Business Ethics, Laws, and Commons Sense

As I was driving this past weekend I noticed the jump in gas prices! We had it easy in Richmond; gas went up only 30 cents or so, however, in other parts of the country gas went up to over 5 dollars a gallon! Why? Nothing happened yet. The prices rose because of anticipation of hurricane Ike. Well now that hurricane Ike has passed and damage to refineries was close to nil are the prices going to drop by the same amount over night? Don’t hold your breath! Price gouging is what we are facing. After a natural disaster prices skyrocket due to “supply and demand” but in reality its price gouging. So often people say there should be a law, sometimes I want to jump on that band wagon, but we have too many laws already! From throwing frozen turkeys off overpasses to walking on the state lawn, we have too many laws. However since business and others can’t seem to keep high ethical standards new laws (which may seem like common sense) must be created.
Let me give an example of a law that needs to be on the books because people don’t always follow this ethical practice. In the state of Virginia, when two parties sign a contract, the author of the contract doesn’t have to give a copy to the person that signs it! Hard to believe huh? It’s VERY unethical yet not illegal in this state to withhold a copy of a contract from someone. How do I know this? Because I have fallen victim to this practice! I signed a contract with a company and wasn’t allowed a copy of my contract. I was told and promised certain items and never received those item, so when I decided to break my employment with this company I was charged over $2000 for breaking my contract which was withheld from my position so I didn’t know what was in the contract. This same company did the same unethical practices with other businesses. When a business signed a contract with my employer they weren’t allowed a copy of the contract and therefore didn’t know what proper steps to take to get out of the contract. So when they became displeased with the company and tried to get out of the contract they were slapped with a lawsuit! There were clauses in the 3 year contract that stated if the company did not notify my company 3 months before the 3 year mark that the contract would extend for another 2 years and again another 2 years after that. If you didn’t have a copy how would you know this and be able to avoid it? This is wrong (and is a primary reason why I left that company even though it cost $2000 to do so) and shouldn’t be practiced. However, since it’s not against the law and only unethical this business continues to practice this business approach. We shouldn’t have to take the time to create new laws but because of businesses such as my previous employer and people that throw frozen turkeys off overpasses in New Jersey we have to. It’s unfortunate that we can’t trust people to be ethical these days and therefore need what I call “Laws of Common Sense”
Just as the people of the Old Testament had to be told specifics as to what they could and couldn’t do on the Sabbath in order to keep it holy (got to the point that had to be told the maximum steps they could take) we too apparently have to be told things that should be considered common sense.