The Tilapia Choice in 2016: Donald J. Trump

For starters, you may be asking: What does Donald J. Trump have in common with delicious fish?

First a disclaimer. My father, the most honest man I ever met, ran a business with honor. He didn’t stick our name in giant letters on any buildings; but he was proud of what he and his father built.

There are plenty of good people running businesses.

Still, I’m not blind. I know government is often better at protecting the interests of ordinary citizens. 

A Trump property in Chicago.

For starters, let’s talk fish.

In 2013 scientists (the same people who warn climate change is real) decided to do DNA testing on fish sold in markets and restaurants. It turns out not all business people are fit to serve flounder.

How often were people selling fish pulling what one writer called a “bait and switch?” In New York City a study found 39% of sellers, wholesale and restaurant, were dishing up tilapia that wasn’t—and 100% of sushi restaurants would have served an old shoe if they thought they could get away with it.

As a liberal, I understand why Trump supporters are sore. If they feel Big Business has been screwing them, they’re correct. But the argument the GOP loves—a bizarre variation of which Mr. Trump peddles himself—that he’s suited to run America because he ran a business—flies in the face of logic.

Let’s talk food again; let’s talk Trump steaks. 

I am not about to claim Donald Trump is selling weasel meat and calling it premium beef. 

I am saying the fact he once sold beef doesn’t qualify him to be president. If it did, some future White House dinner would feature meat from the Rancho Feeding Corporation, a California slaughterhouse. According to federal agents, Rancho made a habit of butchering cattle no one else wanted, for the simple reason those cattle had cancer.

In fact, government isn’t always the problem, as Ronald Reagan once claimed. Government is the main reason you are not currently gobbling down cancerous beef. 

And if you’ve ever been to Yosemite you know government does a magnificent job creating national parks.

A gorgeous Yosemite stream. Don't let British Petroleum within a thousand miles.

By comparison, we all remember what the business geniuses at British Petroleum managed to do. In 2010, eleven workers were killed when BP cut safety corners and the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. Before the damage could be contained, 4.2 million barrels of oil had fouled the waters and shorelines of the Gulf of Mexico.

In fact, history is chock full of examples of business people you would definitely not want running the country. Instead, government must check the abuses of crazed men and women in pursuit of a buck. Today the child pornography business is a $3 billion annual industry in the United States.

You can’t go lower than that.

Still, no list of greedy rats would be complete without Henry’s Turkey Service. For decades the company held dozens of special needs workers in a condition akin to slavery. The men were abused and paid, on average, 41¢ per hour. In 2013 an Iowa jury awarded thirty-two victims $240 million in damages.

Remember Bernie Madoff? He stole $20 billion.

Remember Enron? Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling rigged company books, jacked up stock prices to $90 and walked away with millions. When their scheme unraveled investor losses exceeded $63 billion.

Remember the Ford Pinto? In the “good old days” when safety regulations didn’t “strangle” job creators, Ford engineers decided to cut safety corners and save a few dollars. In rear end crash tests, conducted by the company, the Pinto kept failing, even at speeds as low as 20 mph. Ford sold the car anyway and, all across America, Pintos began exploding in giant fireballs. At least 180 drivers and passengers were incinerated.

Remember Joe Camel? In 1994 the first big lawsuit was filed against R. J. Reynolds and Big Tobacco. During hearings before Congress, executives insisted their products were perfectly safe. Why, babies could smoke cigarettes! The courts disagreed; state and federal agencies won $246 billion in damages.

Okay, those executives lied. According to the Center for Disease Control smoking results in the premature death of 480,000 Americans yearly.

How about business skunks like Martin Shkreli, of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. He made a name for himself recently after his company bought the rights to Daraprim, a drug used to treat life-threatening parasitic diseases affecting newborns and promptly raised the price from $13.50 per pill to $750. Yep: an increase of 5,500%.

How about the men and women who run Johnson & Johnson. For years the pharmaceutical giant provided expensive perks to doctors who agreed to prescribe Risperdel for creative uses. This included sedating elementary-age school children with behavioral issues. Presto! No more behavior issues! 

