Category: Business Ethics

Big Banks Immune to Prosecution

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Big Banks Immune to Prosecution

Mike Lux: Holder Confesses

I rarely agree with Chuck Grassley, but when he calls this “stunning,” he couldn’t be more right. This is the ultimate Big F’ing Deal: the nation’s top prosecutor openly admitting that some people and institutions are so big, wealthy, and powerful that it is the policy of the United States to hesitate to prosecute them no matter how terrible their crime. And it isn’t just American banks, either: HSBC, while operating here, is a foreign-based bank.

Look, that this is the policy of the U.S. Justice Department has been pretty obvious for quite a while. The unwillingness to prosecute the big banks in spite of some of the most egregious and obvious financial fraud in American history in the run-up to 2008’s financial collapse has become legendary. But the HSBC case, where thousands of emails over many years along with a great deal of other evidence proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bank was laundering money for some of the most murderous and evil drug cartels and terrorists on the face of earth, made it crystal clear that once your bank becomes a certain size, the DOJ considers you beyond prosecution. For anything. Too Big To Jail, to the hundredth power. And the penalty they did get? A fine worth approximately five weeks worth of profits — after raking in massive profit from these drug cartels and terrorist-linked groups for many years.

So, yes, it has been obvious that this is the unspoken policy of the DOJ. Now, in front of a Senate committee, fully on the record, it is the official stated policy of the American government that if your bank is big enough, and the judgment is that prosecuting you will have a negative impact on the economy, DOJ will be “inhibited” in, and will find it “difficult,” to prosecute you.

We have truly crossed the Rubicon here. This is a tragic moment in the history of our nation, that we are willing to say on the record to some of our richest and powerful people and institutions that no matter what you do, you will not be prosecuted. What kind of society have we become? How corrupt are we as a nation?

Mike Lux: Holder Confesses

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Justice for Occupy Protesters

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Justice for Occupy Protesters

Judge acquits Occupy Philadelphia protesters in bank sit-in – Philly.com

They were charged with “defiant trespass.”

But after a Common Pleas Court jury on Tuesday acquitted the 12 Occupy Philadelphia protesters arrested in a 2011 bank sit-in, the trial judge shook their hands and called them the “most affable group of defendants I’ve ever come across.”

“I think what this really shows is that when the people of Philadelphia make a decision, they want someone accountable,” said Aaron Troisi, a 26-year-old working toward a master’s degree in education at Temple University. “Accountability and justice is not what they experienced with banks like Wells Fargo.”

Troisi and 11 fellow Occupy demonstrators were acquitted of conspiracy and defiant trespass in the Nov. 18, 2011, sit-in inside a Wells Fargo Bank branch at 17th and Market Streets in Center City.

From further down in the article:

Last July, Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, agreed to pay $175 million to settle allegations by the U.S. Justice Department that independent brokers originating its loans charged higher fees and rates to minority borrowers than they did to white borrowers with similar credit risks.

The verdict left the Occupy protesters with a sense of vindication.

“If this jury has found us innocent, then it must mean that Wells Fargo is guilty,” said 71-year-old Willard R. Johnson, one of the 12 on trial.

“We have proof of the importance of free speech in a democracy, especially taking on corporate power,” said defense attorney Paul Hetznecker, one of seven lawyers who represented the protesters without charge. “It’s about speaking truth to power and it’s part of a long-standing tradition in this country.”

Judge acquits Occupy Philadelphia protesters in bank sit-in – Philly.com

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Electronic Monitoring Not Just for Criminals

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

shopper1000492750Electronic Monitoring Not Just for Criminals

Tesco accused of using electronic armbands to monitor its staff – Business News – Business – The Independent

Tesco workers are being made to wear electronic armbands that managers can use to grade how hard they are working.

A former staff member has claimed employees are given marks based on how efficiently they work in a bid to improve productivity and can be called in front of management if they take unscheduled toilet breaks.

