Category: business ethics

Ethics Round Up – June 3rd 2010

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Loren Steffy at the Houston Chronicle tells how to get your ideas to fix the spill to British Petroleum. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Jim Denison writing for the Associated Baptist Press reviews To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

Jon Talton in the Seattle Times explains why the recovery doesn’t feel better Here’s a quote from the article: “Many of the economic imbalances that led up to the crash were also pretty much frozen in place, instead of the painful but ultimately healthy cleansing that recessions usually bring. More dolorous trends were accelerated, such as offshoring of jobs, increased used of temporary and contract labor, stagnant or falling wages, and rising income inequality.” If you get the idea he is not optimistic, you’re on point.

Asher Meir writing in the Jerusalem Post concludes a three part discussion on the morality of bankruptcy in the light of Jewish law.

Jay Hancock of the Baltimore Sun writes that if you stop paying your mortgage it takes about a year to get kicked out of your home so he asks if you’re in financial trouble why not default and essentially get a years free rent. (I do not approve, but I want to include it because if some clever business or ethics student sees it, they will have a dynamite article to take to class.)

Edward Lotterman writing for Twin Cities press does a good analysis of the question of what duty does an investment broker have to his client. He discusses this in the light of a case that on Wednesday reached a verdict and awarded 30 million dollars to several non-profits from Wells-Fargo.

From Business Ethics, the Magazine of Corporate Responsibility, we have a piece by Jake Bernstein analyzing the likelihood of a wider circle of fraud in the Madoff fraud case. Even if you only do a casual reading of the story, you get an immediate impression of how much research went into it. I was impressed.

Here’s Elizabeth Warren (who should have been appointed to the Supreme Court by Obama) discussing small business in the light of the COP report.

Ethicsdaily.com

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

I ran across the Ethicsdaily web site while checking for new commentary from the Associated Baptist Press. (I mentioned this in an earlier posting.) I went to the web site and read many of the editorial content, sermons, etc. It’s a good site. Obviously, it is Christian advocacy. I have no trouble, whatsoever with this (being a Christian myself), but that’s not what I am doing here. I am dealing with business ethics. So, after careful search, I discovered that there is material on the site that applies Christian ethics to business. That is very important to me. I strongly, strongly believe that religion has a great deal to tell us about morality and to provide us with guidance to make good decisions. I believe there should be religious component to all business ethics textbooks.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want business ethics textbooks that attempt to convert people to one religion or another. What I do want is the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Islamic teachings on business ethics to be taught to business students as legitimate choices of moral guidance.

So, there will on this web site, discussions of and links to articles from Ethics Daily, but only those with a great deal of relevance to business. There is great number of articles on the site but I only think that four or five a month are likely to be on point.

I’m telling you this because I am trying to put the best stuff on business ethics I can find on this site. It is not a small task and I suspect that I will make many mistakes as to who should be talked about, etc. But, here I am, putting this right out in the open, so that you know that I do think about these things, that I do have to work at this and I do respect and appreciate the thoughts of others in making these decisions.

I want to make a better world. I think if I can collect good business ethics writing and put it on this site regularly that maybe, just maybe, more people will read it, think about it and use it. (I like to think I have significant things to say as well but you probably gathered that.)

I want to do the right thing. I want to do this as well as my powers of judgment allow. If you want to advise me and help me make these choices, charge right in. I don’t mind intelligent criticism.

Okay?

James Pilant

Ethics Round Up – June 2nd 2010

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

THE BEST ETHICS WRITING ON THE WEB (In my opinion) June 2nd

The invaluable Alain Sherter writing on B Net discusses the rating agencies.

Loren Steffy from the Houston Chronicle discusses the costs of the current off shore oil ban in the gulf. (I freely admit this article does not seem ethics based but Loren Steffy’s content is heavily ethics laden, and I lay good odds he’s working up a good head of steam to smack down some wrong doing in a column.)

Chris MacDonald has a new one today discussing the many ethical facets of international trade. (I’ll probably be writing more about this one, but he included a pdf article about “adversarial ethics in business” and I think I should work through it before making a comment.)

Bob Allen writing in the Associated Baptist Press tells of Robert Parham’s contention that the gulf spill is a moral issue. (I went and took a look at Robert Parham’s Baptist Center for Ethics. Once I get a good feel for the organization I will write about it.)

Jon Talton’s blood is up at the Seattle Times with very few kind words for the President. He’s writing about Warren Buffett and rating agencies but I think the most important thing in the article is his opinion about the President’s policies.

Jay Hancock of the Baltimore Sun discusses the Great Recession and mental depression. (Hancock is more of a consumer advocate than an ethicist.)

Edward Lotterman writing for TwinCities.com covers the subject of professional sports and monopolization with a definite ethical tone and (speaking as a lawyer) an excellent grasp of the legal issues.

David Moon writing for Knoxville.biz points out with tongue in cheek that corporate annual reports make good fiction reading. But more than funny there are some good insights here.