Also: tidy profits! 

Who cared if 1,200 kids suffered from serious side effects? Who cared if thirty-one died, including a 9-year-old who suffered a stroke days after beginning treatment? An Arkansas judge cared. 

He fined Johnson & Johnson $1.2 billion.

(We might also mention Pfizer, Amgen, Merck & Co., Eli Lilly, Abbott Laboratories and other big drug companies all successfully sued for hundreds of millions for illicit practices. The biggest fine of all, however, $3.3 billion went to GlaxoSmithKline, in large part for making false and misleading claims about the safety of their products.) 

Drug cartels: Not to be confused with pharmaceutical giants already mentioned! Then again, money is money is money. 

Speaking of which, HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, helped Mexican drug cartels launder $400 billion. In one email an HSBC executive lamented the fact the bank could lose $2.6 billion in fees if the lucrative pipeline was sealed.

Also: It turns out playing football is hard on the brain. For years, the NFL denied it was. “Here,” they said to players who suffered concussions, “take these pain killers and get back on that field. No! Wait! You’re heading for the stands. That way.” In a recent out-of-court settlement the league agreed to pay former players $765 million in damages.

How about that cesspool we know and love, Big Time College Sports! Top coaches earn millions even as players graduate with useless degrees. Or no degree at all. 

In an effort to keep athletes eligible, for example, the University of North Carolina came up with a novel plan. The school paid a professor to create dozens of classes that…how do we say this...never met at all 

Grades were good though!

Speaking of education, consider the whole for-profit college industry. (We will give Trump a pass, for now, until the matter of Trump University is litigated.) Not long ago Corinthian College paid five top executives $22 million for a year’s worth of effort, while simultaneously employing a variety of illegal sales tactics (including recruiting homeless individuals). Then they saddled students with high-interest loans. Eventually, Corinthian went bankrupt. Thousands of young people were still stuck paying off crappy loans.

And let’s not forget the University of Phoenix, once the biggest cash cow in the for-profit education game. The school came up with $67.5 million in court to pay for defrauding students—kicked in another $11 million for legal fees—all while spending $892 per pupil annually to…um …educate them.

Business people have been doing a fantastic job running various charter schools into the ground too. Consider General Chappie James Leadership Academy, a Dayton, Ohio charter. In 2015 the Academy was billing the state for each of 459 students enrolled. An audit revealed that Chappie James was missing a few bodies. 

Total students in attendance…oh, thirty.

And if you haven’t read about the scam that was Trump Institute—not to be confused with Trump University, but an entirely different scheme—you should. Glowingly endorsed by Good Businessman Trump, the institute was piloted by a couple who fled Texas, fled Florida, and fled Vermont to stay ahead of the law.

In fact, Susan G. Parker, who worked for Trump Institute and helped compile curriculum material (much of which has since turned out to have been plagiarized), came away from one training seminar appalled. “It was like I was in sleaze America,” she says, “It was all smoke and mirrors.”

I know. This is depressing.

So, perhaps a little levity might bring this post to an end. According to the Good Housekeeping Institute, when business people are on the loose, the consumer—and, in 2016, the voter—has reason to worry.

In various tests, Good Housekeeping uncovered more than bogus tilapia. It turned out a moisturizing cream sold by Olay for $22 outperformed a competing salon product that cost $350.

Another test of seven shampoos advertised to reduce split ends, involving magnification under microscopes to 700X, found none did.

Could it be: Is Trump using the wrong shampoo?

Well, the money-making shenanigans only continue! The New York State Attorney General recently accused GNC, Target and other retailers of fraud related to sales of herbal supplements advertised for health benefits to the unhealthy consumer. Walgreen was selling ginseng pills said to promote “physical endurance and vitality.” Turns out the pills contained nothing except powdered garlic and rice. 

In the same way, Walmart was offering ginko biloba pills, supposedly filled with a Chinese plant product touted to enhance memory. Sadly, someone making the pills forgot to include ginko biloba. The suspect pills contained powdered radish, powdered wheat and powdered houseplants.

