Category: business ethics
Banking Horror in Vietnam
https://www.yahoo.com/news/victims-vietnam-tycoons-record-scam-134515985.html
The Saigon Commercial Bank was in all ways observable to a citizen of that nation a legitimate banking institution where you could deposit your money safely and find high quality investment opportunities. In was in fact, an organization devoted toward plunder and theft.
It is likely that more than 40,000 citizens of the nation became victims of the scam. In a nation where salaries are small and social services relatively narrow, the damage done is multiplied. At the moment, the total losses appear to be 12.5 billion dollars if it were measured in American currency.
So, what is the relevance for me a business ethics expert? First, it illustrates the stark difference between a mature financial process in a nation like the United States and the youthful, early development phase of banking in a relatively newly organized nation. Getting clobbered by the 1929 Great Depression may be a terrible tragedy but if some if only a few of the lessons learned can be placed into law, great organized thefts like this one can usually be avoided.
And it is another argument for the importance and desperate need for widespread and thorough teaching about business ethics particularly with attention to how the public has been killed, injured and stolen from throughout history and continuing today.
I suspect there are those that feel that regulation is unnecessary. Businesses afraid of negative publicity will be more careful. That is nonsense. The urge to steal and kill is still here among us and a surprising willingness to risk the lives of hundreds of people over a few thousand dollars profit never fails to surprise me. There was this vat load of ice cream that should have been thrown away but wasn’t. That kind of food poisoning most usually kills small children and the elderly. Four elderly died in a hospital and since, we know their diet in detail the culprit ice cream was identified. How many other people did they kill? We’ll never know.
A quick look at today’s headlines reveals the following problems in business ethics: sex trafficking (this was a CEO), a massive discharge of pollutants in the Amazon, the backlash to AI, the current deaths in the United States due to E. Coli and the listeria contamination crisis currently ongoing.
Business ethics has never been more relevant.
James Alan Pilant
Unburdened by Regulation.
In 1971, there was a hotel fire in Seoul, South Korea. It set some records all of them bad, you know, most deaths ever in a hotel fire in that country, etc.
But it made a lot of money. Now it could have made money the normal, common way by following regulations and rules and having fire escapes, fire doors and sprinklers. But they were business innovators of the first order. By dispensing with these frivolous items and cramming as much stuff and people as possible in the limited space, they made lots and lots of money.
Well, of course, they all went to jail, right??
Not exactly and by, not exactly, I mean not at all. The wikipedia article I consulted mentioned arrests and in these stories of governmental corruption, there are always arrests, always. But once the heat dies down and we start looking for any information whatever on trials and sentencing, we come up empty. Corrupt societies don’t punish cutting edge entrepreneurs. We can always grow more people but individuals who contribute money and favors to government officials are rare. They require cultivation and the occasional indulgence for these minor ethical slip ups.
This is after all 1971. At this time South Korea is not very much a democracy, in fact, far from it. Why is that important? It is harder to steal and murder in a democracy, a lot harder. Take a look at a modern business ethics disaster like the Sewol and in spite of the efforts of the government and their wealthy friends, cover up and evasions simply didn’t work out.
Well, what do we have in the United States? Currently we have a limited democracy. There is still voting but many areas of policy making are off limits due to minority (corporate and oligarchic) control over the Senate, the Supreme Court and a good part of the media. If the people ruled, something utterly simple like the rich paying at least the same rate as the middle class would be law and it is not. Or for another example, capital gains would be taxed like income but it is taxed at a lower rate, an incredibly lucrative deal for those with stocks.
Still, this limited democracy makes it difficult for corrupt officials to kill and rob on a large scale. Much robbery and many deaths still happen but there is no American equivalent of a Bhopal or a Sewol sinking, because the rules still often apply to people with money and power. How much longer that will continue with the current Supreme Court’s perception of bribery and gifts as legitimate political participation I don’t know.
I never thought I would live to see an American Supreme Court dominated by such skilled liars, gift seekers and looney ideologues. But here we are.
How long before we wind up in a society were the business innovators acquire their freedom to kill? Currently it seems inevitable.
James Alan Pilant
No Constitutional Duty to Protect??
https://www.yahoo.com/news/city-police-had-no-constitutional-205433640.html
I challenge you to read this case and not become angry. The police repeatedly refused to take action and eventually the woman who relied on them for protection was murdered.