Jeffrey Seglin on his blog, The Right Thing, discusses the ethics of underpaying a newspaper box. (This guy’s internet foot print is bigger than an elephant’s.)

A little video on Aristotle’s ethical views –

CEO Don Blankenship Headed For Trouble?

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

If you want to read a column with some teeth in it try this one from Gael O’Brien’s web site, The Week in Ethics.

Let me quote from her closing paragraph:

“The miners have been buried, their families continue to mourn. Lawsuits have been filed. Investigations are ongoing. More safety violations pile up. And if the verdict is that safety was not Massey’s sufficient priority, will this prove to be the proverbial canary in the coal mine that can lead to real change?”

That’s writing.

James Pilant

I did a search on You tube to see if I could find a video of Gael O’Brien. I discovered an utterly overwhelming amount of Irish music but no video of her. In Ms. O’Brien’s honor, I chose this (Tell Me Ma) –

Exempt Energy Companies From New Derivatives Rules?

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Alain Sherter warns that such an exemption (in negotiation in Congress) is fraught with risk. While energy companies can use derivatives to even out pricing or limit their risk they can also (like Enron) get into what is essentially gambling.

James Pilant

From the article –

Concerns that energy companies want to dodge proposed restrictions on derivatives can be summarized in two words: Andrew Hall. He’s the star trader who stood to collect a $100 million bonus from Citigroup (C) until controversy over the windfall forced the banking giant to send Hall packing, along with his lucrative energy brokerage unit — straight into the arms of Occidental Petroleum (OXY).

The 2009 deal wasn’t merely the result of mounting political heat on Wall Street, however. It also underscored a trend in which financial firms and a range of companies use derivatives, leverage and other tools of modern finance to place bets on grain, gold, crude oil and other commodities. If energy companies once used derivatives strictly to hedge against price, currency or interest-rate changes, now they see these securities as a way to boost profits. But at what risk? As one equity analyst said of Occidental after it acquired the Citi subsidiary, called Phibro:

They never gambled before, and now they own the casino.

Sherter has a definite way of putting things.

jp


Fiduciary Duty and Investment Brokers

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Fiduciary Duty and Investment Brokers

“When I was growing up in the shadow of the Edgar Thomson Works of U.S. Steel a half century ago, it was easy to tell the bookies from the bankers — and it wasn’t just by the clothes they were wearing. If you wanted to place a bet, you went to a bookie; if you wanted to invest, you went to a banker or stock broker.”

This is the lead paragraph from Tom Michlovic’s opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

It’s a dead on call. The Wall Street of the day feels no responsibility to the “knowledgeable investor.” The corner bookie has a greater moral responsibility to his client than our modern investment bankers.

Michlovic calls for the requirement of a fiduciary duty for all investment brokers. It would solve a lot of problems and I strongly agree.

But I am more concerned with how we got here and why we got here. At what point did investment advice become a buyer beware game? And how do members of what we would like to think is a advanced civilized Western culture find that abandoning honor, duty, and any semblance of integrity was the proper move?

The ethical abyss we are looking into did not take place in a few days. We are dealing with a cultural and institutional ethos that is places the future of the nation in jeopardy. Whether we exist as a cooperative society able to meet the challenges of history or simply dissolve into suicidal islands of self interest is a real question.

James Pilant

Here’s one commentator’s, Bob Monks, ideas on the subject. (I agree with him on this issue.)

Who Caused The Economic Crisis?

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Who Caused The Economic Crisis?

Keith Chrostowski writing for the Kansas City Star has definite opinions. He portrays a debate between two possible causes, main street or wall street. Who, he asks, should get the blame? It’s amusing and unsettling and it might make you mad, therefore, you should read it.

James Pilant

Let’s hear one more time, the great patron saint of Wall Street ethics:

Talmudic Investment Advice

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Talmudic Investment Advice

I often rework the title of an article I am recommending but this time there wasn’t any way I was going to do that. Asher Meir writing in the Jerusalem World Review explains the Talmudic teachings (or advice or recommendations) on what you should invest in. The Talmud has much to say about investment and Rabbi Meir explains. (In brief, the Talmud recommends diversification.)

Investment simply explained –

Why Is BP Running Things?

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Why Is BP Running Things?

Rod Dreher has written on this subject before. Today, he has found an article he recommends from Mother Jones that further develops his narrative of government incompetence and complicity. He also recommends John Robb’s take on the subject from Robb’s web site, Global Guerrillas.

It is obvious that British Petroleum and the Obama White House are choking off news coverage of the oil spill disaster. This has so far served to dampen the rage and concern over the catastrophe.  Both the White House and BP benefits by BP retaining control of the spill. The government does not want control of a sticky and difficult to manage situation as well as the multi-billion dollar cost of dealing with it. BP benefits by avoiding government oversight of its actions in dealing with the spill and limiting its financial liability. Of course, the nation does not benefit from letting this disaster continue supervised only by those responsible for the disaster in the first place. I think in years to come this will be used in textbooks as a classic case of government failure both before and after the disaster.

James Pilant

One angry commentator discusses the issue –