering my employees' 401(k)s will blow my net worth sky high, and that gives me more money to sink into politics.
Eventually, of course, my crooked practices will get out, but not before I sell off my stocks and take a massive buyout.
I can't wait. This is a great time to be alive.
[ January 27, 2005, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:When I go public I'll hire the company that audits me to also advise me on how to hide things from their audits. I'll hide my liabilities by moving them to "limited partnerships" (which I'll secretly own). Insider trading and jiggering my employees' 401(k)s will blow my net worth sky high, and that gives me more money to sink into politics.
Sounds more like Clinton's America to me, assuming you're speaking of Enron.
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Pretty optimistic.
Posted by dh (Member # 6929) on :
Just plain sounds like America to me, regardless of who's in charge.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Nope, I freely admit it's not all Bush. This kind of stuff has been around since there's been business, and Clinton certainly benefited from Ken Lay and others. I wasn't just speaking about Enron, though.
I do, however, blame this administration for doing more to remove regulations and weaken regulatory boards than any other. I don't remember any administration that was so dead set to remove the individual's right to sue a company for damage or a doctor for incompetence, or a community's right to force companies to clean up their own wastes.
[ January 27, 2005, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
Well, to be fair, you people south of the border tend to be somewhat lawsuit-crazy, especially towards your doctors.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Have you read Bushwacked? It was a bit shocking. I didn't even know about OSHA, NCLB, and meat regulations. Scary stuff. You need some regulations in business, I think. Didn't Enron happen under Bush? And what was Whitewater all about?
[ January 27, 2005, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Synesthesia ]
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
(Quick position paper, before the argument starts)
I don't think all - possibly even most - patient/doctor lawsuits are worthwhile. I do think that there are provably incompetent doctors that are not being disciplined or blocked by the medical community, and I don't see why we should be prevented from suing them if they continue to practice. I've suggested various other methods here before to limit the number of such lawsuits (including using staggered payouts, similar to how insurance companies pay for damages, rather than a single cut off amount, or by limiting how much lawyers can make off such cases, etc), but I don't want incompetent doctors to be protected.
Same goes for companies. If they're corrupt or damaging, there needs to be a way for injured parties to seek redress. I have less and less faith in regulatory boards to notice or do anything and when the company can afford their own commercials, PR events and even legidslation, there's little chance the free market will stop them.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Enron started and flourished under Clinton and became a major political powerhouse under Bush as both governor and president.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
and what was Enron all about? I don't really know much about it.
Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
Indeed. You need a complete overhaul of your system. You need Canada to invade you and teach you the values of socialism and universal healthcare. Sure, you'll wait on a 4-year waiting list to get your appendix removed, but hey, at least you don't have to pay for it. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Adam -- except that would necessarily generate a shortage of lawyers willing to take on large corporations in anything but the most sure lawsuits.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
The areas that need the most urgent reform are in derivative and class action law suits, where the lawyer's economic interests do not align with the "clients." Potentially frivolous individual torts are bad, but not nearly as problematic.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Yup. I agree that some tort reform is necessary. I don't think blocking the individual's right to justice is the way to go about it.
Then there's my "destroy regulatory boards by only appointing people that hate regulations" rant...
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
quote: I can dump whatever toxic residues I like without having to clean up after myself
How much waste would you create from ripping MP3s off of CDs? Granted, I once ripped my wife's Britney Spears CD into my Hardrive, but I can always delete it.
*covers head in shame because it is not yet deleted*
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Oh, I dunno. Offloading barrels of blank CD spindles into unmarked duming grounds where they can melt and seep into the water table?
I really don't know, or care. I'd just hire an environmental consultant who would rubber stamp anything I gave him. Way easier than all that caring.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)