The armbands are worn by warehouse staff and forklift drivers, who use them to scan the stock they collect from supermarket distribution points and send it out for delivery. Tesco said the armbands are used to improve efficiency and save its staff from having to carry around pens and paper to keep track of deliveries. But the device is also being used to keep an eye on employees’ work rates, the ex-staff member said.

The former employee said the device provided an order to collect from the warehouse and a set amount of time to complete it. If workers met that target, they were awarded a 100 per cent score, but that would rise to 200 per cent if they worked twice as quickly. The score would fall if they did not meet the target.

Tesco accused of using electronic armbands to monitor its staff – Business News – Business – The Independent

It is possible to have all the meaning of life drained from one by despair. There are other ways to drain meaning from human beings. Work can be a blessing giving one purpose. I particularly enjoy teaching. But what would my job be like if I was continuously monitored? I’d probably survive but it would take a great deal of fun out of it, making class discussion a minefield of danger, and stifling any original content.

But I have other work experience. I worked in a factory for almost five years doing the most mundane chores for hours on end. Electronic monitoring my every move and penalizing me for bathroom breaks would taken an unpleasant and tedious situation and made it hellish. I suspect four or five years of electronic monitoring might have damaged me or anyone else in that situation psychologically. Certainly, it would have left me with a continuing undercurrent of thought related to my every working motion.

Are workers humans or something a little less? It is frightening to think of this kind of technology in the hands of a totalitarian government or a multi-national corporation.

Do we really want this kind of life for anyone? Is there any idea what the long term effects would be? And if you can think of any long term effects, are there any good ones?

This kind of monitoring needs careful analysis and regulation may well be necessary.

James Pilant

From around the web,

From the web site, Virginia Business Law Blog:

Emerging issues.  An increasingly prevalent area of surveillance that the courts seem to be upholding is the hiring of private investigators to conduct surveillance on employees that are suspected of taking leave dishonestly under the Family Medical Leave Act.  While still a relatively new development, this is one in which the courts are, so far, siding with employers.  With that said, however, this is a very delicate topic as it deals with surveilling employees when they are not at work.  In most cases, there are heavy suspicions of the employee abusing their FMLA leave before any surveillance is conducted, and it is highly encouraged that employers seek legal counsel before considering this option.

From the web site, ITBusiness.ca:

One serious concern that employers must consider, however, is that of employee morale. For some employees, an Orwellian fear of “”Big Brother”” exists in the workplace. Although most employers and employees recognize that the very nature of the employer-employee relationship denotes some level of monitoring, it is difficult to reach agreement on the level that is appropriate. The issue that ultimately emerges is how to balance an employer’s right to manage the workplace against an employee’s right to privacy.

Those advocating employees’ privacy rights often speak to various studies concluding that employer monitoring can have a detrimental impact on employees. Some studies suggest that electronic monitoring is a significant contributor to both psychological and physical health complaints. Workplace privacy proponents argue that monitoring creates feelings of paranoia and increases workers’ stress levels. On this basis, it is argued that monitoring is counterproductive to the result that employers are attempting to achieve.

And from the web site, bixnik: (760 billion a year? How was that number generated?)

Do you have any idea how many hours your employees spend online checking eBay listings, cruising social networks, looking for vacation deals, Googling old flames or (even worse) ogling porn or gambling? A survey by America Online and Salary.com concluded that employers spend nearly $760 billion a year paying employees to goof off on the Web. And with the ever-increasing popularity of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, the urge to goof off instead of working increases daily.

It’s no secret that the days of worker privacy have long since passed. With the serious potential of harassment lawsuits and security breaches that involve the release of company private information, most companies large and small have implemented Internet monitoring spy ware.

A recent Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey report has revealed that companies are “increasingly putting teeth in technology policies.” Workers have been fired from 26% of the companies surveyed for misuse of the Internet, and 25% have terminated employees for misusing e-mail.

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

A Post Office Bank?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

z090A Post Office Bank?