In other words, the argument that we can trust business people to run the entire world has more than a few gaping holes in it.

Consider, for example, the coal and oil barons who pay for bogus climate denial “science” today. 

Consider the Oklahoma fracking companies, where earthquakes have been one unwelcome side effect. 

Throw in the trawling vessels which drag nets along ocean floors, nets which have scraped bare twenty million square miles of continental shelf. You know: the guys looking for tilapia to harvest—the guys not worried if they devastate an area equal to the land mass of Brazil, Canada, China, Russia and the United States.

In fact, when it comes right down to it, I would argue that Donald Trump is to government what fake ginko biloba pills are to healthful living.

Trump is political “tilapia” for the unwitting restaurant patron.

Maybe it's tilapia. Maybe it's Trump.

Should Businessmen and Businesswomen Run Everything? (Including Schools?)

We often hear how much better K-12 education could be if only we would introduce business methods in the public schools. 

Whenever I hear that line, I imagine British Petroleum or Henry’s Turkey Service or Lehman Brothers making decisions about children. 

Or even Pearson, the giant test making juggernaut that keeps coming up with new tests after old tests prove useless. 

Or I like to imagine Pfizer and money-mad pharmaceutical companies bringing their methods to public education. 

Who thinks businessmen and businesswomen have a lock on good ideas, good intentions and good methods, anyway? Some of the biggest crooks in history have run businesses. In a recent study, for example, it turns out Medicare and private insurers are wasting almost $3 billion on cancer medicines that end up getting thrown away. And this is happening every year.

Or, as Big Pharma might say, “Hey, we make an extra $3 billion!”

According to cancer researchers, many manufacturers market drugs in vials that hold more medicine than patients need. Nurses inject the required dosage, then, due to safety concerns, throw the remainder away.

Could this problem be fixed? Of course it could.

The companies could market cancer drugs in vials of varying sizes. Nurses could pick the bottles containing appropriate dosages. In fact, if U. S. lawmakers allowed it, we could start ordering vials of the same chemicals from Europe—where, magically, such medicines are sold in vials of varying sizes.

In this country, Takeda Pharmaceuticals sells 3.5 milligram vials of Velcade, to treat melanoma and other forms of cancer. One vial goes for $1,034. Each contains enough to treat a 6' 6" male, weighing 250 pounds. 

By comparison, Lena Haddad, 53, an average-size woman, receives 1.8 milligrams weekly to treat her cancer. That means, if I did the math right, that $502 of Velcade is wasted weekly. Or: $26,104 annually.

For a single patient.

In England—where I might add, they have socialized medicine—you can buy vials of Velcade in 1 milligram bottles. So, I am thinking: Why not put Ms. Haddad on a plane and fly her off to London. She can see the Tower and watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and then bring back a few dozen bottles of Velcade. All of us who pay taxes, all of us who watch our insurance premium soar, will be better off. Plus, Ms. Haddad would enjoy a fun vacation.

Oh, wait: the hitch! The drug companies would see profits decline. Takeda, the study indicates, might easily offer Velcade in vials of three sizes, cutting waste by 84%. But Takeda would lose $261 million in annual sales.

“Drug companies,” says Dr. Peter B. Burch, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering, “are quietly making billions forcing little old ladies to buy enough medicine to treat football players, and regulators have completely missed it. If we’re ever going to start saving money in health care, this is an obvious place to cut.”

As it stands now, $1.8 billion worth of cancer medicines are thrown away every year in this country. Another $1 billion is wasted when doctors and hospitals mark up prices for these drugs they throw away.

Meanwhile, if you do get cancer, good luck. You’re going to need it—and Obamacare—or maybe wait until Republicans repeal Obamacare and you can sell your house. According to The New York Times, the last ten cancer drugs approved for use in this country have an “average annual price of $190,217.”

