Business Ethic Training

All:


William Black is a Professor of Law at UMKC. He is a former regulator in the banking industry and was key witness in defending individual taxpayers (FDIC Insurers) and individual rights against accounting fraud that characterized the Savings and Loan Banking Scandal of the 1980s.

1) Perverse Incentives
2) Dishonest deals Displace Honest Economic Activity
3) Characteristics of Criminal banking Activity
4) Lack of Prosecutions
5) Hope for Prosecutions

Click on any link. The first link is shorter.

Brief 17 minutes run down on current environment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Qe0HlKKfw
Teaching session 56 minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=6YT84CokUsA
Controversy about firing US AG:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I12oDVr2RZQ&feature=related

Last week I was sugesting the following as Truth:

1) We need the FED (US Federal Reserve which prints US Dollars) to back up the SEC Court Costs and Law Suits with unlimited US Dollars (Securities Exchange Commission) - since the SEC doesn't have the budget to fight Big (TBTF) Banks in Court.
2) The SEC often settles or makes deals to accept a penalty from the bank with the biggest banks on charges of money laundering or other banking violations.
3) Too Big To Fail (TBTF) banks often repeat violations within 1-2 years for behavior they agreed in court to stop engaging in.
4) How can any little guy with a limited budget compete with big lobbyist and big corporations with Billions of Dollars?
5) End lobbying by Foreign Interests Today.
6) End Lobbying in Washington DC Tomorrow as the first step in Campaign Finance Reform.

D.

Good Economic Policy, Good Foreign Policy, Good Trade Policy

Good Economic Policy, Good Foreign Policy, Good Trade Policy is based in drawing distinct lines of behavior that are acceptable versus compromising policy by making exceptions for industries and for certain corporations. Business Ethics compels any good administrator to abide by minimum standards. The USA for 25-35 years used tax abatement and perks to industries. This is probably the history of hiring illegals as well. So we have a number of points that have to be built in to economic, foreign, and trade policies:
-Human nature is that some politicians and corporate executives will seek power for power's sake.
-Human nature will always take a subsidy/bounty and prepare not to compete with the market, but will prepare to get the bounty/subsidy.
-If there is more money out of the country in terms of trade, investment, off shore banking, monetary leakage, competing industries, national resources, national energy needs, ...than flowing into a country then you have a problem that will burn you.
-If you sell off your countries military technology, or buy your main source of energy overseas then you have a National Security Problem.
-If you don't prepare with Alternative Energy Investment or "new" Technology or "New Science" then you put your country at a disadvantage.
-Research and Development is cheap and universities are cheap places to leverage the American Inventiveness compared to the cost of crisis management.
-If labor is cheaper overseas then the US must sponsor new engineering, new industries, or new growth areas of science through cheap competitions and cheap study grants at colleges and universities.
-Level the trade playing field if you have low industry wages overseas. Politics has never been that productive and usually costs the country in reputation politically...i.e. Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Vietnam. Don't tax our industry while giving preferred trading status to China or Asia.
-Realize the cost of immigration in terms of American Infrastructure, health care, education, legal system, lost jobs, loss of knowledge, loss of skill, and ...in terms of US Dollars that flow to Mexico along with other nationalities that send US money out of the country ...Cuba, China, Poland, Russia, ETC.
-Protect the Value of the US Dollar from excessive US Federal Debt and other type of US Debt since all foreign financiers of the USA will look at the US Economy, wages, GNP/GDP, the health of our financial institutions, the health of our oil industry, the health and wealth of our baby boomers in retirement, total US Federal Debt, total US Trade Deficit, total unfunded budget requirements of $53 Trillion with $10 Trillion Federal Debt while just paying interest.
-Pre-emptive Strikes and War are not foreign policies. We have a US State Department that is full of careerist diplomats and embassies that can do without war.
-We can use military strength to kick butt even tomorrow, but we should save the cost to the nation till we are forced to us it...otherwise we risk losing too much American Wealth.

