New and Improved Organic Locally-Sourced Hate
I’m an official selection at the Holy Shit I Went In The Cannes festival.
The “multiplier effect” is an economics term that means so much horseshit or some such. (Economics is the branch of sociology that specializes in humans fucking each other and not in a fun way.)
I’m here to tell you about the real multiplier effect.
It works a little something like this:
A store notices, perhaps even by accident, that products with a red dot sticker are selling slightly faster than non-stickered items.
The produces a sexual response within the store owners, but that’s a story I’m saving for another post. Click here to buy access to my premium content.
You Must Present
I like this image. No disrespect to Pankaj Ghemawat or the Eight Percent is intended.
These days, if you decide to come after Twitter, you had best bring your A-game. You gotta have cred. Because, when the shit hits the fan, you have a grand total of .42 seconds to capture the attention of that potential follower or lose ’em forever.
You get one chance. One!!
Strike while the iron is hot. Seize the day. Squeeze lemonade out of their lemons. Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.
That’s where I come in. My latest business idea will give you insta-playa status. Make the jump for our special presentation or choose the path that leads to dying alone.
A Tom B. Taker Christmas
There it was. In the mailbox. A legitimate Christmas miracle. It was as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes. Instead of darkness I beheld a world of twinkly light.
It was beautiful! I felt alive. I loved everything I could see. I sprinted out into the street and hugged the garbage man. He was beautiful. He looked really surprised. Maybe I should have worn pants but there was no time for that.
In my hands I held a Christmas card. It was even addressed to me. To me! Someone had sent me a Christmas card. A bona fide recipient of the Ribbon of Participation. I was finally somebody.
“God bless us, every one!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I’d never felt a stronger sense of belonging.
Yes, it was time for a let down.
Something Fishy
Who is lying to you? Basically anyone flappin’ their gums. But who’s really lying? I think the probability goes off the charts when it’s someone in retail and/or someone trying to sell you something.
For example, one group conducted a study and found that one-third of seafood sold in the United States is “mislabeled.” I think that’s the nice way of saying, “fucking liars.”
The study found that 50% of tuna sold in Washington D.C. restaurants was something described as “cheaper” and that 87% of the time seafood described as “snapper” was actually something else.
Talk about having a whale of a good time!
In other news, the “biggest US honey supplier admits to laundering, mislabeling Chinese honey.” Yeah, Chinese honey is banned from U.S. markets. That doesn’t mean it’s not for sale down the street, though. Why use the real thing when you can acquire “cheap honey” from China? Because, profits.
Earlier this year Apple agreed to pay $450 million to settle claims it colluded with five major publishers to inflate book prices. As part of the deal, Apple, of course, admitted to no wrongdoing.
Also this year Whole Foods Market, as part of a settlement, was ordered to pay $800,000 for overcharging customers. For its part, Whole Foods claimed their prices were accurate “98% of the time.”
AT&T agreed to pay $105 million as part of a settlement for “adding fees that customers didn’t authorize” to phone bills.
When you stop to consider that these are most likely outlier cases, in terms of actual consequences, it is easy to imagine the vast majority of fraud goes completely unpunished. And you can take that to the bank.
Banks? Never mind. Don’t get me started.
Drop on the deck and flop like a fish! You can trust me, your humble guru. I’m not selling anything.
Sources:
Free Markets and Unicorns
Q. What do you call it when you lie about the mileage when selling a car?
A. Fraud. The NHTSA calls this a “serious crime and consumer fraud issue.” Additionally, between 2002 and 2005 the NHTSA Office of Odometer Fraud says there was a “definite escalation in [odometer] fraud.”
Q. What do you call it when a woman falsely claims to have a tubal ligation?
A. Tom B. Taker, Jr. Or, as I like to call it, a 21-year donation to The Human Fund.
Today’s axiom is a simple one.
Tom’s Law #42
There’s no such thing as a free market.
You think I’ve gone too far this time? You say, “Open your eyes, Tom. Look around. You’ll see free markets everywhere you look.”
Bollocks! (If only those had been tied instead.)
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