Business -- Fiction; Sales personnel -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He answered, "Even though the same principles are applied, there are
bound to be individual differences in their application. If all users
of estate planning computers had relations with the same firm, all
these minor fluctuations would be in the same direction for all of
them. Although the investment mixes would be far from identical, they
would be more alike than economic principles require. On the other
hand, the investor who has the courage to associate himself with an
alternate set of analyses may be comparatively alone in the course he
chooses. Thus he may benefit, when this course chances to be better
than expectations, by having to share the reward with relatively few
others."
I had him! I said, "You mean this thing might buy me different stocks
from what the G.C. whatchamacallit would?"
"Why, yes, it would be surprising if there was not at some point a
difference in the two solutions. That was the point you raised so
well--"
"And you mean your answer might make me more money?"
"Why, yes, in the case--that is, in the way that I was discussing.
Mmm-hmm."
"But then you think G.C. gives out wrong solutions."
"Not _wrong_--"
"Solutions that aren't the best--that _means_ wrong, huh?"
"Why, yes, I mean, I suppose that--" He stopped.
* * * * *
I smiled. I dropped my Jed Borch personality (which the little salesman
probably much preferred). "You know who you've been talking to?"
"F.T.C.?"
"An F.T.C. Investigator," I said, professionally. Without waiting for
him to ask, I showed him my card, with the impressive embossed words
across the center: "Fair Trade Corps." Then I pressed a button and
instantly two cops were in the door and at the salesman's shoulders.
The salesman said, "What's the charge?"
"You know what it is."
"The charge, please."
I shrugged. "Fraudulent tendencies; to wit, unfair, untrue, and
scurrilous maligning of a competitive corporate body, individual,
and/or product. Okay, boys."
They handcuffed him and hustled him out without even picking up his
luggage and his raincoat. He tried to look confident, but I thought
the law-abiding public wouldn't suffer much longer from the connivings
of Statistomat, Inc. I settled back into the deep chair and turned with
a triumphant grin toward the door of the room's closet.
It opened. My brother, dressed in the distinctive charcoal-green suit
of a General Computers junior executive, stepped out, turning off the
tape recorder as he came.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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