Big Pharma complains any time we accused them of gouging customers. “Oh, we need to spend all that money on research and development!” Yet Pfizer and Merck devote only 17% of revenues to developing new treatments and spend more on marketing expensive drugs they already sell. 

Also: lobbying Congress is expensive! The biggest lobbying organization for the drug companies spent $208 million in 2014, alone.

You know: buying lawmakers can be expensive.

Speaking of Merck, in February 2015, the company stopped selling vials of Keytruda, a drug to treat lung cancer, in 50 milligram bottles. Yes, it might be true: a 150-pound woman might need only 136 milligrams for treatment. But why offer three 50s when you can sell two 100 milligram bottles instead? And, Merck now has an even better idea—if only they can foist it off on the Food and Drug Administration. (Again: send in the lobbyists!) Why don’t regulators set a fixed dosage of 200 milligrams for patients? Then let Merck sell Keytruda only in 200 milligram bottles, enough to treat any jumbo-sized patient. That way, none of the drug will, technically, be wasted—even though doctors say there is no evidence the higher dosage would help most patients.

Then again, who cares about patients!

Merck is in business to make money! And in the next five years, even if the F.D.A. says no to the 200 milligram scam, it is estimated the company will collect $2.4 billion for Keytruda that gets thrown away.

P. S.: Teva Pharmaceuticals sells Treanda (used to treat leukemia) in four different vial sizes. In other words, it can be done.

Even in America.

If Only Goldman Sachs Ran the Public Schools!

Alright, teachers: You’ve heard what the right-wing crowd has been shouting. The public school monopoly is bad! Teachers’ unions and tenure only protect lazy workers. Taxpayers get fleeced and the nation’s schools fail badly.

Only business methods can save the children.

That’s the argument, anyway. But I wonder:  why does anyone believe cash-crazy corporations will actually care about kids?

If we say that public schools should follow a “business model” then what is that model? We already know how one version works with for-profit colleges. They’d enroll cows in physics classes if only the cows would agree to pay the tuition.

What about the business model of JPMorgan, currently working on a deal with the Justice Department to provide $4 billion in relief to all the homeowners the company shafted in regard to their mortgages? The company is also considering an agreement that would involve $7 billion in penalties.

If you figure the average public school teacher today earns $56,000, this one company is about to admit to questionable practices equal to the annual salary of 196,428 educators—with a little left over to hire some substitutes.

Introducing business methods in the schools sounds wonderful if all you ever do is watch Fox News. But with business methods you get “business ethics.” And where business is involved the greatest good is piling up the greatest profit. Consider, for example, nine Japanese automotive parts manufacturers now having pleaded guilty to price fixing in the U. S. market. They are set to pay $740 million in criminal fines, bringing their total bill to $1.6 billion.

That’s another 28,571 teachers.

How about copying the drug companies, who sell their outstanding products for use on our children? Plenty of models to follow here: Johnson and Johnson, fined $70 million in 2011 for bribing doctors (and double points for doctors who took kickbacks). That fine alone would pay the average annual salaries of 1,000 school nurses.

Even better, in 2012, J & J paid a fine of $1.2 billion for deceptive marketing of Risperdal. Did we mention that our drug might increase the risks of suicide in teens?

No? We didn’t?

Sorry about your daughter.

You can pile up great examples just from the drug companies: GlaxoSmithKline hit for $3 billion in 2012 to settle claims of marketing antidepressants illegally and withholding information about health risks of one of its diabetes medications. Or: Bristol Myers Squibb, fined $515 million for marketing Abilify to treat behavior problems in children—then hiding evidence of potentially fatal side effects—oh, and getting doctors on board to push prescriptions anyway, offering “kickbacks and expensive vacations to luxury resorts.”

In fact, if you total up the ten biggest fines paid by the drug companies (Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and others) you have $11.579 billion.

Just for fun, let’s call that enough to pay 3,879 school nurses, 5,542 school counselors and another 196,428 teachers.

Need a few art instructors? How about copying the business model of Glafira Rosales, a New York City art dealer, who stood the concept of “artist” on its head and sold 63 fake art masterworks for a cool $80 million. That’s small potatoes compared to Merck or Pfizer but still enough to hire 1,429 elementary school art teachers.