Blame the US GOVT. plus the SEC

Blame the US GOVT. plus the SEC...according to David Cay Johnston, (The Book) "Free Lunch", the SEC held a board meeting and reduced the amount of cash a banking corporation must hold in accounts in relation to its obligations (Debt/Loans). The result is that many organizations now hold only 1 to 30 ratio of cash to debt/loans. So who do we blame for tax dollars spent
-Obama
-McCain
-Senate and House of Representatives, the President,
-General Accounting Office as far as no one listened to their audits or recommendations.
-Lobbyists
-CEOs & CFO (Chief Financial Officers) of Financial Organizations
-Globalization
-Politics as usual
-Status Quo thinking
-Culture of Subsidies or Bounties paid by the government to corporations, industries, Financial Organizations, Major Corporations, Housing and Construction Interests, etc.,
-Culture of "big Business" represents the Economy and is national security privileged interest.
-Some strange twist of logic that made the US government want to allow sale of "National Interest" technology corporations to foreign companies.
-Election Cycle in Washington that makes our representatives focus on re-election more than borrowing from "Social Security Plans" and paying and funding only the interest on our long term obligations/debts (INSTEAD OF PAYING OFF THE DEBT)
-Bizarre Idea of bringing American culture to the Middle East and saying it is teaching democracy instead of a "Police Action"(Democracy in a tribe?).
-Strategic War instead of investing in alternative energy research, competitions, university programs, experimental projects.
-Trying to do what we laughed at the Russians for doing in Afghanistan even though we go about it differently(the Russians and Osama Bin Ladin have to be laughing at us now).
-Trying to do anything that looks anything like Vietnam(Iraq).
-Ignoring and not understanding what our Federal Budget looks like, shortfalls, grants and subsidies, unfair trade relationships, exporting military technology, Trade Deficit, Deficit Spending, what we call "Debt Service" instead of paying off the debt.
-Government with lobbyist is really Government by Lobbyists.

***What is Next is "You Don't Want to continue to bailout industries and you Don't want to continue subsidies. WE Have to end practices that empower foreign countries and weaken the USA. We have to end privileges that we extend to China as "Preferred Nation Status".***

Business Ethics, Finance, Health Care, What Else?

While we are all looking at the Finance Crisis, let's ask what else do we really care about changing in the next 5-10 years in the USA? What are the main concerns in your life.

Here is a video from last year that introduces Business Ethics pretty well during an interview of John Bogle by Bill Moyers...

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09282007/watch.html

Election 2008: Rebuilding Financial Markets, Banks, and the Economy

Make no mistake...we are stripping bare the US Economy and Banking System this week as more banks fail. The Federal Reserve (The FED) is injecting money into the banking system to increase liquidity for future loans. However I am not listing here the money injected since most of us can't understand the funds anyway. The real issue seems to be failing banks, failing investment firms like Merell Lynch and of course the risk of chaos from AIG failing. The government (The FED) is working on decision to step in and fund AIG to avoid Bankruptcy.

As these large corporations teeter on the brink and pundits gauge whether the whole economy will be struck...there is another perspective. Stock holders and investors like the American Middle Class are at risk for their retirements and savings.

There are plenty of questions Americans will be asking. Was the Federal Chairman, Mr. Greenspan or Security Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman's at fault? Was the US Congress at fault?

Business Ethics, Right Actions, Right Thoughts

It is clear one issue this election year should be Business Ethics. We have plenty of active stories going on without even going back to lobbying scandals. Sub-prime loans and predatory business practices of credit card companies is just a symptom of what is going on all over our world.

Poor people spend money that businesses can recognize as a market to tap and poor people will use credit. I know an intelligent woman personally that got caught tapping into her home mortgage not realizing that it was the equivalent of a second mortgage. While Ohio state passed a law to cap interest rates on credit, the cap is a lofty 28%. Also now see that some hospitals are selling off private pay debt from people without health insurance converting the debt to an interest bearing financial instrument.

How can it make sense that organizations whose CEOs have lost billions or millions will pay that CEO bonuses and keep him in the organization??? Real productivity is lost country wide, Billions in Dollars evaporates from banks and corporations...and nothing is given back to the community or state. It seems that wealth is fleeing in the form of economic leakage.