How to save the USPS – Salon.com

How bad have things gotten for America’s national mail delivery system? The US Postal Service lost $1.3 billion last quarter, and this was regarded as good news. The venerable agency has been saddled with significant financial problems since a 2006 law forced it to pre-fund 75 years of employee retirement benefits, something no other public agency or private company has to do. This cash crunch (the Postal Service gets no money from the federal government and must survive on the revenues it generates) has led to austerity measures for the nation’s second-largest employer (right behind Wal-Mart). Mass layoffs last year were followed, earlier this month, by the announcement that Saturday deliveries of first-class mail will cease come August.

Pacific Standard As many have noted, this is a largely manufactured crisis. Simply relaxing the pre-funding requirement—as the postmaster general beseeched Congress to do this week—would wipe out virtually all of the Postal Service’s deficit. (Absent this heavy payment, the agency would have made $100 million in the last quarter.) But given the reduced use of letters in an age of digital communication, it’s nonetheless true that the Postal Service is due for some changes to its business model. Democrats from Sen. Tom Carper to Rep. Elijah Cummings have laid out various ideas. But there’s one idea they haven’t suggested that would kill two birds with one stone: make money for the Postal Service and level the financial playing field for some of the most vulnerable Americans. Namely: We should allow the Postal Service to return to the practice of offering simple banking services.

According to the FDIC’s 2011 National Survey, over 10 million US households are “unbanked,” with no access to the financial system. Another 24 million households are “underbanked,” meaning they have a bank account but they also rely on providers of “alternative financial services”: remittance or money order shops, payday lenders, check-cashing operations, pawn shops, or associated services. Many of these services are among the most unscrupulous in American society, preying on people with few other options and charging usurious interest rates or carving out large fees. These roughly 68 million unbanked or underbanked Americans represent a huge market for non-bank financial predators.

How to save the USPS – Salon.com

Why is Congress strangling the postal service? The most likely reason is to give up the postal service’s function to private companies. The destruction of this public service will add riches to certain firms. I don’t think I need to name any names. You know the names of the companies as well as I do.

This kind of greed can drive you to despair. A public service with a history of success duplicated by other countries around the world is being dismantled to make a few Americans richer.

Privatizing successful public functions and then destroying or exploiting them to the fullest for maximum profit has become an American preoccupation. A vicious outgrowth of Friedman economics, it’s predator capitalism at its worst.

Can any of this be stopped? I don’t know if there is the public will particularly with the enormous money thrown into the equation by Citizens United.

Public minded human beings are hardly significant compared to that kind of money.

James Pilant

From around the web –

From the web site, Center for Financial Inclusion (Nigeria):

Opening a new bank branch is expensive. It requires a substantive up-front investment, and to stay open, the institution has to maintain an ample volume of business. This poses a challenge when trying to reach the financially excluded – many of whom live in relatively remote rural areas, and many of whom don’t have financial needs that draw a high volume of banking transactions. Mobile money is one way to mitigate this cost of bricks and mortar. But it is not the only way.

In pursuing financial inclusion, more and more countries are turning to the post office to offer on-the-spot financial services. Using this preexisting network, financial institutions are teaming up with postal services, outfitting the post offices so that they can conduct financial transactions, and training postal employees. Post office banking is only one variation of agent banking, which is increasingly practiced around the world, turning supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmaceutical retailers, and even lottery outlets into banking outlets.

From the web site, Your Postal Blog:

PostFinance, the banking arm of Swiss Post, may soon be spinning off from its parent company in the summer of 2013. However, independence from the Post won’t place it on the same playing field with other banks in the industry, as certain restrictions still apply.

When PostFinance begins life as its own separate entity, Swiss Post will still, technically, own it. The Post will own all shares of the financial institution when it ventures out on its own. This places ownership of the bank squarely in the hands of the Swiss government, as they own the Post Office.

As a state owned entity, PostFinance will continue to be subject to restrictions that prevent it from engaging in certain competitive activities that could take business away from existing banks. This limitation is welcome news to competing banks, but that insulation may not last indefinitely.

And from the web site, Dandelion Salad:

Neither rain nor sleet nor snow may have stopped the Pony Express, but the nation’s oldest and second largest employer is now under attack. Claiming the Postal Service is bankrupt, critics are pushing legislation that would defuse the postal crisis by breaking the backs of the postal workers’ unions and mandating widespread layoffs. But the “crisis” is an artificial one, created by Congress itself.

