The Badder Business Bureau
By Peter Ewart
Friday, November 14, 2008 03:45 AM
By Peter Ewart
For the last month or two, people in the U.S. and around the world have watched as governments have bailed out banks, insurance companies and other ailing financial institutions with hundreds of billions of taxpayer money. Indeed, it has seemed like helicopters loaded with cash have been throwing bills out like confetti over the impoverished and oppressed bankers of Wall Street.
More recently, credit card companies, auto loan companies and others have been added to the list, and there is a lot of talk from the newly elected Democrats about how the U.S. government should now bail out the big three auto companies.
Given this situation, some resourceful entrepreneurs plan to establish the “Badder Business Bureau of America” to monitor companies and give direction to potential investors. Now, it is a fact that a “Better Business Bureau” has been in existence for many years whose purpose it is to register complaints from consumers and keep records on bad companies. This organization has an excellent reputation and profile, and has branches all over North America.
However, as CEO Henry Fallsoon points out, the new “Badder Business Bureau” is a completely separate organization and will have a different mandate. While the original “Better Business Bureau,” among other things, warns people about the practices of “bad” and “unethical” companies, the “Badder Business Bureau” will warn them about “good” companies.
Why? Because these days it is the “bad” and “poorly run” companies, like AIG Insurance, Fannie Mae, Goldman Sachs and others that are receiving all of the multi-billion dollar handouts from governments. Good companies, of course, receive nothing.
Therefore, Fallsoon argues, the Badder Business Bureau’s job is to warn people about investing in these good companies.
The Bureau cautions that there are a number of warning signs that indicate whether a company or financial institution has fallen into the “good” category, and will not be eligible for big government bailouts.
What are some of these warning signs? According to Ben Berwacky, Vice President of the newly formed Bureau, “a telltale indication is a solid balance sheet and profit margin. Another is having a professional and knowledgeable management team. Still another (and even worse) is having a long record of sound business decisions.”
Berwacky advises investors to keep as far away “as a ten foot pole” from such “loser” companies, because they will most certainly not receive any bailout from government. “In today’s business climate,” he goes on to say, “being successful is the most disastrous thing that can happen to a company.”
The Bureau has been encouraged by recent statements from the federal government in Canada that it may also be bailing out some “bad” auto companies, and, as a result, the Bureau plans to set up some branch operations in this country. “The wonderful thing about these auto companies is that they have been making poor decisions for many years,” the Bureau says. “They are prime candidates for handouts.”
As part of this expansion, the Badder Business Bureau is planning a massive ad campaign across both the U.S. and Canada under the slogan: “Throwing good money after bad money is a good thing.”
“The way things look,” says Ben Berwacky, “the looming recession should be a bonanza for poorly run and insolvent companies. We can hardly wait to see the lineup.”
Peter Ewart is a writer, college instructor and community activist based in Prince George, BC. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
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Posted by: lostfaith on November 14 2008 9:26 AM
The main cause of our current and unprecedented financial crisis is that there has been too much debt pumped into the world’s economies under our debt based financial system, and an increasing amount of this debt cannot be repaid. Now what is the solution to this crisis; it is pumping even more debt into the system in order to get “the system” going again, thereby pushing off the “day of reckoning” into the future.
This makes as much sense as waking up with a splitting hangover after a “night on the town”, deciding the pain is too much, and heading down to your local watering hole and starting over again. It may be a good short term solution, but the long term consequences are a disaster in the making.