LOS ANGELES, California, USA – I assure you that the above picture has not been doctored in any way. It is merely a reflection of corporate greed.
The people who run companies—CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, or others known by such three-letter acronyms—are never satisfied with their salaries, bonuses, and stock options, even when the sum of them is well into the millions or billions.
They must also rob consumers of what little money they can manage to salvage after the government and private interests have had their pickings.
I wasn’t always so pessimistic about the pecking order, but after several encounters with corporate greed, which I will divulge shortly, I knew where I stood—firmly opposed to corporate interests.
This is where I found myself one evening when I was trying to purchase a plane ticket on the US Airways website.
Something told me that this flight shouldn’t cost upwards of 700 dollars. I am aware that the prices for flights in general have gone up over the past few years with all of the should-be-illegal mergers and acquisitions that all but eliminated competition for consumer demand.
But sheesh…700 dollars? Flying coach? Within the same country?
I scratched my head, knowing I needed to investigate.
Lo and behold, the price of the departing and returning flight did not add up to the total the US Airways website calculated for me.
363 + 258 = 621, not 639
I could conclude nothing, except that US Airways attempted to charge me 18 dollars more. And that didn’t include the difference in higher taxes.
I scratched my head again contemplating this error. I wondered: Is this a computer glitch or an example of corporate greed?
The moral side of me insisted that it was just a computer error. Maybe my mouse clicks were too fast between pages. The algorithm couldn’t keep up.
Besides, why would a multi-million dollar company like US Airways want to charge little ol’ me an extra 18-plus dollars for a flight?
That’s when the practical side of me took over.
It’s because there are thousands and millions of little ol’ me’s purchasing airline tickets everyday!
One computer glitch benefited US Airways by 18 dollars. One thousand computer glitches gave the company 18,000 extra dollars. Ten thousand minor technical errors deposited an extra 180,000 in the US Airways bank vault.
My oh my, these computer glitches surely work in someone’s favor. Certainly not the consumer’s!
When there is no end in sight to corporate greed, individuals who hide behind companies will do whatever they can to skimp nickels and dimes, bits and pieces, a dollar here and a dollar there, from unsuspecting patrons because each miniscule penny brings them one step richer, so they can put absolutely nothing back into the economy but rather hoard money so that we can have less.
These computer glitches are precisely why I must read painstakingly through every bill I receive in the mail. The phone bill. The water bill. Gas and electric. Cable.
Comcast also has a habit of putting unnecessary charges on my bill, hoping that I don’t call so the company head can collect an extra 8 or 10 dollars that, might I remind you, accumulates with every unsuspecting person who trusts computers to be accurate.
Actually, to call the occurrence a “computer glitch” would be inaccurate. The computer is doing what it is told, what it was programmed to do. And that is to scam people.
If I keep scratching my head every time I feel cheated by a corporation, I will have a bald spot at the age of thirty. (Who knows, I might already have one and not have ventured to search for it in the mirror.)
If I can pass along a word of advice: count your totals carefully. The ruthless and toothless corporate greed operates by any means.
