Why were Flim and Flam "bad"?

[I_wesley125 393]

To me it just seems like what they were doing wasn't really that bad, its just capitalism and the Apple family agreed to the challenge.

So am I the only one who thinks this or what?

[Swoop 2,278]

Sure, the The Flim-Flam Brothers were the splitting image of modern capitalism, however just by identifying a business as capitalist in nature, doesn't make all their associated practices fair and just. What set the Flim-Flam brothers apart from the Apple family, and labelled them as the episodes antagonists, was their poor business ethics, being namely the following:

• The brothers placed social and ethical values (such as product quality and fair competition) second to that of economic priorities.

• Their business did not account for Inter-temporal sustainability (the rate at which resources were being depleted, resulting in future environmental woes).

• Flim and Flam utilised tactics similar to that of a coercive monopoly, as opposed to 'naturally occurring' control by principled means. (utilising unsustainable production methods in an attempt to crush their competition).

Because the brothers had a business code of conduct comparable to that of a used car salesman (in contrast to the Apple families principles), I think it's safe to say that they can be reasonably labeled as shoddy characters (After all, their names are a play on for the term 'flimflam', meaning to swindle someone by means of a confidence hoax).

[Pinkazoid 3,493]

I think you forgot when they said

"...and watch how we run sweet apple acres out of business..."

[Doctor XFizzle 8,669]

Their cider was bad and they should feel bad!

 

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

I hope they realize the error of their ways- at least so we can see their bacon hair again.

[/mlp/ 106]

They weren't bad..............I'd say just dirty business ponies

[Page.Turner 940]

Well, they were going to run the Apple Family out of business. To me, they were kind of Lyle Lanley from the Simpsons, the episode about the monorail.

 

It also kind of brings up an old idiom: Well done is better than well said.

 

I dunno! I kind of think they should have worked together to make more cider because cider is, after all, a seasonal thing and the Apple family has the whole rest of the year to make bits and sell their apples.

[halcyonharlot 372]

Well, they were all fine and good until they cheated in the contest. Honestly, if they hadn't demanded such an exorbitant cut of the cider profits, a business combination between them and Sweet Apple Acres could have been quite lucrative.

 

Also they kind of stood there and laughed when they ran a family out of their home and sole means of supporting themselves. That was pretty dickish of them.

[The Awesome One 1,315]

Well that makes them top-notch A-holes I can't bear to think of poor Applejack being out on the streets beggin'

[Pony Joe 583]

They did offer a somewhat reasonable trade-off at first, but they definitely let their confidence get the best of them. I guess they're not all bad, but they certainly don't know what "healthy competition" means.

[Hatguy 38]

Flim and Flam didn't care about the consumer and were only willing to offer completely one-sided deals to the apple family for cider sales, then when the apples wouldn't agree to their ridiculous demands Flim and Flam proceeded at attempt to force the apples out of business and when that didn't work they tried to cheat by sacrificing quality, they weren't bad so much as they were sleazy and by the end of the episode they don't really get treated as bad ponies but simply fail in their business endeavors due to their business strategy which was to try to monopolize cider sales and force their competition to sell at absurdly low prices by sacrificing quality control.

[Snow Shadow 41]

They learned the lesson that quality is often better than quantity.

[Nothing392 61]

They sing like the Music Man, so they're obviously only trying to scam ponies.

Edited April 1, 2012 by matau

[Mephala 2,633]

I...uh...

I loved Flim and Flam...

STUPID FLIM AND FLAM, YEAH!

[halcyonharlot 372]

I...uh...

I loved Flim and Flam...

STUPID FLIM AND FLAM, YEAH!

 

shhhhh i loved them too

[Mephala 2,633]

shhhhh i loved them too

 

It'll be our little secret....

[Espionage 113]

Sure, the The Flim-Flam Brothers were the splitting image of modern capitalism, however just by identifying a business as capitalist in nature, doesn't make all their associated practices fair and just. What set the Flim-Flam brothers apart from the Apple family, and labelled them as the episodes antagonists, was their poor business ethics, being namely the following:

• The brothers placed social and ethical values (such as product quality and fair competition) second to that of economic priorities.

