By Gene Ayres

Loyalty is a word often attributed to such concepts as patriotism, faithfulness, and trust. We are taught to think: “buy American,” presumably in order to support our country and its vital economy. This slogan persists even today in a global economy when such a concept is all but meaningless (for example, most Hondas and Toyotas sold in America these days are made in Tennessee, Alabama, and places where, to them, labor costs are low—is that ironic or what?). Given all that, how many corporations can you name that are actually loyal to their customers, their workers, or the best interests of “their” country? Not too many, as evidenced by the recent news that 38,000 foreign corporations doing business in the U.S. paid no U.S. taxes in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax, according to the U.S. Congressional watchdog agency the GAO. And that situation has certainly not improved since then, and I'd love to have a look at the personal tax returns of the CEOs of those companies, for that matter, given the IRS has been ordered to stop auditing them. These companies (and their CEOs) pocketed $2.5 trillion in product sales that year to American consumers, who pay plenty in taxes, and basically foot the bill for all these freeloaders. Even worse, ¼ of these deadbeat U.S. corporations that paid no taxes were companies with more than $250 million in assets and/or $50 million in income (didn't I mention the ex-Cuban owner of U.S. Sugar gets that amount or more every year in price supports from the U.S.D.A.?).

And yet we, as a people, seem bound by this notion of loyalty, and it applies to our consumer choices as well. It's called “product loyalty,” and it's what those advertisers pay those big bucks for at the Super Bowl or Olympics. I have a close friend who has been buying Chrysler products his entire adult life. Why? Beats me. Every one of them has broken down at one time or another. And every time, in the 20 plus years I've known him, he's always taken it back to the same crooked dealer with his fake smile, who promptly explains away the warranty coverage as being irrelevant and fleeces my friend for another thou or two for repairs that should have been covered. My friend grins and bears it and feels lucky to be getting a ride home while his car is being further vandalized. And yet, after a year or two, he'll dutifully trot his van (he always buys vans) back to trade it in, getting screwed yet again two ways from Sunday, first on the trade in value and then for markups and add-ons to the already inflated sticker price for the new model (which is exactly the same as the old one, pretty much, and will break down in exactly the same ways within months).

You'd think my friend would know better. After all, he's an educated professional man. But early on, he got this notion, no doubt pounded into his head by his middle-American parents, preachers, teachers, and favorite TV stations, that a good consumer, in order to be a good citizen, should be loyal to their chosen brands (bearing in mind that churches, states, even political parties market themselves as a brand). Which, however many lanes it has, is a one-way street if ever there was one. Yet my friend is far from alone in this delusion.

People, as social beings, just tend to naturally want to cultivate relationships with people they feel they can trust, that they like, and that they can go back to again and again. Maybe this is more important than whether good old Joe the Barber shagged yet another patch too much from the back again. Maybe this is related to those studies that have found that when people return to a room they have been to before, they will return to the same seat they sat in before—even if it isn't the best seat available. There's something to be said for familiarity, evidently, that outweighs even common sense or one's own best interests. “Better the Devil you know,” and so on.

Even companies themselves have been known to fall into this trap. How many deals have been made in bar-rooms, back rooms, or on golf courses with people one might not, in a more sober and reflective moment, have wanted to touch with a ten foot pole? In my last dispatch I mentioned two British car makers, M.G. (which stands for Morris Garage, quaintly enough) and Jaguar. Both are famous for being cool, stylish, fun cars and also having pretty much the worst electronic components in all of car-dom. Those components themselves have become legendary for their unreliability and general malfunctionality. The maker of those instruments is a company called Lucas (no relation to George). Apparently Mssrs. Morris and Lucas, way back when, were neighbors, who frequented, as Brits are wont to do, the local pub in Morrisville or Lucastown or wherever their car companies got their start (near Birmingham, I do believe).

Apparently they got along, at least in the suds and darts department. This led to a lifetime commitment by Morris to Lucas back in the War years when maybe loyalty meant your life (I'm not sure how Jaguars got in on this ill-fated deal) that Morris would use Lucas instruments from then on until forever. Signed on the dotted line and more airtight than a diving helmet. And the subsequent history of rally sport instrumental breakdowns is, well, history (I owned a bunch of those cars, and know only too well).

Bottom line is this: just because you like someone, their TV ads, or even their product, doesn't mean it’s any good. Or, maybe even more to the point, is it really ten times better than the less famous brand? (Hey, those Olympics ads are expensive!) You can bet your bottom dollar that all too often, it isn't. So why buy it? Some say we have freedom of choice, as consumers, and that's what's so great about America. I wonder. Especially when the companies that sell us stuff are falling over each other to corner you (the Market), pick your pocket, and tuck their profits away in quiet little perfectly legal untraceable Swiss bank accounts under Enron-style cover of darkness. And now our economy is tanking, we're trillions in debt, and there's no end in sight. Is this loyalty?