14/ I've got an acquaintance who is TOO sharp in his "business" practice. He buys a kitchenaid on sale and it has a scratch on it, so he writes an angry letter to the CEO talking about how he's a veteran and a friend of the local newspaper editors and ...
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26/ my friend
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27/ Conditions for Exchange to be "Euvoluntary" (1) conventional ownership (2) conventional capacity to buy/sell (3) absence of regret (4) no uncompensated externalities (5) neither party coerced by human agency
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28/ (6) neither party coerced by circumstance; the disparity in BATNAs is not "too large" http://euvoluntaryexchange.blogspot.com/
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29/ There is a lot of interesting thinking at the intersection of economics and ethics. (Btw, I've got to get back to Deidre McClosky's The Bourgeois Virtues )
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30/ Another interesting aspect is how we treat our friends vs how we treat commercial institutions. Sometimes we treat our friends worse. Sometimes much MUCH worse.
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31/ I went into a business deal with a friend once (initiated by her, not me). Bent over backwards to give her sweetheart terms, bc I wanted her to succeed.
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32/ TLDR: I gave her $10k of inventory and $5k of cash in a checking account, for $1. Yes, I handed her a bank account with $5k of cash in it. I really REALLY wanted her to succeed.
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34/ But as part of the bill of sale / contract, I put in a clause "if you sell this company or its assets within 10 years, I get a portion of it back. If you shut down, I get the stuff back." When we sat down to sign it I specifically called her attention to this clause.
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35/ 14 months later she'd driven the firm into the ground. Reports from people close by say that she was working 20 hour weeks, not executing against the business plan, watching TV at work, etc. So she shut it down / sold the assets.
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36/ ...and stiffed me with an unpaid $7,000 contracting bill. ...all while paying herself off the books (nominal, but noticeable amounts.) How do I know? I had the bank statements.
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37/ So then, in addition to trying to stiff me on the bill, she also refused to pay me my 45% share of the inventory liquidation. She asked me to forego my salary so she could pay another other debt to a friend of hers...who had been nice to her.
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38/ She was overheard bad mouthing me to her landlord as "that asshole". etc.
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39/ An agreement was later reached that, because of cash flow issues, I need not be paid then, but I WOULD be paid in a year or two when some real estate was liquidated.
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40/ Of course, when the real estate WAS liquidated, (a) part of it went to take a "well earned vacation", (b) I didn't deserve to get any of it because she really REALLY wanted to establish a nest egg.
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41/ In the end, I did get my $7k. But it spelled the final nail in the coffin of the friendship. Now, here's the hilarious part: After fighting for months to get my $7k, the next day she got a credit card bill for $5k ...which she paid with the remainder of the real estate $
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42/ That contrast amazed me. I, a friend of 20 years, who had handed her $15,000 worth of cash and inventory, had to fight for months to get paid $7k. ...but the credit card firm gets paid with zero questions asked.
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43/ The reason why? The credit card debt was "real". The debt to me was fake. You don't !@#$ around with CitiCorp ...but good old Travis? He's a FRIEND. He HELPS us. That's what he's there for. smdh
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44/ 20+ years of friendship, and she took a $15,000 gift and turned it into a funeral pyre bc she wanted to claw another $7k out of me.
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45/ So my take home re all of this: treat your friends BETTER than you treat your credit card company. treat your farm hands BETTER than you treat FedEx treat your baby sitter BETTER than you treat Costco
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47/ hah. :) yeah, that sucks. I should prob open source my article. ...not that anyone wants it.https://twitter.com/TristanSevers/status/960559692362625024 …
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48/ I linked to this thread earlier...but read the whole thing. https://twitter.com/ThalesLives/status/960559232528633858 …
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49/ so anyway, circling back to the beginning, I played the game with Hasbro a bit sharply. I didn't lie to them. I didn't say "yes, I will ask the court to delay the hearing". ...but I DID let them create for themselves the impression that they had another week or so.
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50/ How do I justify this? a) they were in the wrong, and not accidentally so - I had sent them a registered letter a YEAR BEFORE the publication date. They escalated to "sharp". b) technically I didn't lie; I was agreed to their wording. c) ...
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51/ c) to actually delay the court date would have put a lot more tasks on my plate: i) contact the court ii) ask for a delay iii) rearrange my schedule (I'd already taken the next morning off from work) iv) etc.
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52/ They de facto were asking me to do all those things, but (a) were offering no compensation, (b) didn't even explicitly state what they were wanted.
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53/ In an iterated game with a real person (e.g. a farmhand) who I felt warmly towards, that'd be THREE different reasons to play in cooperative mode. In a non-iterated game with a corporation who had wronged me first...that's not a time for cooperative gameplay. Play to win.
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54/ This is a great question.https://twitter.com/debeehr/status/960563020337467392 …
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