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 …
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.
White House Grants Aaron Swartz’s Wish: Taxpayer-Funded Research Will Be Free
Aaron Swartz, a well-known Internet activist who killed himself last month, believed that information should free, not digitized and put behind pay walls.
“The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations,” he once wrote.
The Obama administration just granted his wish — at least as it pertains to research funded by taxpayers.
The White House directed federal agencies on Friday to make the results of federally-funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication. The new policy came “>after more than 65,000 people signed a petition asking for expanded public access to the results of studies paid for by taxpayers.
“Americans should have easy access to the results of research they help support,” John P. Holdren, the president’s senior advisor on science and technology, said in a memo announcing the new open-access policy.
Well, it’s something but it can become so much more. Swartz wanted to free up information for the use of all mankind. This is a step in the right direction. We can build a world of free information free of corporate or government control. We owe it to Aaron to fight hard for a better Internet, a better world.
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.
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.
The largest mortgage settlement in U.S. history was pitched by its creators as a deal that would offer quick aid to 1 million people in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. But according to a report released Thursday by the court-appointed monitor of the settlement, in the first nine months after the $25 billion deal was struck, fewer than 50,000 people received the most coveted form of relief: reduction of principal owed on a first mortgage.
Meanwhile, more than three times as many borrowers — 169,000 — agreed to a short sale, which requires they leave the property, according to the report.
Banks still have time to meet their obligations under the settlement, which requires that 30 percent of total relief come in the form of first mortgage principal reduction. But housing advocates say the limited progress so far — just 14 percent of aid has gone to write down loan balances — suggests that banks are avoiding, or at least delaying, their obligation to provide meaningful relief as they promised under the deal.
What did the federal government think would happen when their vaunted, over-hyped 25 billion dollar settlement wound up in the hands of the banks themselves? A child could have made an accurate prediction. You reward criminality by avoiding any real penalties. You chock it up as an enormous victory for the government while the banks and people like me hold you in contempt for your incompetence and servile stance to corporate crime. The banks have to pay back some money to the people they stole from. Great. Except that they decide who gets the money and they have decided that most of the money will go to short sales. Isn’t that special. They’re maximizing their profit. Who would’ve thought?
Banks thrive, while homeowners still suffer | The Great Debate
A year ago the federal government and 49 states completed a $25 billion agreement with the nation’s largest mortgage servicers to settle claims of “robo-signing” and unlawful foreclosure practices. President Barack Obama announced the creation of the federal-state mortgage securities working group in his 2012 State of the Union address. The nation seemed on the verge of transforming the way banks treat struggling homeowners ‑ particularly those with “underwater” mortgages, in which a homeowner owes more than the house is worth.
These promises, however, have yet to be fulfilled. The latest interim report on the national mortgage settlement is due out this week, and banks will likely again declare that it offers proof that they are fulfilling their obligations. But the communities hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis have yet to see any meaningful relief.
Time is running out to ensure that these communities receive their fair share under the settlement. But it is not too late to provide meaningful assistance. The settlement monitors need to demand greater transparency from banks, and they need to see that banks comply with the fair-lending requirements set out in the agreement. They also need to aggressively police the servicing reforms to ensure that all homeowners get a fair opportunity to save their homes.
Unfortunately, there is little transparency about how the banks are using this money. They have not provided any loan-level data to show which borrowers are receiving assistance.
Moreover, mortgage servicers have complete discretion over who receives help. Advocates fear the banks have been cherry-picking expensive loans that are deeply underwater to meet their settlement obligations quickly. This provides an important service for the borrowers in that category but little systematic relief for low- and moderate-income communities suffering the most from the foreclosure crisis.
Simply immune to prosecution?
The mortgage holders committed fraud for years making billions of dollars taking homes they had little or no claim to. They used the HAMP program as a weapon against homeowners, telling them to skip three payments so as to be able to qualify, then rejecting their applications or not bothering to even process them (not that we’ll ever know in most cases, the HAMP program kept no records for the first two years) and then quickly foreclosing on their homes. I’ve had students in my classes who were victims of that scam.