Speaking of art, how about Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors? That man does love his Picassos—spending $155 million recently to buy one of his pieces. Cohen’s company is under investigation and his hedge fund is looking at $2 billion in penalties for shady dealings. So far, SAC has paid a mere $616 million in fines, but even if we stick with that lower figure we can hire another 11,000 fifth grade science teachers.

Here’s one of my favorites—a lesson in ethics teachers might discuss with students next time they do character education. This past summer Henry’s Turkey Service was ordered to pay a judgment of $240 million in back wages after a jury found the company guilty of profiting for decades by supplying mentally disabled workers to an Iowa turkey plant at wages of 41 cents per hour. Even more impressive, ethics-wise, this was the company’s third trip to court, including a 2009 ruling that closed down a rundown Iowa bunkhouse where 32 employees lived. Those men had been there since the 1970s and hadn’t had a raise in all the time they were employed by the company.

The fine Henry’s paid equals the salaries of 4,286 special education teachers.

Another fine example of the business model we might copy in the schools would be Massey Energy. The company was docked $209 million recently for its role in the deaths of twenty-nine West Virginia miners in 2010. These deaths were ruled “entirely preventable” and found to be a result of a decision by top executives to keep two sets of safety records, one for the company and one to fake out federal safety inspectors.

Maybe schools could follow the business strategy of West Fertilizer Incorporated. The firm decided not to notify Homeland Security that it was storing 270 tons of volatile ammonium nitrate, even though the law requires a company to report if it has even a single ton. In April the company blew up its own facility and a good part of nearby West, Texas, and fifteen people were killed. And yes, three of four schools in the West Independent School District were flattened or irreparably damaged.

How about Wal-Mart: docked $81 million this past spring for dumping hazardous materials in local sewers and waterways?

And who can forget the awesome job done by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico? Eleven workers were killed—and the company paid $4.525 billion in penalties, while Trans Ocean, also held partially responsible for the disaster, was billed $1.4 billion.

What about Wal-Mart (again) facing charges of bribing foreign officials under the Federal Corrupt Practices Act? No word on penalties yet: but in similar cases Siemens paid $800 million, Halliburton $579 million and BAE Systems $400 million.

Throw in Bernard Ebbers who once earned enough to be able to afford a $6,000 shower curtain and then got busted for engineering an $11 billion Ponzi scheme. Don’t forget Bernie Madoff, mastermind of the “scam of the century.” His machinations led to the loss of another $50 billion. Then you had Ken Lay who ran Enron into the ground and just so happened to wipe out $60 billion dollars in stock market value.

Many of the investors these scumbags cheated were…yes…public school workers.

Hey, what about News Corporation—which hopes to get into the business of selling computer tablets and software to America’s kids? Rupert Murdoch’s company admitted bribing London police officers to get tips and coughed up $139 million to settle just some of hundreds of charges of phone hacking of private cell phones, including that of a teenage murder victim.

Why not ask our physical education teachers to copy the methods of that business juggernaut, the National Football League? If you missed that heart-warming story recently, the NFL agreed last month to pay $750 million in damages to former players and their families related to catastrophic head injuries.

Honestly, it’s going to be really hard for schools to decide which business model to choose from. How about HSBC, the banking giant? The company was just ordered to pay a penalty of $1.92 billion for “allowing itself to be used to launder a river of money flowing out of Mexico and [for] other banking lapses.”

There’s always UBS, a Swiss bank, if you prefer—considering that the company was fined $780 million by the United States government, after officials admitted offering shelter to thousands of tax cheats—and fined again, $450 million, for rigging interest rates. Then there’s Bank of America, hit for $2.4 billion for questionable operations.

Can we also agree that where the “business model” is concerned the entire pornography industry is doing a bang-up job of creating jobs and profits! That’s another $10 to $14 billion.

Add up all these examples and you have $135.271 billion, not to mention some tasty pesticides in your drinking water and thousands of young women swallowed up annually as part of the booming sex trade.