In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA), which forced the USPS to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees, many of whomhadn’t even been hired yet. Over a mere 10 year period, the USPS was required to prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years, something no other government or private corporation is required to do. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader observed, if PAEA had never been enacted, USPS would now be facing a $1.5 billion surplus.

Related articles

 

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Ethics and the Personal Finance Industry

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

 

Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ethics and the Personal Finance Industry

The personal finance industry can’t save us – Salon.com

How does the industry prey on our fears about our inability to save and plan for the future?

We can’t articulate that for all too many of us our problem is not an inability to manage and invest money effectively; it’s that we’re expected to do more and more with less and less. So we think we are individually messing up, that we lack the financial skills and smarts to get ahead. The financial services industry presents itself as our savior. But by doing that, it has to confirm our cultural bias that we are alone responsible for our financial fates.

You see this dynamic especially in personal finance and investment initiatives aimed at women, which contain an almost odd mix of the language of empowerment and infantalization. They tell us we are women, we are so strong because we do so much more around the home and work than men, but yet we are financial illiterates who have no clue. In fact, both sexes have low financial knowledge. Men have more money than women for the most obvious of reasons: they earn more.

You mention the work of economist Teresa Ghilarducci, “the most dangerous woman in America.” Who is afraid of her and why?

It became very clear to me while reporting this book that Teresa Ghilarducci had hit a nerve in the financial services sector that no one else had. The reason, to me, was obvious. Most other people discussing retirement reform schemes (Auto IRAs, Save More Tomorrow and the like) were talking about expanding the role – or at least the bottom line of — the current dominant players on the retirement scene. I mean the retail brokerages, the 401(k) plan providers, the dominant mutual fund companies and the like. Ghilarducci’s Guaranteed Retirement Accounts calls BS on this model. First, she points out how much money the current retirement is making on what we think is our money. Second, her model would bring new players in, and I mean new, powerful players – state pension funds, institutional investors, and hedge funds – into the game.

The personal finance industry can’t save us – Salon.com

Ethics and the Personal Finance Industry

Personal responsibility. I believe in it. I recognize the power of it, the usefulness of it. But circumstances have to be taken into consideration. We do get injured, become ill and suffer accidents. We can be killed by natural disaster or more mercifully, have homes or businesses destroyed. Choice and environment interact to produce our reality.

Here we have a situation which the personal finance industry proclaims loudly and persistently that if you only change your decision making and be tough on yourself, that you can attain financial stability and even possible eventual wealth. I would prefer that industry to look at this situation from a business ethics stand point and promise less because personal choice is only part of the equation. If a great majority of the American people had shared in the profits of the increased production and financialization of the last thirty years, I think most financial suffering might be attributable to poor planning. But here again, we have circumstances, downward wage pressure, very high unemployment, a replacement of stable pension with the disastrous 401K’s, the changes in the bankruptcy act, the plague of student loans, etc.

Americans of the middle class suffer from real wage pressure and for many, no amount of planning will fix those problems. Americans of the lower class are simply in the midst on an ongoing week to week, day to day, financial disaster.

Financial planning can be useful but only in proportion to the amount of disposable income in the individual cases. If the disposable income is inadequate, no amount of planning can fix it. Promising magical fixes from non-existent resources is not ethical. Financial planning is not for everybody.

James Pilant

From around the web –

From the web site, Personal Finance for Beginners:

Your questions in personal finance would revolve around the following:

How much money will be needed by you at various points in the future?
Where will this money come from (e.g. savings or borrowing)?
How can you protect yourself against unforeseen events in your lives, and risk in financial markets?
How can family assets be best transferred across generations (bequests and inheritance)?
How do taxes (tax subsidies or penalties) affect personal financial decisions?
Your Personal financial decisions will involve paying for education, financing durable goods such as real estate and cars, buying insurance, e.g. health and property insurance, investing and saving for retirement. Personal financial decisions may also involve paying for a loan.

