Is the title Ph.D. or Dr. meaningless in the sense that anyone can use it?
I know a businessman who has received a LOT of mileage off of using "Dr" and "PhD" with his name


I don't know which country we are talking about, but at least in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland "Dr." is a protected title, and pretending you have one when you don't is a criminal offence. In Austria, for instance, this is part of federal law (see also the Bundesgesetzbuch). I would assume that PhD is also a protected title in the US and Great Britain.

However, note that this law explicitly only covers "pretending to have a doctoral degree", which leaves some wiggle room. For instance, there is an notorious Austrian bus company called "Dr. Richard", where the "Dr." are officially just the initials of the name of the owner (Dragan Richard).