82. Honesty Contract

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‘Honesty contracts’ or ‘honesty clauses’ within contracts should be developed (or just assumed to be integral elements within all contracts) and used to add assurances to each signator that all signators have arrived at and have agreed to the terms of the contract with integrity and candor. Such an ‘honesty clause’ would also guarantee that no signatory has engaged in lying, cheating, or is otherwise misrepresenting any contractually relevant item to any other signatory party. If it is found that a party has lied or misrepresented any element within a contract, those relevant portions of that contract should be null and void. Furthermore, criminal charges should be levied against any party found responsible for such contractual misbehaviors which resulted in actual damages or losses to another party.

An example of how such an ‘honesty contract’ or ‘honesty clause’ would work would be as follows. If a person wants to sell a piece of antique furniture, but does not know anything about the price of that piece of furniture, he could go find a store interested in buying that piece of furniture. The seller would ask the potential buyer (store) what the estimated market price is for such a piece of furniture (to within about 25%). They could then come to an agreement to engage in the transaction at such a price. If, at any time after the sale, the seller found out that the true market price at the time of sale was significantly higher than what the buyer told him, the buyer would be treated as if he stole the difference from the sell and would be fined up to several times this difference. If the true cost was significantly lower, and the seller knew it, the seller would be fined up to several times the difference. Such ‘honesty clauses’ could be applied to virtually every type of business transaction, including becoming a common feature of receipts.


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