What's a shakedown?

Suppose you park your car in the Fred Meyer parking lot, double chirp your alarm, and start walking into the store.  A shady looking guy walks up to you and says "Say, that's a pretty nice car you have their, I'd hate to see something happen to it.  Give me $5 and I'll keep an eye on it for you."

Here's another shakedown.

Suppose you have a piece of property and a guy walks up to you and says, "I'm from the power company, (or water utility).  That's a pretty nice piece of property you have there, I'd hate to see you not be able to use it.  Why don't you just sign this piece of paper that gives me power of attorney so I can dip into your checkbook every once in a while?  And while we're at it, I'll tell you how you can use your property."

"Of course, if you don't want to, you can always run up to the Home Depot and get a generator."

Here's another example.

Suppose you own a couple of fire trucks and some hoses.  You're having problems providing reliable service to the people in your area so you approach a bigger fire company and arrange to have them take all your stuff and the money from the sale of your stuff.   You give the bigger fire company your station, too.   In addition, you pay the bigger company well over $200,000 a year.  Then the bigger company says, "Say, that's a really nice house you have there.  I'd hate to see it burn down and nobody showed up.  I'd hate to see your husband have a heart attack and nobody showed up.  We never really said we  would next year.  So why don't you just sign this power of attorney so we can get you to pay for some of our big projects that we overextended ourselves?"

Mike Deal and Don Malloy think this is a good way to run a city.