Category: ethics

My Students (Revised)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Teaching

This is a shorter, more carefully revised version of my earlier “My Students” posting.

One of the things I like to teach my students is that they have no intellectual inferiority in regard to the Ivy League schools.

On the face of it, that may sound ridiculous, but it is not.

A great many of these heavily lauded (and immensely well paid) graduates of the schools blessed by the establishment have participated wholly and happily in the greatest financial debacle in history. Their well honed degrees disguised their incompetence, their stupidity, their lack of intellectual depth and their overwhelming sense of entitlement.

The fact that so many of these Ivy Leaguers journey off to cash in their degrees and their honor in various financial firms is a black mark against our educational system. You see, we depend on this system to produce the scholars, the politicians, and all those various professions which make nations function with honor and purpose. Instead we get a rush of graduates toward a predatory system of financial institutions.

My students would try to take care of their fellow citizens never forgetting where they came from and the struggle they must make to simply get a job in the current market. They deserve better. Nevertheless, from this crop is my hope, that these people, these individuals working to better themselves will be the leaders of tomorrow, not the children of the elite, not the well favored few, but my students.

It is not a matter of free will or gumption that keeps my students from being as successful as those. It is a well ingrained attitude, a lack of expectations, and a consistent contempt and suspicion of the educated. We can do better. We, the citizens, have a responsibility to our children to act the part of guides and supporters. I do not mean the blind support given whatever the merits. I mean a willingness to encourage excellence and the hard, difficult job of not submitting to the idea that some people are better. They are better when they prove it. My student can prove their excellence.

But learning is not just a matter of schooling. It is a life long endeavor. Most people stop when they put that piece of paper on the wall. But that is all they are, paper, wood pulp. If my students are to change this state, this country, and this world, there must be support and dedication to a lifetime of learning. A person who continues the task of development, of becoming, is inferior to no learner on earth, whatever their degree.

There are books and as long as there are books – as long as the great works of mankind – are readily available, any human being can become educated and developed. Any individual can build the power of understanding, a basic command of the ideas that govern this society, and a sense of purpose in their lives. But we have to believe. My students need that. My students need to walk in a community where people believe they are just as good, just as smart and just as capable as students from anywhere in the world.

All they have is the power of their minds and the determination of their hearts. If they only believe.

James Pilant

The Field Of Honor!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

The bankers know exactly whom to blame for the housing collapse and foreclosure fiascos. It’s you — the devious American homeowner who wickedly borrowed the easy money they had on offer.

Jane Bryant Quinn writing for CBS Money Watch –


No blame to the lenders who dreamed up high-risk mortgages and doled them out to anyone with a pulse. No blame to mortgage brokers and bankers who misled customers into signing up. No blame to Wall Street for whisking risky loans into securities falsely labeled as “Triple-A safe.”

No, you’re the problem, for deliberately borrowing more from the innocent, trusting bankers than you could afford. And now, in foreclosure, you’re whining about a few false robo-signatures on documents that the lenders use to evict. You’re simply plotting get out of paying what you owe. “People aren’t taking responsibility for their own actions,” the self-righteous bankers tell each other at their watering holes. Kick ‘em out of their homes and let’s move on.

Talk about not taking responsibility. The bankers see the specks in their borrowers’ eyes and deny the logs that are in their own. On the field of honor, the entire financial industry has melted away.

I was planning to write something today along these very lines. She already did it, and it is much easier for me to put her stuff in a blog and justly praise her for it than for me to re-invent the wheel.

Great writing!

James Pilant

Benjamin Franklin, Business Ethics, And How To Present An Idea

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

From the Benjamin Franklin biography by John Torrey Morse, Jr., page 39.

