The new film by Michael Moore, Capitalism, A Love Story, did not really say anything different from what I  have been talking about for many years now. While I am not necessarily always a fan of his tactics, he does have some very insightful things to say. Capitalism is failing.

For almost a year now we have been hearing Wall Street wail as loud as they can for help so we bailed them out despite the knowledge that they created the disaster themselves by virtue of unethical business practices and greed. The idea was such that pouring taxpayer money into badly managed, unethical, parasitic banking institutions would save the economy, our beloved free market system, and give them more money to loan. The trickle down theory of economics in practice, but it is not trickling down and never will. Therein lies obvious as well as less apparent problems.

By the very definition of capitalism and free market economy it is survival of the fittest. This is what Wall Street has been espousing far longer than I am alive.  But wait! Apparently that does not apply to Wall Street itself, and the rest of us never got the memo. If it did apply they would have insisted that inferior institutions be allowed to fall in order to make way for the stronger ones, but they didn’t. All of a sudden they had their hands out with fear mongering speeches decrying the end of America. The best part is that we the American public, and our government, all drank the Kool-Aid. We buy into fear. It unites us. It gets us to agree to things that we later scratch our collective heads in wonderment over. If the previous eight years can be pointed to as an example it is not surprising we find ourselves in a similar position today, and those that reap the rewards stand laughing.

Just a few days ago I ended up in a conversation with an otherwise intelligent man that begged me to understand that the United States financial system was hours away from “Armageddon.” Armageddon?! Does this not wreak of familiar pulpit driven tactics to control the masses from thoughts of upheaval? Of course, the moment he began spouting his vitriol I correctly guessed that he was an investment banker by trade.What was there to understand? Where is their free market, capitalist model now? I do not see small business being bailed out, and small business employs the bulk of Americans. Small businesses are failing at record rates because of the mess that Wall Street created.

I am not saying I disagree with a free market system, but left unchecked as it has been since WWII it is doomed to self destruct. The fact that our economy has been in free fall has not been remotely solved by the big bailout, but why? That is what they promised after all. The answer is simple. Our form of capitalism breeds greed. We can look back to Lord Acton’s famous quote; “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” This is why my recent debate opponent sees nothing wrong with the bailout or the huge sums being given out as bonuses to the very people that did a poor job to begin with. It is not that he is a “bad man” as Lord Acton would suggest, but he is employed by some. If the rest of us had driven our companies into the ground we would surely not be given bonuses.

This folks is capitalism, but it is not democracy. They are mutually exclusive from one another despite what we are too often told. It is not democracy it is plutocracy, which is the form of government rampant, unchecked capitalism is best suited for. By definition plutocracy is “government by the wealthy.” Sound familiar?

I have talked many times about the theory of “the customer is always right.” Once again, it is not necessarily that the customer is in the right, but they should at least be left with the perception that they are being given the benefit of the doubt. While many companies out there are very good with this others are not. It should be remembered that not all customers can be satisfied, but when a company goes the extra mile to make a customer angry their existence in the business world at all should be questioned. When this occurs it not only breaks the basic rules of customer service but delves into unethical behavior.

A perfect example of not only bad customer service, but unethical behavior can be seen in the company Music Express Limousines. About a year ago I utilized their service for a pick up at LAX airport, which a friend had booked through her company at the suggestion of Music Express’ VP of Sales, after a grueling business trip to Mexico City. My flight arrived very late, and needless to say I was exhausted. The driver was there waiting, as I was his last run for the evening, and promptly took control of my luggage cart while escorting me to the car. He opened the door, gave me a nice cold bottle of water and proceeded to put my luggage in his trunk. It took us approximately 45 minutes to get to my house during which I could barely keep my eyes open. Upon arrival he handed me my bag and shut the trunk. I immediately asked him for my second bag at which time he indicated that there was only one bag. Trying not to lose my mind I asked him why he didn’t put BOTH of the bags on the cart into the trunk. He spent the next 10 minutes arguing with me and insisting there was only one bag all the while I became more and more frantic at the knowledge that he had left my carry on bag with my computer and camera on the cart. He never for a single minute took responsibility, and he even called his dispatch to say I, the customer, must have left it at the airport. I was livid, and his response was to call his dispatch and have someone get back to me in the morning. At that point I demanded that he drive back to the airport immediately WITH me in the car. While in the car I called the VP of Sales, whom I had known for many years and let her know what was happening.

After 45 minutes more of pure hysteria at losing all of my equipment, and his lack of care, we arrived back at the parking spot in the nick of time. A very honest LAX employee collecting carts saw the bag on the cart and called the airport police. We had pulled into the lot just behind the police vehicle, which informed us that they would have treated it as an explosives scare, but luckily they carefully reviewed my ID and released the bag without further incident. At this point you would think all’s well that ends well, but you would be wrong.

The driver not only still never took responsibility for his critical error, but the situation got worse. The VP of Sales defended the driver! Let’s face it folks, when you hire an expensive limousine you are paying to be picked up and taken care of. When the driver tells you to get in the vehicle and he will secure your bags you also expect professionalism. THAT is what you are paying the exorbitant rates for.

The VP of Sales for Music Express finally offered to refund my money or give me a complimentary airport run at a future date. I thanked her for her help and accepted the future ride in good faith. From there I thought we had solved the problem, but alas this was not the case. She called the company that I booked the limo through in order to try and get my friend in trouble, which was curious considering I had paid the bill and it had nothing to do with my friend’s company. Still I left it alone.