From the web site, Finance for Youth: The Blog:

A couple of days ago, a young student approached me and asked me for some career advice. The student wanted to understand a little more about what banking and finance is about, and how it measures up in terms of their “dream job“. I was very impressed with this young student, because unlike many of their peers, they were actually trying to look at their future and start planning. This student, to be fair, is part of an advanced group of students. They get tutoring as part of their regular school day, they have additional instruction in note-taking and other study skills, and they are in advanced Math and English classes. They have a leg up over many students already. This young person seemed to have a leg up on even this group.

And from the web site, Nancyeewing:

You need to make a plan of what you really want in life that money can buy. Then you must find out how to get the money it takes to finance it and finally start to implement this plan. This is the long term part of your financial life – the process of personal financial development from the state you are in right now – to the state you want to be in. This journey toward financial freedom is in my opinion the most interesting and exciting part of personal financing you can have.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Business Ethics and Religion

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Business Ethics and Religion

Business Ethics and Religion After the Financial Collapse (Theology on Tap) – YouTube

Business Ethics and Religion After the Financial Collapse (Theology on Tap) – YouTube

Richard Shields, PhD, Faculty of Theology,

Religion , churches have a lot to say about the economy

Have churches engaged in a transformative dialogue with the business community?

There seems to be a disconnect between the accumulated wisdom of religion and the logic of business in the world.

Another disconnect between the ethical core of people and the workplace …

“I’m just making a living.” Bricklayers at a death camp

“you gotta figure out the cost benefit ratios” fines as opposed to violation costs

“It’s up to the regulators.”

Neutral or amoral world of work

Business ethics seen as being imposed on business from the outside

Ethical norms based on the intrinsic interest in business

Discussion of Catholic Social Doctrine

From around the web –

From the web site, QDVF:

To this point, our discussion has centered on the limitations of modernism on business ethics – namely, moral relativism and a materialistic focus regarding ethical behavior. We next examine how the Christian worldview addresses these issues followed by how it might influence ethics research. Christian ethics founded on Scripture gives moral standards or a common platform that allow us to judge between right and wrong.

In business situations, people must decide what they ought to do and what ethical principles to follow. They must know that these principles are right and that it is reliable. This is not to say that an absolute moral law must be strictly followed given that the boundaries of moral law and its varied applications will always be debated. But the very idea of right and wrong makes sense only if there is a final standard by which we can make moral judgments (Colson and Pearcey, 1999).

From the web site, Conversation in Faith Weblog:

What, if anything, does Christianity offer to the business  and the ethical decisions that people must make?

Honesty? Fairness?  Trustworthiness?   The Golden Rule?  Honoring God by the way we conduct ourselves?

Yes,certainly. But if that is all we have to offer, it’s not substantially different than other faiths.  Are Jews to be fair, trustworthy, and honest? Of course. Muslims? Of course.  This degree of similarity isn’t surprising considering the close geographical, historical and cultural proximity of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Christianity emerges from Judaism and Islam develops in a world shaped and influenced by Christianity and Judaism.

So again, what, if anything, constitutes a distinctly Christian business ethic? Perhaps we ought to ask, is there a uniquely Christian business ethic?

And from the web site, Catholic Analysis:

Amid the ongoing debate over issues of economics and ethics, Benedict XVI has addressed these issues on several occasions in recent months. On May 26 he spoke to a group of young people from Confindustria, the General Confederation of Italian Industry.

Every business, the Pope noted, should be considered first and foremost as a group of people, whose rights and dignity should be respected. Human life and its values, the Pontiff continued, should always be the guiding principle and end of the economy.

