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Hernando Today

Integrity, Ethics And Other Flights Of Fancy

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By JOHN REINIERS, More Than Words

Hernando Today

Published: December 31, 2008

This may sound like heresy: Average Americans do not demand integrity from their politicians or from their captains of industry and finance.
What we do demand is very simple — that their actions will give us some pecuniary advantage. In other words, "Where's mine?" No matter if our expectations make no economic sense — or for that matter, are actually harmful to others.
After all, it's all about me.
We expect: Jobs, job protection, pay raises, cost of living adjustments, health care that someone else pays for, vacation days, sick leave, personal leave, the latest electronics, to own an affordable home and at least one automobile (both with affordable insurance protection), an integrated transit system, well-paying government jobs with a "Drop program," affordable gasoline and other non-polluting energy sources, early retirement with enough of a pension to live well, Medicare and a drug plan someone else pays for, Social Security as a retirement plan (all with negligible payroll taxes).
And the list goes on.
The problem with this mindset is that this is the gene pool from which we get our politicians and captains of finance and industry. So they also believe at some level, perhaps subliminally, "Where's mine?" Rather than acting ethically, with integrity or in the case of a politician, as a fiduciary, they believe they're entitled to "get something too." This surely describes Illinois Gov. Rod "Pay For Play" Blagojevich, who probably can't even spell the word "fiduciary," as well as Bernard "Made Off With $50 Billion" Madoff.
It was Madoff who prompted this column — not Blagojevich. It's tragic to say this, but having come form New York City and Chicago, I have no illusions about the integrity of politicians. It is no coincidence that two of the largest corrupt Democratic machines are or were in these cities. It borders on the surreal to know that three Illinois governors were jailed for corruption and a fourth is on his way. But other politicians have been as bad. Consider flamboyant former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards now serving time for corruption. This is the kind of celebrity voters admire; handsome, photogenic — a governor who said the only way he'd lose an election is "to be caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." Good grief! These are governors — only one step down in the pecking order from the president.
Madoff was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I naively thought the Enron/Kenneth Lay scandal was supposed to put all this fraudulent conduct behind us.
But is the common citizen a paragon of honesty? Think of all the billions of dollars lost in cheating on income taxes, welfare, insurance claims and Medicare fraud or abuse. That's us. And we're getting worse too, just like the politicians and the big shots with their obscene salaries and "golden parachutes."
Will this cycle of corruption ever end?
There are troubling similarities with all these financial scandals. First, the players are all well regarded. Secondly, all result in "dramatic" remedial legislation to correct what is usually corruption or overreaching.
The savings and loan crisis of the '80s, involving some highly respected banks, resulted in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989. What "reform?" What "enforcement?" Fast forward 10 years: Enron was another blue chip company that was rated by Fortune magazine for six years running as "America's Most Innovative Company." As it turned out it was running alright — run by crooks who used phony accounting practices to hide losses that they concealed in "off the books" partnerships. That resulted in the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002. What a joke: "Reform" again, but now "Investor protection." Then how did our current financial crisis happen with all this reform and investor protection?
First, once again, the players were "blue-chips:" AIG, the international insurance giant that was bailed out because it was considered too big to fail; "federal" mortgage behemoth Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were taken over by the feds; Lehman Brothers, which went down the tubes in bankruptcy, and the "blue-chip" list goes on — CitiBank, Merrill Lynch both of which were also leveraged beyond reason. All highly regarded.
Ex-Nasdaq chairman Bernard Madoff, a force on Wall Street for decades, armed with a stellar reputation, another "blue-chipper," was nothing more than a crook. Is he like all the rest of them? If capitalism is to be successful, and it can be, it should be an engine of wealth creation. These Wall Street wizards practice wealth destruction — except for themselves.
Here's my point. It is said that in the 21st century — post "Enron" — which is cited as the most egregious example of the failure of corporate ethics — the demand for more ethical business conduct is increasing. Ethics is now on the training "menu" for all organizations and universities. That now sounds like a bad joke after the latest crisis. It's like saying we are demanding more virtuous politicians. We are not, because they too are a reflection of society — us.
The "virtuous parent" is becoming as oxymoronic as the "honest politician." If it is ever going to happen, it has to start with us at home and in primary school so that the high school student, the college student or neophyte politician or captain of industry has some sense of integrity, morality and ethics. A college student told me about their final exam in ethics. It was taken on-line. Students were instructed not to use their notes. Everyone was so concerned about bell curve grading, they all cheated. And this was in ethics!
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) theologian, physician and philosopher observed that "Ethics is the maintaining of life at the highest point of development ... Every ethic has something absolute about it, just as soon as it ceases to be mere social law ... It is profound, universal and has the significance of a religion. It is religion."
We haven't even gotten close to the point where ethics is "mere social law," much less an absolute value. As to its "profound significance" as a "religion" to us, our politicians, and our leaders of industry and finance, we must all be secular. If all this weren't so pitiful, it would be a joke.

John Reiniers, a regular columnist for Hernando Today, lives in Spring Hill.

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