In another enterprise Franklin shrewdly enlisted the boon-companion element on his side, with the result of immediate and brilliant success. He began as usual by reading a paper before the Junto, and through this intervention set the people thinking concerning the utter lack of any organization for extinguishing fires in the town. In consequence the Union Fire Company was soon established, the first thing of the kind in the city. Franklin continued a member of it for half a century. It was thoroughly equipped and efficiently conducted. An item in the terms of association was that the members should spend a social evening together once a month. The example was followed; other companies were formed, and fifty years later Franklin boasted that since that time the city had never “lost by fire more than one or two houses at a time; and the flames have often been extinguished before the house in which they began has been half consumed.”

Franklin does not go out with an idea convinced in advance of its success. He carefully tests his ideas with a chosen audience. The Junto was an association he created of other capable young men. They came together to discuss ideas, exchange information, and to lobby for their interests. The idea for an organization to fight fires made abundant sense but he tested it in front of this chosen audience to gauge its reception.

The Junto gave him a testing ground for his ideas. He could get feedback in a safe environment. If his idea was not well thought out, it will not be reported. If successful, he can then take an idea which has passed muster in an intelligent practical organization and test it out in the community.

One of the things that gets us in trouble is pride. Franklin in his autobiography admits that vanity (pride) was key to much of his success. That he is able to recognize that and give it due credit is amazing. Most of us spend our lives lying about ourselves to everybody including and particularly ourselves. Pride has it proper place as Franklin realizes. But when you have to much you tend to over reach.

The idea for a fire company is so obviously good, it would have been easy to bypass the testing steps. It would have been easy just to expect the idea to sell itself. After all, isn’t everyone afraid of fire and hadn’t the city almost burned down twice within memory? But he still kept to the process of testing and development building a successful execution from the ground up.

Watch how Franklin takes even the best of his ideas and carefully works them into reality. How many of us once convinced of an idea can proceed intelligently and cautiously to build consensus for it? No, generally we tell everyone how great it is and reflect astonishment when disagreed with. We can learn from Franklin’s example.

There is certainly an ethical element in the level of respect he is demonstrating in this process for other opinions, the thoughts and ideas of the other members. He is recognizing the importance of these other individuals in the community. He is celebrating their importance, communicating clearly the importance of their thoughts and their support.

He doesn’t just sell an idea. He build allies, develops friendship and allows others to mature and develop by being his friends and associates.

Can you do that?

James Pilant

Pennies-Be-Gone: The Ethics of Rounding (via The Business Ethics Blog)

On By southwerkIn ethics

Chris MacDonald gets high marks from me. His writing is good all the time. And this one is one of his best.

Read about the ethics of the decline and fall of the American penny!

James Pilant

Pennies-Be-Gone: The Ethics of Rounding The always-useful Consumerist brings us this story, with a self-explanatory title: A Lone Dunkin' Donuts Sort Of Abolishes Pennies One donut shop is taking a stand against the bacteria-ridden zinc disks of suck that are pennies. Reader Tom sent us [a photo of a sign] from a store he recently visited. In a policy change that was probably born during an 8 AM rush, this franchise appears to be are rounding customer totals up or down to the nearest f … Read More

via The Business Ethics Blog

Woman Owes 1.5 Million For Downloading And Sharing 24 Songs.

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

From Yahoo Music Blog, The Amplifier –

What’s the value of a song? Jammie Thomas-Rasset has spent the last few years in court debating that question. The Minnesota mother of four is being penalized for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs on the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Kazaa in 2006, but how much she owes the record labels has been in question. The jury in her third trial has just ruled that Thomas-Rasset should pay Capitol Records $1.5 million, CNET reports, which breaks down to $62,500 per song. It’s a heavy penalty considering the 24 tunes would only cost approximately $24 on iTunes, which was Thomas-Rasset’ argument, too.

I know it’s wrong to download and share songs. But does that kind of unethical act merit this kind of overwhelming response? I don’t think so.

Is the recording industry biting itself with this kind of nonsense? Yes, it is.

How will that be felt? I don’t know. But I can’t believe that when you do something stupid over and over again, that you won’t get hurt.

