Good for Business…

What is good for business? Whatever isn’t bad for business, I suppose.

We get this constant litany, we can’t do such and such because it would be bad for business. We can’t lower green house emissions. We can’t regulate banks. We can’t raise wages. We can’t have more air traffic controllers. We can’t have clean air. Hold the chalk right there. Why not? Did anyone ask if it is good for us?

Henry Ford had an idea we should revisit. He thought it was important his employees were making enough money to buy his cars. It worked for Henry. Today’s businesses don’t share that ideal (some exceptions). To most businesses the whole thing is to lower labor costs and sell to another market. We, the USA, are the largest market, so explain the thinking to me again.

Maybe we are allowing the wrong people to ask the questions. What if the #1 question were always, "what will be good for the country"? Or better yet what will be best for the people? Think of how much our world would have changed with just this little bitsy tweak in our thinking, working through time.

Here’s an example;

During world war II, companies started competing for workers and started offering insurance coverage as an incentive. Good for business back then. After the war was over they were stuck with it. Bad for business. Now with the war only in the memories of those like myself, too young then to work and too old now to work (exceptions), we are still saddled with the old idea that to be covered by insurance, your employer should cover you. No one noticed how times have changed. Health costs, and along with it, insurance have skyrocketed. Many people are self-employed now or want to change employers and the cost of individual health coverage is prohibitive. People are stuck in jobs they don’t want and employers are stuck with disgruntled workers. Bad for business and bad for people.

Employers are faced with a growing healthcare costs or they have jettisoned health care in favor of outsourcing or some other mechanism. We are now left with a growing number of uninsured and a number of companies unable to compete with foreign competitors because of health care costs. GMC has stated that each car they build has a $1500.00 added to the sticker for health care. They compete with foriegn companies where health care is paid by the state.

This is clearly bad for business and we get more and more uninsured, clearly bad for the country. Now for those of you wanting to call me a communist, I think it may make you feel better so go ahead. I’m not.

Here’s another example:

Just the other side of the border lives an enormous labor pool of hard working people living on $1 or $2 per day. Why should I as a businessman be paying union wages when these people will work for ¼ that and I can fire them when the harvest is in? I know it is illegal but the way around it is to insist they show me a set of ID, including a SS card. I then do the withholding. I then send it in to the Feds, they take several weeks or months before I’m told the numbers were phony. What can I do? My crop is in, those people are all gone by now.

Next year I will be careful not to use the same numbers with the same names. I get the same workers year after year, but they use different names and numbers. I don’t have a choice, my competitors do the same thing. It is not my fault 12 million illegal aliens are in this country, I only hire 20 or 30. If it weren’t for this system you would be paying $5.00 for a head of lettuce.

You know what? It isn’t any one person’s fault and there is no way a farmer can stay in business unless he plays the game. These illegals are willing to work for less and work harder than are our citizens. This is taking work from our people though. What solution would be good for all of us?

Another example;

Trial lawyers and frivolous lawsuits. It was almost true that lawsuits almost bankrupted the tobacco companies. Well I exaggerate. Tobacco companies spent years and years claiming no scientific evidence could prove cigarettes caused lung cancer or any other health problems. The government wasn’t about to go after them because of all the tax money tobacco sales netted. Then some trials ended with substantial settlements. Next some clever trial lawyers came up with the idea that states were paying out lots more money in health claims than they were collecting in tax revenue and the state attorneys started getting interested, then they started piling on. Tobacco companies lost in court. The result has been a marked reduction in smoking and a whole lot of money going to education. If it were not for trial lawyers and frivolous lawsuits this would never have happened. Bad for business but good for people

Now I promise, the last example;

I live near Seattle, home to the most expensive sports complexes and the worst teams on the planet. About 1 year in 5 we have another professional team threatening to leave town unless we build them a new sports palace. The argument is always the same, look how much revenue we bring into town. Well I’ve thought about it some and this may make me unique. Do sports teams really bring money into town or do they just suck money from what is already in town. Let’s see, should I go see the Sonics lose again in the arena we’ll be paying for until hell freezes or should I go to a play, or a concert, or a museum or a restaurant or fill my tank with gas. If this is disposable income people will think of some way to dispose of it even if the Sonics are in Oklahoma. We will have better support for more worthy endeavors. Could something be more worthy than 10 over paid athletes losing again and again? What would be best for Seattle? Your turn to think about it.

So what I’m trying to get at is how we should never, ever again fall for the verbal trap that something is good for business. Good for one business will in all likelihood be bad for another and doesn’t address whether it is good for us. We must learn to ask, will this be good for us? We must learn to just say "know".

Sleep well tonight.

Pat Chandler