I more than hesitate at using the term “artist:” it’s an insult to true artists. These conjobs are often clumsy, obvious and don’t care. They find the legal line and force their employees to tiptoe over it if they can’t afford to constantly litigate, or just walk over it then use lawyers to jerk our awkward justice system around if they can.
    Irony being, otherwise, when it comes to the rest of us schmucks justice can be swift, brutal and ANYTHING but “justice.”
    I knew from the start of this “government should be run like a business” mantra it was, well, CRAP. I ran my own business for years, and very ethically. If I owed a vender they got paid, even if I didn’t like what they did. I always tried to follow the slogan Studebaker used, “Give them more than you promised.” Without raising the price I added elements to my shows and time spent with the audience. I only cut back if I found it wasn’t working. I charged less than almost all my competitors. I never ran down my competition.
    I wish I could say the same about my competition. Some were like that, but less than I would like.
    I wish I could say most businessmen and women I have known in my life were like that. Some were, but again less than I would like.
    A place where Millie and I worked when we first moved to Nashville refused to fix equipment, making it likely that an employee might trigger the shirt press and fry his arm. Eventually one did. They would put new employees on jobs to “train” them, tell them little, no concern for safety. One result was a 16 year old girl who had never handled guns before was told to run the pellet shooting booth. To unstick a rifle with a pellet in its barrel she slammed the butt against the counter. Pellet hit a customer, lawsuit followed.
    I have endless stories. Let’s just say their effort to save money at the expense of all ended up in them abandoning the park which was large part of their huge complex. Too many lawsuits?
    A company I worked for got in financial trouble so they stole their own printing equipment and got caught, put profits in a secret bank account, and got caught. Last I knew the owner was a politician. Hmm… businessman who thinks he’d make a great pol. Where have we seen THAT before?
    One of the “resorts” I stayed at when I was on tour would save money by not pumping black water dump stations, with waste flowing over where campers walked and camped. The owner had been cited so many times for so many offenses he reluctantly hosted disadvantage kids on the grounds, playing basketball. One of the saleswomen told me if I wanted to be treated fair on my contract I should tell him I’d report him to regulators. Knowing human nature better than she did, apparently, I never did that. So she told him and got fired, and I got harassed every time I stayed there after that.
    Yup, that worked… not.
    But the best example was a radio station owner years ago who would pay employees for three weeks then just stop. His stations were run that way for years. He was always in bankruptcy. He would take $1,000 out of the station every week, or sometimes every other, and when the station was finally liquidated he would buy another that was in bankruptcy. Last I knew he went through at least 7 stations and retired selling the last one to a chain.
    Historically, it’s pretty obvious the kind of business person who wants to go into politics is NOT the good, ethical, kind. They tend to be bad, crooks, conmen, embezzlers, and the better they are at selling the worse they are ethically.
    Plus, the business mindset of too many business owners is one of dictators, oligarchs, not one who believes in representative governance. Oh, they may have boards, but it’s more like what they have in Russia: the rule of oligarchs (board) ruled by the head oligarch who can even take all their money and possessions, kill them politically, kill their businesses, kill them. Applies more there than here, but how many died in the war we were lied into that a president-businessman started: Iraq. How man died because of COVID because a president decided it had become politically convenient because more of those who wouldn’t vote for him (blacks) would die than those who would vote for him?
    So I’m sure you already know who I am voting for in 2024, but even without my political opinions I would never vote for a bad businessman, or just because someone is/was a businessman.

                                      -30-

    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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