And Rightly So… » Blog Archive » It didn’t work…

It didn’t work…

Posted by Duncan on November 25th, 2008

Looks like the Twentieth Century Motor Company for the 21st Century (which I talked about here) is going to close after all. Color me not surprised.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 12:02 am and is filed under Duncan, Liberal Lunatics, Life's Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “It didn’t work…”

rob verdi Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:49 am
yeah, but it won’t work.They may put the whole state of Michigan on life
support, but it will only make things worse.
Here is a story on the consequences of a bailout:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/business/economy/18car.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=auto%20bailout%20england&st=cse
Bigfoot Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
The pay-what-you-want restautant has proven what Churchill said (or paraphrased, or had attributed to him). Capitalism is the worst economic system ever devised, except for all the others.
William Teach Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I think we just need to give them more money. That’ll fix it!!!!! :grin:
civil truth Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Here was the most jaw-dropping part of the story:

A bit chunk of Horowitz’s profits go to funding special programs in public schools, but what’s left over just isn’t enough to keep the business going.“I can’t pay my rent,” said Horowitz. She is two months late on the rent and has a week to move out. The landlord, Robert Burkheimer, says his hands are tied. He has to pay his mortgage and he’s already struggling to find tenants to fill up a once thriving retail strip.

Somebody needs a basic lesson in Accounting 101 – either Ms. Horowitz or the reporter writing this story. Not to mention most of the readers.

As (only) one reader so astutely observed:

CBPRP 2 days ago wrote:
Ok, first I thought this was a joke.
Sorry sister but you do not give away profit when you owe rent…profit is what is left over AFTER you pay all your debt, you know expenses…

So what it looks like is that Ms. Horowitz stiffed her landlord to give money to the schools. This is supposed to be a new paradigm for business: robbing Peter to pay Paul? Sounds like an old story to me.

She plans to donate all of the items she can’t sell within the next week.

Apparently she doesn’t plan to pay her back rent either. Peter’s just out of luck, I guess.

This whole model represents an abdication by the seller to set a price, and instead puts the burder on the buyer to figure out what is a “fair” price. Of course this depends on the store being in an upscale area with customers who have discretionary income and can view the purchase as supporting charity.

Even so, this is a set-up for ill-feelings because the buyer’s good-faith determination of price may not reflect the seller’s cost – and there’s no way to distinguish good-faith from someone who takes advantage -especially if the buyer has a friendship outside of the store.

Another intention of liberal good-intentions crashing against basic reality.