by Jack Lee
Today (Sunday) on KPAY and many other affillate stations, you will have an opportunity to talk about corporate ethics and fraud. You will hear the moderator Bill Flanagan, a well known financial advisor, sitting in for the regular host, Bob Brinker with his special guest, Professor Judi S. McLean-Parks, Organizational Behavior expert from Washington University, and they will attempt to explain the meltdown of ethics that has almost overwhelmed corporate America and cost [us] trillions of dollars in the process.
Call it a symptom or a bi-product, but the lack of ethics and the resulting rampaging greed has sent CEO salaries into the stratosphere, too often without any regard to their job performance. You need to know this is happening and it’s wrong; too many of us are still in denial and we are all suffering as a result. Ms. Parks and her associates have estimated that as much as $924 billion dollars every year are diverted into the deep pockets of corrupt corporate leaders. Corporate America is in crisis, an ethical crossroads is ahead, which path we take will determine our nation’s future.
If you are a pure capitalist and you believe that the market place can and will determine how business will survive and in so doing, how much CEO’s earn and in that free market place survival of the fitess will protect your investment money. Then you really need to listen to this program and open your minds to the possibility of another reality. The truth is out here and the fact is, almost nobody is safe because the inmates are running the asylum on Wall Street !
To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.
Douglas Adams
An entire economy is at risk because of a power struggle at the top that is too devoid of ethics. Moral practices and a transparent bottom line are too frequently replaced by smoke and mirrors in order to create the illusion of wealth and success. A temporary measure at best. It doesn’t take long to get in trouble when the boss bends the rules, that one small step across the line, leads to another and another and another. It is justified by the need to acquire more and more without regard to the consequences, i.e. Enron, Tyco, CMS Energy and many more. All were guilty of doing whatever it takes to create success, but only at the top.
Integrity has no need of rules. –Albert Camus
Time and again, we’ve seen the failure of government to curtail corruption at the highest levels, even government itself is a guilty player, Governor Rod Blagojevich-D is the latest example, but there are more than enough on both sides to make good person sick to their stomach.
If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization. Robert Noyce, inventor of the silicon chip.
Enough is enough, the good citizens, from middle managers on up, must take matters into their own hands, demand honesty and restore confidence to a crumbling system, because there is no one else that will do it.
Our nation is being pillaged from within and you, as investors and taxpayers, are being cleverly swindled by people in white colared suits with MBA’s. It is no understatement to say America is literally at the edge of a great financial collapse, but sadly most Americans don’t believe it and that is perhaps the most pathetic part of all. This is why I urge you to listen-in today, educate yourselves, and hopefully some day we can collectively petition our representatives to make the desperately needed changes to save this nation.
Business will never go wrong by embracing integrity and honesty.
It is often said that ethics on Wall Street flows like water…down hill. More and more of us are coming to finally realize that our corporate CEO’s are far more involved in their bottom line than the product they turn-out, as evidenced by gigantic salaries, topped by even more gigantic bonuses, while the company fails. And to add insult to this fatal injury they get massive stock options that are nothing less than a license to steal!
Reasonable goals equal reasonable decisions – a fast buck equals disaster.
The traditional Board of Directors within the corporate structure was supposed to serve as the watchdogs for the stockholders, but are they anymore? And who appoints the board members and who are they loyal too? Do members serve on other boards as a form of quid pro quo for CEO’s to cloud the conflict of interests? Are stockholder meetings often held in far off places to avoid participation? These are the questions and more that will be addressed on “Money Talk” today.
“The mind of the superior man is conversant with righteousness, the mind of the mean man is conversant with gain. Confucious
Did you know, it was a long standing rule that CEO’s would earn 20 times the earnings of their lowest paid employee? But, today that amount is a joke! It has grown far beyond all sense of proportion, hundreds of times more, and it just keeps growing because it can and it will until you say enough! The greed is out of control as lives are ruined and fortunes are lost. History will record this time as the era of pillaging in America and the republic floundered.
We are witnessing the new era, where in a sense we have a CEO Club that has devolved into an incestuous group of manipulative charlatans where unbridled greed has trod over ethics and continues to do so on a daily basis…because they can.
Lack of moral clarity is so pervasive; it threatens the security of the nation and our way of life.
We are in the midst of the greatest thievery in history (some of it legal and some of it not) and yet our citizens, slow to understand, seem befuddled and confused. They are not sure if it’s really that bad and if it is, who is to blame? The avearge citizen is even more confused when it comes to the solution, shall it be more reform regulations or should it be deregulation and left to pure capitalism?
“Every individual endeavors to employ his capital so that its produce may be of greatest value. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own security, only his own gain. And he is in this led by an invisible hand to promote an end, which has no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”
Adam Smith 1723-1790, Scottish philosopher and economist in: The Wealth of Nations, 1776
For those of you not familiar with Money Talk, Bob’s website offers this brief bio, “Bob Brinker has more than twenty five years of investment management experience. He is the host of the weekend financial talk program MoneyTalk. The program is nationally broadcast live from 4pm to 7pm Eastern time on Saturdays and Sundays. If you would like to call the program, dial (800) 934-2221. Bob answers investment questions from around the country and discusses current issues on the radio program. If you would like to listen to the program, consult your local listings for broadcast times. ”