I'm going to quote a paragraph here, the continue my own thoughts.
"Even as the rate of murder, robbery, assault and other types of violent and property crimes has declined or flattened in the last decade, there has been a marked increase in accounting and corporate infractions, fraud in health care, government procurement and bankruptcy, identity theft, illegal corporate espionage and intellectual property piracy, federal and state officials say."
It further goes on to state that economic crime cost the nation $5,000,000,000 (yes! that's BILLION) in 1970, $20 billion in 1980, and $100 billion (!) in 1990. I can't even think in those numbers.
There doesn't seem to be any feeling of committing a crime. After all, it's only adding zeros to a piece of paper. Who's getting hurt? The caveat is "Don't get caught." Don't worry about the legality of fleecing shareholders. Just don't get caught. Don't be concerned that those zeros might end up costing an investor his life savings. Just don't get caught.
Think ENRON. How many people are facing a difficult, even poverty-stricken, future because of "creative bookkeeping"?
And that's only a drop in the bucket.
Think about the CEOs who give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses, while employees haven't had raises in five years. Think CEOs who give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses just before the business crashes. And the employees are out of jobs. They have no pensions because the CEO emptied the till.
But deception doesn't end there. How about advertising? A shampoo is guaranteed to make your hair fuller, shinier, longer, more beautiful, (oh, yes, and sexier) and there's a gorgeous model with gorgeous hair "demonstrating" the "fact."
Infomercials on TV. Now there's a grab. In the stores this items costs $150, but if you call within in the next ten minutes, you can have it for $19.95, plus shipping and handling. And not only that, we'll throw in ... a bunch of other stuff.
Or another verson. This items is not and never will be in the stores. It's value is (whatever), but if you call... same spiel. Different product.
And then there's the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) that you see on automobile inventories on a car lot. Does anyone pay it? Well, people like me do because I never learned to bargain. A price is a price. Then, when next year's models come out, the dealers have to move out all the unsold autos, so they advertise in full-page, or even double-page ads, giving thousands of dollars off the original MSRP, plus 0 down, 0 payments for (whatever) months. But in the small print: on approved credit. And even smaler print: 1 at this price.
Now I ask you, if a car at the beginning of the model year is worth, say, $30,000 (plus tax, license, etc.), how come if I wait 10 or 11 months, I can get that very same car, with all the goodies originally advertised for $20,000? I thought a price is a price.
But what do I know? I can balance my checkbook, but when it comes to "creative bookkeeping" or "creative salesmanship" I'm a complete dud.
Can somebody explain to me what happened to ethics?
Shalom