Thursday, November 12, 2009

IS THIS ANY WAY TO RUN A BUSINESS?

I wonder if you think this is the way a business should be run. Let’s assume that you are purchasing a piece of furniture. After shopping around for some time, in negotiating with the furniture store, you find the perfect couch for $4,000. You agree with the furniture store that you’ll pay $4,000 for the couch and all they have to do is deliver it. You haven’t written the check yet, but as soon as that couch is in your living room, you will. Everyone is happy with the deal but then the furniture store owner calls you up and says, “Hey, I changed my mind, I’m only going to charge you $3,000 for the couch.” "Why," you ask? He replies, “If I sell that couch for only $3,000, I think I’ll sell more couches.” You explain to the furniture dealer that it’s fine and you’d be glad to save $1,000 but you don’t get why he’s doing this. It doesn’t seem like good business.

That’s actually what’s happening right now with the federal government. Just yesterday, a person stepped into my office and said, “You’re not going to believe this?” We’ve been building our house since this summer. We’re planning on moving in sometime before the end of the year. We did not qualify for the new home buyer credit because we own a house. Now with the new home owner credit that was just passed, we do qualify for the $6,500 credit. When we file our tax return, we get $6,500 off on our taxes and we didn’t do anything.

That just does not make sense to me. Our deficit is going up because of the new home buyer credit that was just passed by 10 billion dollars. The person who came into my office was building a house without the credit. They’ll take the $6,500. More power to them, but what was the government thinking when they passed this law? Is this any way to run a business? I’m sure that furniture store dealer who keeps discounting below cost on his furniture won’t be in business long. I hope our country is.