In this context, Benedict XVI acknowledged that for business, making a profit is a value that they can rightly put as an objective of their activity. At the same time the social teaching of the Church insists that businesses must also safeguard the dignity of the human person, and that even in moments of economic difficulties, business decisions must not be guided exclusively by considerations of profit.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Bullying by Mob

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

 

Mobbing
Mobbing

Bullying by Mob

Janice Harper: What the Stanford Prison Experiment Can Teach Us About the Workplace

A focus on interpersonal conflicts between the bad bully and the good worker focuses on seemingly inherent qualities of individuals, and fails to explain the sheer brutality that ensues when bullying expands to include multiple people engaged in shunning, gossiping about, sabotaging, and making accusations and reports against a targeted worker. The collective bullying of a worker is called “mobbing,” and it typically ensues when a worker does or says something to annoy management, and management declares or demonstrates that the worker is unwanted. When that happens, it takes little effort to persuade the broader workforce to turn against the worker.

Just as Zimbardo talks about the slippery slope of evil that begins with the subject mindlessly taking the first step toward aggression through a seemingly minor action, when mobbing begins, workers are not initially encouraged to be cruel to the targeted worker. Far from it; they are told the worker must go, that it is the worker’s own doing, and the worker will be better off if they just move on. The first step onto the slippery slope of mobbing behavior thus often begins with something as simple as agreeing with management that the targeted worker must go — even if the decision to terminate the worker is clearly arbitrary or punitive or in some cases illegal, such as retaliation for reporting sexual harassment, discrimination or unlawful behavior.

Janice Harper: What the Stanford Prison Experiment Can Teach Us About the Workplace

 I have seen a lot of articles on workplace bullying but they tend to focus on single perpetrators. This talks about mobbing, a phenomenon where multiple people bully a worker. This is not uncommon. Please go to the web site and read the full article. It’s worth your while.

James Pilant

From around the web –

From the web site, Mobbing and Bullying:

A recent study showed that about 35 percent of students who are bullied experience post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.  This study echoes the findings of workplace mobbing research done by Dr. Heinz Leymann in the early  1980’s and has been validated many times by targeted individuals with whom I have worked. If we understand that bullying and mobbing attack the spiritual, psychological and emotional health of the individual as well as the physical, we also must consider that the damage done in an organization by this behavior goes beyond those directly involved. 

From the web site, EndMobbing:

Mobbing is the targeting of persons in workplaces and schools by another individual or group of individuals in order to degrade, humiliate, and ultimately remove them from the workplace or school organization.  This removal can be through firing, expulsions, or because the target can no longer tolerate the conditions and leaves of his or her own accord.  The consequences for victims of mobbing are usually devastating.  For its victims, mobbing affects physical heath, psychological and emotional health, relationships with family members, and, for workers, financial health. Mobbing also tends to erode a victim’s  belief in a fair and just world.  Mobbing is different from bullying because the workplace or school organizations are also involved, either through failure to act to protect their members when they have a responsibility to act, or through “blaming the victim” and joining the attack in progress on the victim, usually acting through official, bureaucratic channels.  Secrecy and lack of transparency among organizational leaders and the presence of a hostile workplace culture are common indicators of mobbing-prone organizations.

And from the web site, The Hidden Evil’s Weblog:

Mobbing sometimes continues after individuals have left the organization. Although this can rarely be proven, slandering continues… This ongoing mobbing, even after the individuals are no longer connected with the organization, seems to justify the Mobbers previous behavior & upholds the organization s decision. They try to defend themselves by continuing to destroy the victim s reputation… Dianna: the next minute I thought, Howe can all these people just go along with this? Yet I would think, I can t blame these people. I know they have to go along with this for their own survival

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Pennsylvania’s Revolving Door

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Pennsylvania’s Revolving Door

The Flag of Pennsylvania
The Flag of Pennsylvania

Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania | Public Accountability Initiative

Numerous top government officers and environmental regulators in Pennsylvania have either left their public jobs for careers in the oil and gas industry or come to government from the industry.

The revolving door trend in Pennsylvania raises questions about whether regulators are serving the public interest or private industry interests in their oversight of fracking.