• Their business did not account for Inter-temporal sustainability (the rate at which resources were being depleted, resulting in future environmental woes).

• Flim and Flam utilised tactics similar to that of a coercive monopoly, as opposed to 'naturally occurring' control by principled means. (utilising unsustainable production methods in an attempt to crush their competition).

Because the brothers had a business code of conduct comparable to that of a used car salesman (in contrast to the Apple families principles), I think it's safe to say that that can be reasonably labeled as shoddy characters (After all, their names are a play on for the term 'flimflam', meaning to swindle someone by means of a confidence hoax).

 

You mean like every company that ever exists?

[Swoop 2,278]

You mean like every company that ever exists?

 

I'd say that FedEx, Walt Disney, Google, RPA, The Aerospace Corporation and a handfull of others would beg to differ. Then again, I suppose in the world of enterprise, negative stigmas are always lruking just around the corner for essentially every business.

[Ice Storm 1,020]

I just didn't like the Flem Flam Brothers, I thought that they made Pinkie Pie look tame as far as annoying, and the fact that they didn't care about how quality was important after they were losing. They started essentially cheating, and they ultimately paid the price. The episode as a whole though was well done, I just didn't like those two.

[Espionage 113]

I'd say that FedEx, Walt Disney, Google, RPA, The Aerospace Corporation and a handfull of others would beg to differ. Then again, I suppose in the world of enterprise, negative stigmas are always lruking just around the corner for essentially every business.

 

The former four aren't exactly the pinnacle of moral standing.

 

Anyways...maybe the Apple family is just taking down a business and running the Flim Flam brothers out of business! They're probably cowering in a sewer somewhere, taking turns eating bits of their machine for sustenance. Now who's the bad guy?

[halcyonharlot 372]

The former four aren't exactly the pinnacle of moral standing.

 

Anyways...maybe the Apple family is just taking down a business and running the Flim Flam brothers out of business! They're probably cowering in a sewer somewhere, taking turns eating bits of their machine for sustenance. Now who's the bad guy?

 

It was implied that the bros making a living by just kind of traveling all over the place and pulling this stunt in every town they come across.

 

And I mean, to build a machine as extravagant as the super spider cider squeeze whatever they'd have to have access to some decent money.

[Espionage 113]

It was implied that the bros making a living by just kind of traveling all over the place and pulling this stunt in every town they come across.

 

And I mean, to build a machine as extravagant as the super spider cider squeeze whatever they'd have to have access to some decent money.

 

Investment or loans. Without any way to pay for that loan...they'd get jumped by loan shark ponies and beaten the friendship out of.

[halcyonharlot 372]

Investment or loans. Without any way to pay for that loan...they'd get jumped by loan shark ponies and beaten the friendship out of.

 

and now i want to draw loan shark ponies

[Key Gear 6,663]

You mean like every company that ever exists?

 

I assure you, if every company out there acted as though they were the Flim Flam brothers, then the world economy would come crashing down tomorrow. Not due to corruption, but due to overwhelmingly incompetent business practices.

 

The Flim Flam brothers deserved to be ran out of town if only because they were really terrible businessponys.

 

They didn't even care about the quality of their product. Most real companies actually do care about the quality of their product. They care about the quality of their product because they have no other choice.

 

They have to make the quality of the product high enough such that people will buy it but not so high that they are not able to make a profit. This is why real companies spend the money needed to hire people to do the research that is needed to tell them the level of quality that their customers expect.

 

The Flim Flam brothers pushed out product of a quality level so low that they couldn't even give the stuff away for a pittance. They should have at least tasted the product to determine whether or not the quality was still acceptable. The fact that they didn't even bother to do that is evidence of a lack of business sense.

 

Fair competition is actually very important to real businesses as well. This does not mean that companies don't try to win against their competitors. Most companies would love to "defeat" the competition and become the sole provider for a market. Fair competition is not the same as no competition.

 

Fair competition simply means that you compete within the rule of law and using your research, supply chains, and marketing to try to get a leg up on the competition. What you will find is that most companies do not use "wheeling and dealing" to outdo the competition.

 

Wheeling and dealing could be defined as using clever business contracts and market manipulation to get ahead. In our modern era, these tactics just do not work as effectively as they did during, for example, the Gilded Age.