Instead of holding the perpetrators of these crimes accountable they were “sort of” fined 25 billion dollars through a program they administer and report on without effective oversight. Let me repeat that – they, the banks, administer the program to give back some of the money and homes they stole. Oh, forgive me, they are not giving the homes back just some money should they feel in some way that they want to because if they don’t want to, they don’t have to.
That is what passes for justice in the current administration and the 49 states that the bankers negotiated this sweetheart deal with. Crime pays in the United States if you are a banker dealing mortgages.
They stole billions of dollars worth of homes. They in an epic display of arrogance created a parallel system of recording deeds without any legal justification purely to expedite trading of mortgages and to evade filing fees. They lied to judges all over the United States in countless jurisdictions filing tens of thousands of false affidavits saying that their paperwork, their proof of ownership was in order.
These are crimes, not mistakes, crimes.
If I stole through fraud the least home in the land, I would and should do prison time. No one has been sentenced for these crimes. Without prison time, fines, that are a fraction of the money made, are the only deterrent. Is that enough? Does that make sense?
Two systems of justice – one for the bankers and one for regular citizens, the “common” folk, the ones without political friends; the ones that don’t have the right memberships, the right bank accounts, the right lives lived in the adoration of business television and magazines.
We discussed in my class on business law and business ethics what it takes to build a good society. One of the thoughts was to reward virtue and penalize wrong doing. What kind of society does this build?
Kamala Harris is right: we need a Homeowners Bill of Rights, and the banks, like it or not and they don’t, need good, strong regulations to control them. These two items are bare minimums. As for giving the money to individual homeowners, if it does happen, the amounts will be small because the numbers involved are so large. Better to allocate some money to homeowners’ advocacy and education groups.
The five mortgage companies who are part of the settlement are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, GMAC/Ally Financial, and Citibank. While HUD estimates that 2 million homeowners could see their mortgage balances reduced, it will be up to the five banks to determine which homeowners will be included in the program. In addition, payments of between $1500 and $2000 will be paid to people who lost a home to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011, so long as certain criteria are met. The factsheet does not explain the criteria necessary for those people to qualify.
A major impediment to mortgage modifications is the bank practice of “dual tracking” mortgages. When a mortgage is dual tracked the bank pursues foreclosure while at the same time allowing the home owner to pursue a modification. The problem with this is that in spite of an eminent, or completed modification the bank will still sell a home at sale leaving the owner homeless.
What are we frightened of? Fear and Dread in the U.S.
Michael Brenner: The (Very) Few Proud and Brave
Fear and dread, deep and pervasive, are the abiding feature of these times.Existential threats from mysterious forces with no fixed address are most scary because they are not resoluble by focused action taken against a clear target. They gnaw at you as well as frighten you. That produces dread. Dread is free floating fear — it fixes on what might be, thereby magnifying anxieties of experiencing one more horrific events of the past.American actions in the ‘war on terror’ have been driven by dread. Dread that it may happen again, dread of the unknown, dread of the alien. It explains not only the radical thrust of Washington’s conduct in the Greater Middle East but also the dulling of critical faculties. That pertains to torture, kill lists and illegal surveillance as well as the ready resort to military power.
I thought this was one of the most well written and provocative single paragraphs I have run across in some years. It’s not just beautiful, it captures the mood of our current era. I have often thought the same thing although minus the eloquence.
The Obama administration faces two fundamental decisions. First, should it rededicate American foreign policy to shoring up the shaky structure of alliances and understandings among the five that has been central to its vision of the region’s strategic future? Second, should it redefine American interests and expectations in ways that favor the emergence of a more durable structure build to accommodate a more realistic set of expectations? To say ‘no’ to the former, and to say ‘yes’ to the latter is to choose a challenging course – diplomatically and politically. For it means forming a highly differentiated view of Islamist elements in the Middle East, a loosening of the servile ties that bind Washington to Tel Aviv, beginning an intricate, multi-party project in the intricate project in the Gulf, and – perhaps most challenging – coping with uncertainty as a constant.