The following are major findings from the report:

  • Pennsylvania’s previous three governors have strong ties to the natural gas industry. Tom Ridge’s firms benefited from a $900,000 contract to lobby for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, Mark Schweiker joined a lobbying firm with a Marcellus Shale practice, and Ed Rendell is a partner in a private equity firm invested in fracking services companies and recently lobbied on behalf of driller Range Resources. Current governor Tom Corbett also has strong ties to the industry – he received more than $1 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry and previously worked as a lawyer for Waste Management, which is active in the Marcellus Shale.
  • Every Secretary of Environmental Protection since the DEP was created has had ties to the natural gas industry. Jim Seif is now a principal and energy consultant at Ridge Global LLC, one of former governor Ridge’s firms that lobbied for the Marcellus Shale Coalition; David Hess is now a lobbyist at Crisci Associates and has gas industry clients; Kathleen McGinty has served on the boards of two energy companies, is managing director of a consulting firm that is part of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and is a partner in former Governor Rendell’s private equity firm; John Hanger is now special counsel to a law firm that represents every segment of the natural resources industry; and Michael Krancer is former general counsel at a utility that relies on natural gas and a former partner at a law firm member of the Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania | Public Accountability Initiative

You should read the whole report – here. (pdf. file)

There are many people who find this practice of moving from the government to private industry and back again to not be a problem. I don’t get it. How is it moral to develop expertise in industry wrong doing to use it against the government later? How is it moral to work for companies that are heavily dependent on the government for profits, and then switch to government service with every prospect of returning to an extremely lucrative salary with that same industry?

Why don’t we just call it, “slow bribery?” You don’t get the money up front, you get in exchange for services provided over time.

This is how regulatory capture works. This is how public servants can cash in. This is how influence is sold for hard cash.

James Pilant

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Crooks and Liars Tells a Fable

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Crooks and Liars Tells a Fable

Bob The Businessman: An American Success Story | Crooks and Liars

This is the story of Bob the businessman.

Suppose a local businessman, let’s call him Bob, went around town raising money from the townspeople to open a car dealership. Dozens and dozens of people in town invested, putting in $1,000, $5,000, and a few putting in as much as $50,000 and $100,000. Bob raised a lot of money for his business.

After a while the investors found out Bob the Businessman was using some of their money to help his brother run for Mayor and several cousins to run for city council, and …

Bob The Businessman: An American Success Story | Crooks and Liars#sthash.S2qUc6Sm.dpbs

 

An American Fable
An American Fable

This is a fairy tale from the web site, Crooks and Liars. It is, of course, a parable about American business. It’s pretty funny although if you think about it, it’s very sad. Please go to the web site, and read the whole thing.

James Pilant

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Individual Responsibility Except for Banks

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Individual Responsibility Except for Banks

Justice Department’s New Get-Tough Policy Is, Well, Not | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

I get that regulators are worried about job losses. They should be. But the long-term job losses are going to be much greater when investors around the world lose confidence in the U.S. financial system because they recognize that individuals do not face punishment for criminal activity. The individual incentive not to commit crime on Wall Street now is almost zero. Even the worst of the worst – like, say, a certain unindicted co-conspirator in an evolving insider trading case – is only threatened with individual prosecution after years of monstrous and obvious market manipulation, resulting in massive profits that he’ll almost certainly get to keep most of, by the way, if previous settlements are any guide.

It continually amazes, the way all of these law-and-order types are so willing to pontificate about the importance of taking individual responsibility for one’s actions, until the guy in their crosshairs is someone he/she went to college with, or a former client of his or her law firm. Then, suddenly, their idea of drastic justice becomes maybe yanking the license of a foreign subsidiary.

Justice Department’s New Get-Tough Policy Is, Well, Not | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

 

Two Standards of Justice
Two Standards of Justice

Two standard of justice exist in this country. One for those in the government and the higher circles of income and influence and another for the “common” people. If you have been following my blog for the last few years, you will encounter wrong doing among the banking fraternity and the government going unpunished on a regular basis. When there is some justice, it is almost pathetic how little penalty the investment banks and their enablers face. 

But study crime in the United States, and you will note vast penalties handed out for very small crimes indeed particularly drug crimes. My personal favorite is the woman doing fifteen years for a third possession of marijuana. This is what passes for justice.

This poem is from the 17th Century.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who takes things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.

Have things changed all that much?

James Pilant

Related articles

 

Enhanced by Zemanta