 

Most modern companies actually find that it is more profit maximizing to use conventional business methods to fight their competition. A large part of the reason for this change is that the legal systems around the world make it very risky for a business to pursue a strategy that relies solely on acquisitions and contract negotiation to secure market dominance.

 

Not to mention the fact that, with a crappy product, it is very, very hard to become a worldwide leader regardless of how many crooked deals you cut. Other businesses would see the opportunity for profit and cut in quickly if it looks like you are getting sloppy with your quality.

 

Forgetting about real life for a second, the Flim Flam brothers opened negotiation with the Apple Family by making them a deal that made no economic sense for the Apples at all. Then, rather than negotiate terms, they immediately said that they would run Apple Acres out of business.

 

Think about it. They *immediately* backed their potential business partner into a corner. That was an insanely poor business tactic, and it indicates to me that they were either completely incompetent or they had no intention of seriously pursuing a business relationship.

 

But if they had no intention of pursuing a business relationship, then that would have also made them incompetent. Why did they need such a big cut?

 

Their machine was already running - it probably required very little maintenance costs as well. This means that the Flim Flam brothers had very low overhead costs to operate. In addition to this, they had no supply of apples.

 

The Apple family had control of the regional apple supply. Why didn't the Flim Flam brothers cut a sensible deal that would have secured a fairly stable income and taken advantage of the Apple family's inability to meet the local cider demand? That didn't make any business sense at all.

 

Regarding their resource usage, most publicly-traded companies do indeed take a fairly short term view. With that said, the Flim Flam brothers took an even shorter term view. Their machine was juicing entire apple trees.

 

Apple trees are like natural factories. You give them water, sunshine, and care and then they give you apples. When you destroy an Apple tree to make cider, it is like destroying a factory to make scrap metal. You'll make a small short term profit, but you will have destroyed a massive amount of long-term value.

 

Now I know that some people will say that excessive logging and strip mining are like this, but actually they are not. While both of these practices are still bad, they are not the same from a business perspective.

 

Trees gathered in logging and minerals gathered in strip mining are inputs that are used to make other goods. However, apple trees are an actual means of production. Once again, apple trees can be thought of as factories.

 

Let's put this in perspective. The Flim Flam brothers, when faced with a crises, started liquidating their assets to meet short-term demand. This is a horrible business practice.

 

Of course, the really bad thing about the Flim Flam brothers resource management is that they would probably have done the same thing same again if they needed to ramp up production in the future. Eventually, they would simply not have enough apple trees to continue cider production. What then?

 

Really, the Flim Flam brothers remind me of people that have the money to start a business but lack the responsibility to run a business. Every single one of their tactics was built for super short-term gain at the expense of future profitability.

 

There are two possibilities for this. The first possibility is that they honestly had really, really poor business sense. The second possibility is that they came into Ponyville with the implicit goal of "strip mining" the Apple family's trees for short term profit.

 

Either way, through incompetence or malice, the Flim Flam brothers would have been a certifiably bad thing for Ponyville.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Scootacool

[halcyonharlot 372]

I assure you, if every company out there acted as though they were the Flim Flam brothers, then the world economy would come crashing down tomorrow. Not due to corruption, but due to overwhelmingly incompetent business practices.

 

The Flim Flam brothers deserved to be ran out of town if only because they were really terrible businessponys.

 

They didn't even care about the quality of their product. Most real companies actually do care about the quality of their product. They care about the quality of their product because they have no other choice.

 

They have to make the quality of the product high enough such that people will buy it but not so high that they are not able to make a profit. This is why real companies spend the money needed to hire people to do the research that is needed to tell them the level of quality that their customers expect.

 

The Flim Flam brothers pushed out product of a quality level so low that they couldn't even give the stuff away for a pittance. They should have at least tasted the product to determine whether or not the quality was still acceptable. The fact that they didn't even bother to do that is evidence of a lack of business sense.

holy tl;dr batman!!!

 

but i just feel like I should point out that until they started falling behind and resorted to using any old thang in their cider, the Flim Flam brothers were making some pretty top notch stuff! It was incredibly efficient AND it was at least just as good as the Apple Family's cider.