From Lose Friends Radio comes this ‘Believe it or not’ segment Number 14, called ‘Where’s my cut?’. You can read the transcript below, or listen to the original broadcast by clicking on the green play button: [audio:Jonar_Nader_14_BION_Wheres_my_cut.mp3]
Believe it or not, according to Jonar Nader, people who have suffered from paper cuts are invited to join a class action against the paper mills.
In the good old days, class-actions were rare because trying to find people with a common interest was difficult. The cost of advertising made it impractical to find people who shared a common complaint.
Now, thanks to the Internet, consumers and minorities are able to unite. As citizens begin to understand the power of class-actions, they are keen to try their luck.
A worldwide clearinghouse has been formed to log complaints so anyone who feels that they have suffered an injustice can search for supporters interested in forming a class action.
Woe betides corporations when consumers unite. We saw what happened when smokers finally managed to get their act together and challenge the tobacco giants. Similarly, the silicone-breast-implants case was a significant milestone. Now we have “standby cases” where people have listed their concerns about a host of products, including margarine. It is only a matter of time before thousands more come out of the woodwork.
Paper cuts are a daily occurrence. Consumers are claiming that paper mills need to polish the edges of the paper in the same way that glaziers are obliged to polish the edges on sheets of glass. A spokeswoman leading this charge says that paper cuts might seem like simple annoyances, however, they are painful, and prone to scaring and infection. She said that in an office environment, where paper cuts are common, sufferers have other hazards to contend with. There are chemicals and particles (like copier and printer toners) that can turn a paper cut into a serious injury.
The first round has called for a 27-billion-dollar payout to those who have suffered paper cuts in the past five years, with an additional one billion per year until paper mills start polishing the edges. This class action is considered to be much more straight forward than the tobacco saga because no-one uses paper in the full knowledge of the risks involved, nor do they derive any pleasure from it. The arguments against smokers who have known that smoking is bad for their health, do not apply to paper users. Another reason that makes this a strong case is that there are very few paper mills around the world, so apportioning blame is very easy.
The multi-trillion dollar paper industry was quick to respond by reminding everyone that paper mills make paper, they don’t cut it. So the search is now on to name all the independent paper cutters. This is further complicated by the fact that many large printeries also trade in sheets of paper for photocopiers and the like. They do this to liquidate their paper stocks. So when a roll of paper is leftover from a large print job they cut it into reams to be sold to stationery suppliers, rather than trying to sell a two-ton roll of paper on the open market.
Other class actions that are rumoured to surface include: cuts to gums by dental floss; muscular pain caused by tight lids on jam jars and bottles; camera flash lights that cause temporary blindness; and the almighty big one — the mobile phone brain frying fiasco that could be so complex, that courts might have to shut down and call it quits.
Believe it… or not.
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