Ken Anderson’s Testimony Caps Dramatic Inquiry | The Texas Tribune
Defiant, angry and frustrated, former prosecutor Ken Anderson took the stand on Friday to defend himself, ending a week of dramatic testimony in an unusual court of inquiry that is examining whether the former district attorney committed criminal misconduct during the trial that led to the wrongful murder conviction of Michael Morton.
Morton was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his wife’s murder, and he spent nearly 25 years behind bars before DNA evidence led to his exoneration in 2011. Lawyers for the exoneree contend that Anderson deliberately withheld critical evidence that could have prevented Morton’s wrongful conviction. Anderson adamantly denied any wrongdoing, and in his often impassioned testimony criticized the court of inquiry.
Ken Anderson is answering some tough questions in a Texas court. He needs tough questioning. He prosecuted an innocent man while allowing the guilty party to continue his crimes.
Overzealous prosecution is not justice. It’s collecting prosecutorial kills for career purposes and is particularly villanous because many defendants have only limited resources to defend themselves from charges. A prosecutor’s discretion is one of the defenses the innocent have.
I don’t know whether Anderson intentionally withheld evidence in the process of prosecuting Michael Morton, because he thought Morton was guilty, whether he just made a series of mistakes, or whether, as he says, the system failed. I do know that he is ethically obligated to step down as a judge. His credibility, fairness, competence, commitment to justice, integrity and trustworthiness have all been called into question by the inquiry, as well as the unavoidable fact that he prosecuted an innocent man who went to prison for a quarter of a century, and while he was there, the real murderer may have killed again. The justice system cannot have a judge ruling on people’s lives who has something like that on his record and conscience. I wouldn’t want my fate to rest with such a judge, and as a lawyer, I wouldn’t want my client’s fate to be determined by such a judge either.
As though more corroboration was necessary, there’s the case of Michael Morton, the former grocery store clerk who served almost a quarter century’s worth of a life sentence. The truth will yet out but as of now, it appears Morton should have never been convicted had a prominent prosecutor and now county judge, Ken Anderson, and then prosecutor Mike Davis, now a private practice lawyer, and current District Attorney John Bradley shared potentially exculpatory evidence with the defense – – – as required under Brady v. Maryland 373 U. S. 83.
We know that in the last ten years, 45 Texas inmates have been exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence and that is something to be grateful for. The notion of innocent men and women being held in confinement for crimes they did not commit is excruciating.
Another inmate joined the ranks of those freed from a Texas jail last week. Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife Christine in 1986. He was a grocery store manager who had no criminal record, nonetheless, he was found guilty of beating his wife to death and sentenced to life in prison.
In 2005 Mr. Morton attempted to have evidence tested to determine if DNA was present, namely a blue bandanna found near his home after the murder. For six years the district attorney fought Morton’s attempts based on the advice of the original prosecutor, Ken Anderson, who was now Judge Anderson.
The Ethics Sage Addresses Harvard Cheating Scandal
Should Students who cheated at Harvard be Rewarded or Punished? – Ethics Sage
I do think the students violated the rules in this case and should be held accountable for their actions. However, there were mitigating circumstances not the least of which was from the teaching assistants who seemed to work with those students who came forward asking for help to interpret information and develop responses to test questions.
Perhaps the lesson to be learned from the Harvard cheating scandal is we, in academe, need a new approach to evaluating the benefits and potential harms of collaboration. It can be a great teaching tool and mirrors collaborative effort in the workplace. Test questions in a collaborative enivornment can better assess analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills, two skills essential for success in today’s workplace.
The level playing field argument is key in evaluating the use and purpose of student collaboration. Academic integrity is at stake. Collaborative effort may impair fairness in the grading process unless collaboration is expected of all students. Otherwise, those who “play by the rules” may receive lower grades because they worked individually while those who shared information may benefit from such an approach.
