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March 1, 2024- by Steven E. Greer, MD
In 2021, when my dad was unable to take care of his property, I saw by photograph, as I lived in Florida, some of the belongings in his commercial property in Ohio. One item was a 1979 Camaro Z28 that had been in the family since 1980. It was a barn-find type of car.
It had sentimental value. I bought it from my mother for $6000 thinking I could fix it up (The Z28 Project). However, modern mechanics are incompetent. They literally do not know how to work on a carburetor. I ended up getting robbed for $17,000 by a car shop in Ohio. I had to sue them to get my money back. I then put the car in storage for all of last year.
It is now springtime and people are in the car buying mood. I found the perfect buyer. He is a man in Florida who had a car just like it when he was a teenager. He met his wife while driving his car. He and is going to restore it. My car has been passed on to good hands.
The transaction yesterday went as well as possible. I made a 35% ROI . The buyer should be able to make almost 100% profit if he does a good restoration. Everybody won.
Why is this interesting?
In the automobile industry, from the new car sales dealerships at Mercedes down to the used car lot, they are all crooks. In contrast, my business transaction with the Camaro was abnormal. It was WEIRD.
This just occurred to me. All three key players in this car transaction were extremely ethical, honest, Christians, or people of Western culture. My advertising and conversations with the buyer were very forthright about any flaws in the car. The buyer was an honest guy. He did everything he said he would do. The man who stored the car for me over a year in Ohio was an extremely honest guy. He did some crucial things to help me get it sold.
In contrast, I had to sue the mechanic who worked on the Camaro because they charged me three times too much. I could have taken them for $100,000 if I wanted to go to trial. I had a very strong case against them. Before that, I spent six years in Ohio court suing a Mercedes dealership in Akron that defrauded me when I bought a Mercedes. Then, Germaine Mercedes in Columbus had to perform $11,000 worth of work to fix the flood damage caused by a windshield improperly installed by a Naples, Florida Mercedes dealer.
There is an ethos in the car world that a salesman is not good at his job unless he takes advantage of the buyer. Being cynical and unethical is what these scumbags do. They think it is part of the job requirements.
Look where it gets them. All of their businesses struggle. Dealerships struggle. The average car salesman is poor. Their return on investment is low. Nobody trusts these scumbags. They are so unethical that every state has passed consumer sales practice acts to address it.
It is similar to what we see going on in Las Vegas now. The casinos are struggling and will go bankrupt soon. Instead of treating the customers better, they are thinking of new ways to scam the customers.
Look at the fast food industry. Most of those companies have terrible reputations. They pay their employees minimum wage and cut corners on the food quality. However, places like Chipotle and Chick-fil-A, which treat their employees well and serve good food, have lines a mile long.
I have had a few employees in my various businesses and have always paid them absurd amounts. When I started the Healthcare Channel in 2007, I would hire girls to read from the Teleprompter. I paid them $100 an hour. At Merrill Lynch, I hired an analyst and paid him more than the going rate, etc.
You get what you pay for. You also get a better return in investment if you conduct business in an ethical way. There is no long-term gain to be made from fraud (unless you are a central banker or member of congress).
Everyone should read this book: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