Enough to pay another 2,415,556 teachers.

Let us count the ways to cheat in business! You have Kia and Hyundai faking gas mileage figures. Halliburton admits destroying evidence related to the company’s role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Novartis is under investigation both for bribing Chinese doctors and providing kickbacks to doctors in this country.

Certainly, the public schools are going to have a hard time topping the creative tactics of Goldman Sachs. This brilliant business model gives new meaning to the words: “The wheels on the bus go round and round.”

In 2010 Goldman bought up critical aluminum-storage facilities in Detroit and went into business supplying car manufacturers and beverage companies. In case you missed this story of hard-working business folk doing what business folk do best, you might not know that delays in aluminum shipments grew from six weeks to sixteen months. Goldman claimed to be hamstrung by a shortage of forklifts and drivers. Unfortunately, there were only enough forklifts and drivers to load 1,000 tons of aluminum in Warehouse A and ship it over to Warehouse B and unload. Then Warehouse B loaded and shipped another stack of 1,000 tons of aluminum over to Warehouse C and unloaded. Then C loaded and shipped a third stack of 1,000 tons to Warehouse A, and then the company filled out the paperwork to show that, hey, they shipped the 3,000 tons of aluminum required every day under an agreement with producers.

Naturally, prices rose and Goldman is estimated to have made an extra $5 billion in profit.

If schools here in Ohio would only copy Goldman’s strategy they could stop wasting time asking voters to pass levies!

Finally, the public schools might copy apparel companies like The Gap, which buys jeans from factories in Bangladesh because workers there—including children—earn a minimum wage of $37 a month and don’t have much recourse if they get crushed in collapsing factories.

What the heck! Why not let American businesses take over the public schools—and then we can even bring back child labor!

Remember, when it comes to putting profits before children, or children before profits, we already have plenty of examples to tell us how American companies might choose.


Author’s note: My father was a small businessman and the most honest individual I have ever known. I realize many business people are honest, upright individuals.

The same is true of most teachers.

Still, it’s a myth that the business model can save U. S. education.


Extra Credit Reading: You might also like: “Privatizing the Public Schools and the Loch Ness Monster Bonus.”

Big Bucks in Tater Tots: When Public Schools Run with Business Efficiency

TODAY, WE'RE SPEAKING with the superintendent of Enron City Schools in Enron, Texas. As astute readers may already know, Mr. Frick heads up the first public school district in the nation to be turned over entirely to a private company and run according to best business methods and practices. John Galt, our lead reporter, will be asking all the questions.

Mr. Galt:  Thank you, sir, for sitting down to talk. It has been said that success here in Enron will show the nation how we can best reform U. S. education.
Frick:  I'll do my best to give you a glimpse of a better future.

Galt:  Looking back over your first for-profit school year, now almost complete, what changes make you proudest?
Frick:  I'd have to say the cost-cutting benefits we brought to schools by following the Apple strategy. You want cheaper iPads, or cheaper education, you have to make choices that benefit consumers.
Galt:  Also the bottom line?
Frick:  Well, yes...that, too, a mere side effect; but we all know that the real problem in education is unions. So we broke the union here in Enron and just like that, you create a docile workforce and you can reduce wages and benefits and realize huge savings. That's the genius of the Apple model and we want to bring that genius here. Apple is able to employ college graduates and pay as little as $22 dollars per....
Galt:  Hour....
Frick:  Oh no, per day! Think of the profits...I mean savings for taxpayers. Since teachers are no longer unionized we require them to put in 12-hour days, six days a week and ignore overtime rules, too. It's just like China!

Galt:  Speaking of taxpayers, not everyone in Enron is happy with your methods. You're demanding tax breaks and calling on the community to build a new high school with taxpayer dollars; but you operate at a profit and plan to pocket almost all the money you save, not return it to taxpayers. What happens if voters turn down the next building levy?
Frick:  You're either for socialized education or you follow the Miami Marlins business model and enjoy the fruits of free enterprise. Our company has made it clear. If voters won't build the new high school here we're prepared to move operations to Madoff, Oklahoma. Or Mexico. Is that what voters want? All those student openings in kindergarten being shifted to a different state or foreign country?
Galt:  So, you'd outsource students?
Frick:  Let's just say we have our accounting department studying the business metrics.