The Ethics Sage, Steven Mintz, discusses the Harvard cheating scandal in his latest post. I find his reasoning compelling and I agree in full with his ethical reasoning in this case. The students’ instructions from their various teaching assistants were less than clear. Further, the modern technique of collaborative learning needs more in depth ethical analysis, and clearer rules. It’s a good piece of work. Don’t be satisfied with this brief section. Go to the Ethics Sage’s web site and read it in full and while you’re there sign up for e-mail alerts for later essays.
Unfortunately, I suspect they’ll find that achieving and maintaining fame and fortune requires just as much corner-cutting as getting their grades at school. After all, those same kids who have no qualms with cheating in school soon enter the business world. And those who tell themselves that they are only cheating to keep up with the cheaters will tell themselves that they must do the same outside of academics. I’ve been involved in a part of business–not as a janitor–where I was surprised to learn how many ways and how often our competitors would do small dishonest things to get the edge over us. It made me think: if people are this dishonest with the small things, I wonder whether it is all the more so with bigger things? (Maybe not. I recall seeing a report that said in relationships men are more likely to lie about small things they deem unimportant and women are more likely to lie about big things they deem important. Maybe when it comes to big things in the business world, people are less likely to be dishonest?)
Indeed cheating in academia is nothing new and to view this particular instance as somehow extraordinary within greater academia would be naïve. That is not to say that systematic cheating is widespread at Harvard, but odds are there have been plenty of cheaters in Harvard’s history as an institution. Perhaps they were single students acting alone, perhaps they were groups that went unnoticed, but doubtless they did exist. The school’s reputation is of course the underlying factor that makes this story so noteworthy – it is quite difficult to imagine a similar ruckus concerning cheating at a local community college. There is an assumption about Harvard, a presumed integrity that goes along with the status and prestige of the Harvard name, one that places the members of the student body somehow above cheating. However, these students and their actions are informed by society writ large – they do not stand apart from it. And as such if we seek to understand the incentives that compel cheating we must consider the social fabric in which they are embedded.
After news broke of the collaborative cheating efforts of over 120 students in an “Introduction to Congress” course at Harvard University last spring, the honesty and conduct of college students are being questioned. University students are typically young, but surely old enough to know right from wrong.
Eric Kester, a recent Harvard graduate, wrote a memoir, published in July, which details many instances where dishonesty dominated good character throughout his four years at the university. He said there were a number of take-home tests that were completed with group efforts, notes passed in bathrooms during exams, and research papers written and sold. Kester said he never cheated, but he certainly understood the pressures that came along with an Ivy league education.
One day, I discussed with the class my idea for teaching upper class communication skills to the business students. They asked me to go further with it, so here is the first video in what will be a series discussing the social class skills necessary for business success.
Realize that online networking is similar to real life networking. In real life networking, you make connections one person at a time. The same is true for online networking. Don’t be seduced into thinking that you can create meaningful relationships with a lot of people at once, simply by posting updates about what you do.
A better approach would be to consider the online social networks as tools to provide you more access to more people, from the comfort of your home or office, while realizing that the basic relational skills when making a connection remains comparable to both online and offline. In other words, meet a lot of people, but meet them one by one.
I think the best way to start a business is to look at what you love and think about how you can formulate that into a plan. It’s important to ask questions, always take calculated risks, and develop the ability to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself.There are no failures if you learn from the mistakes you made along the way. I think a bit of self-reflection always helps to build the foundation of a company and let it take shape. Passion, Hard Work, Kindness, Generosity and patience are definitely some of the key factors in making something successful.
It is always important to remember that a business is built in a series of blocks or stages. Slowly but surely it all comes together over time.
The Importance of Literature in Professional Life.wmv – YouTube
Adam Crowley in a wonderful presentation talks about the importance of understanding literature for the professions. In my introductory lectures to my business law classes, I often refer to the importance of other courses like science, math, English and literature. Business teaching can only go so far in educating a human being, we need more intellectual nourishment to be whole.
Adam Crowley
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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