1. denialism
  2. Making A Business of Going Out of Business

Making A Business of Going Out of Business

By choofnagle on June 23, 2009.

In Adam Sandler's 2008 masterpiece, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, the actor is offered a job at an electronics store called "Going Out of Business." This is a shady operation that constantly makes false claims about products and rips people off. Sandler was mocking a real phenomenon--the liquidation companies named "going out of business" or "total liquidation sale." The Journal has a fun article on the issue today, focusing on a rug salesman who has settled down in Texas for a permanent going out of business sale. Barry Newman reports:

Many localities do have rules against such claims. New York City asks stores to get licenses for angst-inspired specials, from "fire sale" to "lost our lease." Texas asks the same. But with blowouts on every corner, there's been no burst in enforcement. Texas has issued 49 such licenses since 2001 -- and prosecuted one used-car dealer in Austin.

Tags
Wasting your time

More like this

Occupational Health News Roundup
At PBS Newhour, Aubrey Aden-Buie reports on the shipbuilders that receive billions in federal contracts despite histories of serious safety lapses. In a review of federal contracts, Aden-Buie and colleagues found that since 2008, the federal government has awarded more than $100 billion to…
Medical devices are safe (from lawsuits)
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that if the FDA approves a drug, it doesn't mean you don't have to keep the labeling up to date if you should warn people. So that settles one question about FDA approval. The FDA put its stamp of approval on the drug Vioxx, too, but approved or not, Vioxx was not…
Rollback of Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order is ‘opening salvo of the war on workers’
Not violating federal labor law seems like a commonsense precursor for being awarded lucrative federal contracts. House Republicans, however, disagree. Last week, majority members in the House of Representatives successfully passed a resolution to get rid of federal disclosure requirements included…
W00t Wegmans!
Wegmans supermarkets withdraws all tobacco products from sale. Wegmans is a mediums sized, family owned, chain of upmarket supermarkets, based in New York and surrounding states. They are perennially on the "best companies to work for" list, and go for the organic high end crowd - kinda upstate…

A long time ago one of our major Canadian department store retailers (The Bay, I believe) got in trouble for its "white" sales. Its white sales usually involved its towels. Canada's fair trade agency fined them for misleading advertising. As it turned out, about 80% of the time their towels were on sale and only about 20% of the time they were at regular price. The agency concluded the sale price was, in fact, the regular price. They just had periodic "pay more" days.

Suggestion for the spam filters: findrxonline

They are persistent.

By Tsu Dho Nimh (not verified) on 26 Jun 2009 #permalink

"Masterpiece"? You must be joking, right?
This was the worst piece of Adam Sandler formulaic pablum since the Wedding Singer sequel. Not to mention all the silly attempts to make kooky hardcore Judaism look "hip" and somehow not-insane, and their neighbors look primitive, to the point I seriously smelled a failed AIPAC cultural op ad buy aimed at the kids. What an abomination.