Cut to today, a year later, at which time I wanted to collect my agreed upon “make good” transportation. After asking nicely to redeem the make good, this is what I received:

From: Maureen *******
To: mpawl@pawlconsulting.com
Sent: Jun 1, 2009 11:27 AM
Subject: Re: Hey you

Hi Morissa,
I hope this email finds you well.
Unfortunately time has expired to use the one way transfer and ****
******* Travel is in agreement of our decision.
Thank you, Maureen

This was interesting as I am NOT an employee of this Travel company that made the booking, nor was it a “free ride.” They booked it for me after this same person had suggested I do so, and it was a paid trip. One in which, I might add, almost cost me thousands of dollars in equipment due to their driver’s error.

So the moral to the story is that for many companies customer service has not only become disposable, but executives tend to feel that they are impervious to normal ethical behavior. When a company is wrong they should admit it! The customer is not always right, but to go out of one’s way, as with the case of Music Express, is not only a poor business practice but highly unethical. In this case, there are plenty of good transportation companies that treat customers properly. Not only will I not use Music Express, but I will encourage all I know to not use them as well.

The California courts have recently determined that the right to privacy does not extend beyond death in the case of Nikki Catsourus. While this gets escalated to the appeals level, and then most likely on to the Supreme court, we have to wonder why. Perhaps more importantly, we should ponder as to why we feel the need to be so voyeuristic. This is a tragedy beyond compare, and the family must be suffering in unimaginable ways. This young lady was not famous and should therefore not be subject to the same rules of privacy.

What is our obsession with the gruesome details? Why is human nature such that we just cannot look away? And why in the world would a California Highway patrolman find it necessary to send these pictures to friends and then have them end up all over the internet? Can we say common decency?

As this story unfolds, and the case winds its way through the court system let us accept that this behavior, while not currently illegal, is unethical to say the least. Surely there must be something else for people to obsess about that is not quite so vile. It is bad enough that people read the rag magazines about the famous and infamous, but leave this poor child and her family alone. Haven’t they suffered enough?

Okay, so I am going to go out on another limb with something controversial here, but I just feel that it is time to chime in as it is becoming an ethical issue. For years now I have been hearing, and understanding, how everyone has a right to their “opinion.” This is true, and freedom of speech and expression are two of the factors that make this country great. Now, let’s go a little deeper into the idea of “opinion.”

Once “opinion” crosses over into “action” it is no longer a “point of view.” I always see both sides to an argument and value people’s differing opinions, and this subject has been no different until now. With states like Maine legalizing gay marriage day by day and public figures such as Miss California joining organizations to prevent the legalization of gay marriage the debate is heating up, but it is now more than a debate. I understand that there are many people in this country that oppose gay marriage primarily on the foundation of religious reasons, and that is to be respected to a degree, but we also have laws in this country that protect a person’s civil liberties. In this case we are left arguing based on the Principle of Rights, i.e. one person’s rights versus another’s. Allowing a gay couple to marry is not infringing on the rights of those with strong religious beliefs, however, the campaign to prevent them from marrying does infringe on another group’s rights.

Our civil judicial system operates under this very principle of rights and so it is doing in this case. The courts are deciding whether or not gay couples should be allowed to marry. The courts are where cases of rights are adjudicated not by public vote. If this were not the case then there would be many things in this country that would never have changed. It is not, in any situation, appropriate or ethical for the majority to dictate to a minority on basic human rights.

It wasn’t that far back in recent history that African Americans and Caucasians were not allowed to marry. The “majority” felt it should be prevented based on religious moral convictions. Sound familiar? We look back on this today as ridiculous, but the fight for this right was long and arduous. The majority’s moral, religious conviction against the allowing of multiracial marriage was deemed unethical and a violation of rights of another.

Our system is designed to protect the rights of the minority against the whims of the majority. It is our ethical duty as Americans to address this. Not to pick on this one person, but if Miss California had stood on the Miss USA stage and ranted about taking away the rights of multicultural partners to marry we would be outraged. We would be quick to call her and others like her racists and un American. Why then is it “okay” to do the same to another group of tax paying Americans?

Okay, so credit card companies have always raised their fees on a whim, but this just seems to take the cake. I can understand that the fees need to be raised when someone misses a payment date, and I am well aware that banks make the lion’s share of their money on these fees. What I cannot understand is the audacity of banks to be doing this after accepting millions of dollars in bailout money.

Traditionally, this is one step a business can take that will help to build its capitol, but to continue to do this at this particular stage of the game is unconscionable. The mere definition of that word says it all. According to Encarta it is defined as “shocking and morally unacceptable.” The Oxford English Dictionary describes the expression as “not right or reasonable,” and Webster’s defines the term as “not guided or controlled by conscience: unscrupulous.”

So WHY is it unconscionable? Because these same lending institutions have just begged for and accepted $700 billion in bailout money, and that is billion with a capital B. While we may or may not have had to do it the fact remains that it is a done deal for better or worse, and the American taxpayer is getting the shaft.

WE, you and I, have loaned the banks our hard earned money to straighten out their self created mess through our tax dollars, and now they are asking us to further fit the bill by raising interest rates on the credit cards of people that have always payed their bills on time. Is this not double dipping in its ugliest form?

Let’s name names; Bank of America, American Express, Citigroup, and the list goes on and on and on. When is the assault on the American public going to stop? Come on Washington. You promised us “change”. We cheered for “change”. Now let’s get it done!