From further in the article –

Burying a Midwestern mom in insurmountable debt isn’t the best publicity move, so rather than argue the labels are entitled to the cash, the RIAA has sought to make this trial into a cautionary tale for anyone considering illegally downloading music — a reminder that there are penalties. But as the constantly declining weekly Nielsen SoundScan sales figures demonstrate, nothing seems to have deterred music fans from stealing rather than purchasing songs and albums.

This case is potent symbol of how the lawsuit has drifted from defending the poor and helpless into a tool for crushing corporate opponents.

James Pilant

Judge Started Shutting Down Foreclosures TWO YEARS Ago For Bad Paperwork!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Philosophy of Business, White Collar Crime

Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack discusses his decision to turn down bank foreclosures for bad paperwork.

(Beware, this has a commercial.)

It’s 4:27 long.

The New York judiciary has gotten tough on the Mortgage industry.

James Pilant

Five Mortgage Myths Debunked

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

This is from CNN Money. I found it on You Tube. It’s useful information, so I pass it on to you.

It’s 4:12 long.

(Watch out, it has a commercial in the front.)

James Pilant

You Can Have My Huge African Fortune

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics4 Comments

I got this e-mail, today. This is priceless. They must have run out of royal families. I feel sorry for them. With all their royals dead, all they have to scam you with are African banks flooded with dead people’s cash.

Why are they writing scams when they could write novels? Look at the detail they put into this story! You have a Concord crash and all the relatives are dead. I mean isn’t this just like one of those Alistair MacLean novels?

But, of course, they quickly got down to the nitty gritty with the killer sentence – Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where the money will be remitted.

It really killed the flow of the story.

Well, I am foolishly untrusting! So, if you want my African fortune, you can have it. You don’t even have to send me a thank you.

Here is my “letter.”

{By the way, did you like the picture? Like my African bankers, these are crooks! (shepherd’s crooks in this case)}

 

AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING MANAGER,

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK.

 

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO,WEST AFRICA.

Dear Friend,

I am the manager of auditing and accounting department African Development Bank (A.D.B). I got your address in Burkina Faso chamber of commerce through yahoo details. In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of $25.7 m US dollars (Twenty five. Seven Million US dollars). In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in a concord plane crash in the year 2004 in Paris that almost took the whole life of the passenger’s on board. Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I and now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and i don’t want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill. The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after six years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury account as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkina be cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner.

We agree that 40% of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for me. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where the money will be remitted. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the letter of demand for you to apply for the claim immediately.

I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter. Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully

DR WAHEED ABDUL

AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT. (A.D.B) BANK.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the letter of demand for you to apply for the claim immediately.

I hope this got a laugh. It’s all it got from me.

Best Wishes,

James Pilant

Duty, Honor, Country

On By southwerkIn ethics

May our corporate leaders take a listen.

James Pilant

Just For Fun – Killer Cat Stops Mail Service

On By southwerkIn ethics

Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night,… not really, that’s the American Postal Service. This is the British version and they will no longer put mail in the house through the door slot because – (Well, read -)

The Royal Mail will not post letters through the door for one family in Portsmouth because their cat, who scratched a postman’s finger, is now considered a threat.
A tortoiseshell cat called Lana is accused of scratching the mail carrier when he pushed letters through the opening.
Carl and Carol White say the feline was just acting playful but the Royal Mail has stated that it is important to prevent animal attacks.
The family has been told to keep the cat away from the door or risk losing their postal delivery, so Carl now goes to the door to collect the post when the carrier knocks.

American Postal Carriers are apparently tougher than their British counterparts. That’s nice to know. If there’s a war, we’ll get mail delivery and they won’t. All we have to do is drop Commando Kitties across Britain. I’ve got some I’ll donate right now. We can pre-bombard them, in case of a future war.

(By the way, the cat pictured above is innocent of any postman attacks. It seemed unfair to picture the alleged attacker, who after all is a juvenile.)

James Pilant