“Your Money’s No Good”
Once upon a time, the expression, “your money’s no good” was the highest sort of compliment.
That’s what the bartender would say to a decorated vet ordering a drink, or the restaurateur to a pillar of the community.
Now, it’s what New York City hair salons, restaurants — and, apparently, would-be landlords — are telling Ruth Madoff (all of whom are declining her business).
To be sure, what underlies this isn’t moral disapprobation, but pure business considerations: no business proprietor wants to risk alienating their other customers by serving a notorious scammer, just as no one wants to run a gauntlet of paparazzi every time they leave their home (ask Madonna about trying to buy a deluxe New York co-op).
However, on some level, perhaps this attitude reflects the return of an old-fashioned response to heinous conduct: collective shunning, also known as “ostracism.”
