House of Cards
My sister the lawyer is a mother first, but does part-time legal work for a number of clients. In one instance, she was asked to go over billings that her client had received from their law firm. The total was $800,000. My sister looked through the file and then met with the person at the law firm who handled the account. She said to the man, I only see $200,000 here. The man looked at the account and then up at my sister and said, We can live with that.
This kind of moral bankruptcy takes my breath away, although I don’t know why I am surprised any more. About fifteen years ago, public commerce was hit by an infectious plague of discounting. It wasn’t honest discounting, mind you, but simply mountains of hype. The discounters would start with the highest possible price and then chop it into pieces. And they would then sell to the mindless droves.
The television shopping channels did it best. They would jack prices up through the roof, and then discount them in the direction of inflated normal retail. And because their behavior was marginally legal, they were forced to run a disclaimer every so many hours that said something to the effect that their original prices were just this side of absurd.
What happened after the discounting plague had set in was a new ethic, or lack thereof. Businesses would overcharge here and there and everywhere. If a customer complained, they would apologize for the computer error and gladly make restitution. But most customers didn’t complain, and they paid for it. To wit, a study in the late Eighties said that 90% of the hospital bills in error favored — surprise, surprise — the hospitals.
A friend of mine sprained his ankle when he was visiting New York City. He was taken to an emergency room where he had it taped up. They handed him a basic wooden cane and sent him on his way. Included in the bill was $105 for the cane, which might have cost $10 at a medical supply company, and $3 at Goodwill. Insurance paid for everything except for my friend’s disgust. He was told that this was the way hospitals got paid for treating indigents, who came to the ER without insurance.
About five years ago, former Senator Alphonse D’Amato of New York demanded that credit card companies lower their outlandish interest rates. He was right, of course, but he backed off when he was told that if interest rates were adjusted fairly, lots of poor people wouldn’t be able to get credit cards. Which means that people who pay on time but leave a balance are subsidizing the cheats and the bankruptcies.
Talk about a house of cards...
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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