Here is a single incident from the article above:
Court records show that on Sept. 15, 2022, Christopher Prichard spent one night in jail for violating the order, then failed to show up for a series of court hearings, then failed to turn himself in to serve a six-day jail sentence. As a result, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The lawsuit alleges that police “flat-out refused to enforce the warrant and arrest Christopher Prichard.”
I have to admit a little confusion here. The actions listed in the paragraph above would seem to require as a matter of law police to act.
You can argue that I shouldn’t even be discussing this since I write about business ethics. But if the police simply treat their duties as inconveniences to be avoided, are we really talking about public servants any more or just employees who aren’t very good at their job?
James Pilant
They Drugged Their Students!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-teachers-yanked-texas-classroom-160046076.html
It seems based on the evidence of the press reports and interviewed witnesses that teachers at an elementary school put “sleeping” patches on the children in the classroom regularly in large numbers. These are small children as young as four years old. I am outraged. You just don’t give other people’s children drugs. That they didn’t actually kill anybody is just dumb luck.
Here’s a quote from the article:
Najla Abdullah asked her four-year-old son if he too had received a sticker. “He said, ‘Yes, mommy. I get a special sticker,’” Abdullah told ABC. “I said, ‘What does it look like?’ He said, ‘I get it right here on my hand, and it has the storms with the clouds and the star and the moon.’”
My son is entering his thirties so I didn’t even know these things existed (sleeping stickers). So, I went over and opened my Amazon account and there they were in large numbers and variety of colors and various capabilities. I’m sure many parents whose children have sleep problems find them to be of some benefit.
However, drugging entire classrooms of tiny tots to make your job easier is wrong! (to put it mildly) Since, I assume there will be firings and criminal charges, hopefully the idea of drugging small children will not catch on as a teaching aid.
As an expert on business ethics, my analytic abilities are wasted here. What analysis can you do? Is there a moral argument about giving other people’s children drugs? I think not. There is no way the teachers or teacher’s aides had any idea of what medications the children were already taking or the existence of an medical conditions the children might have had so administering any drug on a large scale is highly dangerous. These acts endangered children. End of moral analysis.
If I may quote from a legendary source of moral support: In the New Testament, Jesus Christ issues a stern warning against harming children. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
This is a catastrophic failure of business ethics. The school is hunkered down. There is no listing of classes involved, number of students or if this was the only set of violations. We can expect this story to develop.
If I were advising the school. I would recommend an outside investigator be hired and as early as possible personnel decisions. They need to share as much information as is possible under the circumstances and new rules specifically banning these actions put in place.
James Pilant
Sometimes, Humor is More Effective!!
I have written about Boeing and I have been very critical. But sometimes, humor is just more effective. I give you, my kind readers and viewers, this little gem I found on You Tube (with enormous gratitude) and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
James Alan Pilant
Kris Kristofferson
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/kris-kristofferson-singer-songwriter-actor-223141066.html
One of the good things about American society is that often talent succeeds. One of the talents of my generation was this man. A great singer and a wonderful actor he brought quality and depth to everything he was in. It is with great sadness that I must report that he has died.
He will be missed.
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without a copyright notice, and its copyright was not subsequently registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within 5 years. (according to wikipedia where I found it – JP)
The Golden Age of Scams
https://www.yahoo.com/news/age-scams-184034965.html
Alana Semuels wrote an essay called “The Age of Scams” for “Time.” It makes me genuinely envious to see this quality and content in writing. Not only is the writing lively and clever, she is absolutely right about our generation unfortunate arrival at the peak of a world of scams. Here is a paragraph from her work:
Cotelingham’s experience is increasingly common. We are living in the golden age of scams. U.S. consumers lost a record $10 billion to fraud in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission, a 14% increase over 2022. That tally is almost certainly an undercount. More than three-quarters of victims, including Cotelingham, don’t report to authorities that they’ve been defrauded. We are constantly baited by scammers—by text, by email, by phone. The average smartphone owner in the U.S. gets an estimated 42 spam texts and 28 spam calls per month, according to RoboKiller, an app for screening calls.
We all suffer living in this golden age of scams. I can take a quick glance at my e-mail spam folder which is many times in size the contents of legitimate e-mails and get an immediate grasp of the giant growth industry that scamming is.
It is obvious that the pathways we use to communicate, e-mail, the internet and the phone have all become corrupted. Surely as a larger society something can be done to curb these disgraceful practices.
I recommend you read the original essay and like me contemplate what can be done about this moral and ethical disaster.
James Alan Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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