Galt:  Well...what are some of the most dramatic changes you've seen this year?
Frick:  I think you might notice a huge decrease in discipline problems. We've been following the Jansen Pharmaceutical Model. You have a child with any kind of behavior issue. You make sure that child is on a prescription for anti-psychotic drugs, like Risperdel.
Galt:  Isn't there evidence that some of these powerful drugs have dangerous side effects, that children sometimes die as a result?
Frick:  That's a lie pedaled by the liberal media. Jansen keeps only the finest doctors on the company payroll and those doctors produced all kinds of reports to show that all these drugs were perfectly safe. And just because the Arkansas courts recently fined Jansen $1.4 billion dollars for lying, well that was just the work of activist judges.

Galt:  On a happier note, it's been said that you're bringing business efficiency into all areas, including school safety.
Frick:  Yes, we're proud of several cost-cutting steps we've instituted. We cut back on unnecessary CPR training for teachers, for example, and reduced the maintenance budget.
Galt:  What happens if  students get asphyxiated because fumes from dangerous chemical compounds you order janitors to use to speed the cleaning process (another idea copied from the Apple playbook) back up inside classrooms? Wouldn't your company face liability issues?
Frick [laughing]:  I'm sorry. That struck me funny. We have our friends at the American Legislative Exchange Council working on rewriting safety rules and regulations, too. And our safety director, Thomas Harrah, used to work for Massey Mining Corporation.
Galt:  Isn't he the fellow found complicit in the death of 29 miners at the Big Branch Mine in West Virginia? Isn't Massey the corporation that kept two sets of safety records, one for company use, the other, glossing over safety issues, to show "compliance" under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act?
Frick:  You bring business methods to schools, you get business morality in schools.

Galt:  Any other innovations you'd like to mention?
Frick:  I'm proud to say we've copied First Premier Bank of South Dakota when it comes to student lunch charges. We allow families to open accounts but cap charge limits at $300. They pay $95 to create the account and a $75 annual service fee.
Galt:  Big bucks in tater tots?

Frick:  Of course. And think about costly school nursing and psychological services! You can't expect free medical care. Are we some kind of socialist country? We've boosted profits significantly by adapting the methods of the Hospital Corporation of America. First, we deny services to children with pre-existing conditions. That saves us a tidy pile of dollars...
Galt:  Don't I remember reading that HCA once had to admit to fourteen felonies for defrauding Medicare and pay a fine of $600 million...
Frick:  Disgusting rumors, spread by union thugs...they just want to discredit Rick Scott, former head of HCA and now a leader in education reform as governor of Florida...

Galt:  I see. I really do. Suppose I told you that voters are unhappy with many of these changes? There's growing pressure on school board members to take action. How would you respond?
Frick:  We might follow the lead of the Pearson Corporation. The State of Illinois is paying Pearson $138 million, this year, to administer the state's standardized testing program. So we might say to board members, "We'd like to fly you and your families to a conference in Singapore, where you can stay in luxury motels and discuss education reform...."

Galt:  That sounds a little like bribery, to me; but suppose we spend millions on these tests and a testing program doesn't really help raise learning outcomes for the students. Would companies like Pearson be willing to admit their failures? What happens if they put their vested interests in selling more and more testing first?
Frick:  Surely, you understand basic economics. If a product is selling well, why would any company want it any other way?
Galt:  Wouldn't Pearson have the same vested interests, then, as Phoenix University...the for-profit college which has been sued by federal authorities for graduating students with worthless degrees...
Frick:  I'm sorry, It's getting late...

Galt:  Yes, of course...Thank you for your time. This session has been highly informative.
Frick:  That's what for-profit education is all about. Helping the bottom line while helping people.