It amazes me how bad guys win in the market place. I have been to office supply places and the employees will go out of their way to make sure they are giving me the best price. I appreciate it. And I root for those businesses even when I see them having trouble.

Customers tend to take the good guys for granted. They assume when they get suckered into buying the "better deals" that aren't really the better deals, there old stand-by nice guys will still be there. They don't consider that business is about time and money. And if not enough money is made in a short enough time, the business will eventually be gone. Time is the enemy of every business. Every day with low sales is a day that can't be gotten back. Enough days lost, and the business is gone.

I have been to places like Best Buy. Their employees are nice enough. But you deal with them enough and you realize the routine. You see the training that goes into the routine. And some may well start to sense behind the "nice enough" is a business that isn't really nice. Though the suit is about misleading customers on its matching price policy, which according to many it works to avoid, it is about a group of customers that came to suspect they were dealing with a company that had been playing them for suckers.

When the public feels that companies like Best Buy and Wal-mart have suckered them, while putting their other shopping choices out of business, it leaves a bitter taste. Did Best Buy win its competition against Circuit City because Best Buy was the nicer guys or because they were the more ruthless. Has Wal-Mart grown into the monster retailer because it is the nicer guy, or because from day one it has been ruthless and politically astute at putting small business out of business.