Lies to protect the status quo (reposted)

I had just posted this entry taken from business author, Seth Goldin. This time I decided to add commentary to it.

1. Canadian pharmaceuticals are dangerous
This lie protects the prescription drug companies, allowing them to charge the consumer super high prices to our poor innocent consumer. The logical solution would be to buy them from Canada where generics are cheap and readily available. The drug companies though are saying that doing this is dangerous to the consumer. Oh please. Canada isn’t some third world country where drugs aren’t tested. so they’re perfectly safe. The only thing dangerous is how the Americans have to sneak them down here.

2. Piracy is killing the ongoing creation of music and movies (notice I didn’t say anything about the movie and music businesses)
First let me say that piracy is illegal. It is copyright infringement and that is a crime, because you are taking something that you don’t own and not paying for it. That said, it doesn’t mean that music and movies in general are suffering from piracy though. For one thing, there are plenty of people who have pirated singles from various artists and then want to buy the cds or better quality dvd versions. These people will also go to concerts and screenings and buy other merchandise, which actually makes the artist more money. And with all the piracy technology that’s come out like mp3s, divx, and p2p file sharing programs, independent artists can now distribute all sorts of music and movies that wasn’t possible to do without a lot of funding. Consumers now have more access to more music and more movies than they did before, not less.

3. Dental work lasts forever
Take a look at how long your fillings last.

4. A bottle of Evian is dangerous to airline security and must be surrendered
There are several more dangerous things to worry about than whether or not an ordinary bottle of water is actually a bottle of acid. However, airport security makes you drink from your bottled water to prove it isn’t some toxic chemical. Wow talk about paranoid.

5. The Microsoft monopoly pays dividends to all users (like IE, for example)
I’m sure all those people who have gotten a virus in the last 2 years know exactly how wrong that statement is. Too many people running Microsoft products have made us all vulnerable to attack by just about any bored kid with computer programming skills. Adding the 40 dollars a year for security programs and Microsoft is paying the consumer back greatly.

6. You can’t start a business without venture money or a big bank loan
All those people making money off some e-commerce site like Ebay can tell you that’s not true.

7. Working hard for your boss and following instructions is the best way to get ahead
I’m sure we all know that’s a lie by now.

8. We need to spend taxpayer money on support for traditional factory farming
Somebody mind telling me more about this?

9. It’s impossible to make a fuel efficient automobile Americans will accept
Hybrid cars have totally disproved this. Car manufacturers just needed to stop making fuel efficient automobiles that suck.

10. Who you know is more important than what you do

Good stuff he put up.

3 Replies to “Lies to protect the status quo (reposted)”

  1. Factory Farming

    I think what #8 (about the taxpayer money on factoring farming) is talking about is the fact that huge subsidies are paid to farmers in the U.S. not to produce food to feed us, but keep them from going out of business. Ever since the “death of the common farmer” because of the growth of machines that could do a better job, farmers have waged a war to fight for their economic survival. With the rise and fall of the grangers and populists, the farming community realized that their way of life was gone. Subsidies were granted to the remaining farmers due to fear that all farmers might disappear and fear that powerful political allies might also disappear. The farming industry has huge political power and will not give up their subsudies. This is actually a major complaint amongst many other nations of the world. Their farmers are going out of business as world trade expands because American farmers have the advantage of subsidies. These excessive farming subsidies are wasteful of natural resources, taxpayer money and do nothing but protect the status quo.—Henry Lew

  2. #8, read fast food nation. Monopolized farming for efficiency leads to poor sanitary conditions and techniques like using ground up cow to feed to chickens for cattle/livestock which promote diseases to be spread.

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