Alfred, Let’s approach it this way. The first half or so of this article is a story that starts with the word “If.” The story suggests that one funeral director should be able to handle 5 funerals per week. With that in mind, the story continues and suggests that by dividing the number of deaths in the state by the number of suggested funerals a funeral director “should “ be able to handle, brand new and lower numbers of funeral homes would be more ideal. Now remember this is just a story; only one or two factors that help determine if a funeral home can be fulltime is considered in this formula. (Numerous factors must be taken in to account for a funeral home to be a viable, full-time funeral home) Also the number of funeral homes locations is used in a very raw form; no consideration, or research, is given to determine if these funeral homes are stand alone firms or branches. Up to this point, the article is big “what if” with conclusions reached with raw and unresearched numbers; the conclusion being, what FCA has carefully formulated, that there is an excess of funeral homes. I don’t agree with this conclusion, but that’s okay. I understand it is just a story; it is certainly not as factual as FCA would like you to believe. To conclude the article, FCA then asks “Why are so many funeral homes still in business?“ This is where I take exception. FCA then presents the conclusion to their “Story” as being factual and combines it with an alarmist statement which hurts the consumer, the funeral profession and FCA.
