If you’ve been watching TV recently,especially Fox Financial Network or CNBC, you’ve heard so-calledexperts justify the millions that bankers and Wall Streeters aremaking. After all, they point out, America’s “best and brightest” havebeen going into the financial industry, and therefore their hugeincomes are justified. In addition, it would be a shame if cuttingtheir pay would mean we would lose their services.
If the last decade has proved anythingat all, it is that America’s greediest and least principled—not thebest and brightest—have been dominating our financial and securitiesmarkets.
After 35 years as a management consultant, I’ve come to twoconclusions: First: the closer a person is, and wants to be, directlyconnected with providing a product or service that benefits the public,the more that person’s behavior is likely to be moral. Second: the morea person’s goal is simply to make more money, and the more removed fromthe product or service, the less moral that person’s behavior is likelyto be. 신용카드현금화
For example, the best and brightest engineers and scientistsare usually found doing what they enjoy most: engineering and science.If they are politically sophisticated, some actually make it into theupper levels of management. However, as a dean of an engineering schoolonce noted: “the best way to succeed in engineering is to get out ofit.”
Too often, politically oriented and technically mediocreengineers and scientists seek to improve their standard of living bysucceeding in corporate management. When they associate career successprimarily with profitability, they are more likely to make decisionsbased on expediency, and not on what is in the public interest, or evenin the corporation’s long term interest.
The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is a classic example. Ina famous meeting, the scientists and engineers directly associated withthe technology angrily shouted their warnings that the Challengershould not be launched under the predicted weather conditions. Seniormanagers, however, because of political pressures within and outsideNASA, chose to take their chances.
The demise of Arthur Andersen Accounting is another classic.At one time, Andersen was managed by executives who cherishedprofessional accounting principles, and it was considered the goldstandard among accounting firms. When it certified a corporation’squarterly report or profit and loss statement, investors could “take itto the bank.”
However, executives who chose personal wealth and corporateprofitability over professional accounting standards rose through theranks, and Andersen began to use its expertise to help corporationsimprove their stock prices by deceiving the investing public. Theresult: some top executives retired incredibly wealthy when Andersentanked, but thousands of professionals who still believed in honestaccounting—truly the best and brightest—lost their jobs. And that’s noteven considering the devastating effects that Andersen’s practices, aswell as the degenerating standards of the accounting industry, had onthe nation’s economy.
Fast forward to today. There is probably no profession moreremoved from genuine products and services than financial arbitragetraders. By inserting themselves between investors and corporations inthe securities markets, and under the flimsy excuse of providingliquidity, they took billions out of the market for themselves—moneythat should have gone to long-term investors and corporations.
The traders who specialized in derivatives were especiallyremoved from genuine financial products and services. By selling andre-selling securities that had no intrinsic value, they created genuinewealth for themselves, but phantom wealth for their clients—and cameclose to destroying the world’s economy.
The savings & loan crisis, the dot.com bubble, the sub-primemeltdown and the countless corporate disasters are the result of greedand corruption, and not of our best and brightest making honestmistakes. Those who say that greed is essential for the success ofcapitalism deliberately confuse healthy self-interest with greed, whichis excessive self-interest.
Self-interest drives individuals to work harder and to be morecreative and productive in order to provide for themselves and theirfamilies. It is, indeed, a requirement for a good economy. Greed, onthe other hand, leads to behaviors that are deceptive, exploitative,and even fraudulent and illegal. There’s a reason it’s considered avice in all the major religions of the world: it destroys societies.And, if not regulated, monitored, and controlled by a wise government,it will destroy a strong economy.