We need more people who are mad as hell

I’m looking at the front page of the L.A. Times right now. There’s an article about an automotive company that’s been in the news recently for problems with its vehicles. This article states that the company “sought to cut costs by limiting the scope of repairs.”

I’m not going to debate whether they did this or not. I’m upset because in five years this company will still be around and still prospering. I’m happy for all of the people who work there, but at what point are we as consumers going to say enough is enough? Do the right f’ing thing, companies. Don’t let us read about you in the L.A. Times again.

And the next time somebody says to me that we don’t need government regulation of companies – that companies will do the right thing on their own – I’m going to take a baseball bat to that person. Companies continually prove that they won’t do the right thing on their own, that they will always put profit ahead of customers’ best interests.

What’s sad about these poor decisions is that they are made by people working at these companies. And I wonder what these people would think if they were on the other side of one of these decisions? If their house was being repossessed because the person at the bank lied to them about the loan agreement? Or the product caused them to get cancer? Or if a known vehicle defect wasn’t disclosed to them before they loaded their entire family into the vehicle for a Sunday drive to the mountains?

At what point are we as consumers going to draw a line in the sand with the people who run these companies and take our business elsewhere? I guess at the point when we don’t let our desire for their product overrule our memory of their actions. Wishful thinking?