Congressional Ethics and Insider Trading I’ve dealt with all kinds of issues in my blogs but none as unexpected as insider trading in Congress. I don’t mean to be overly-facetious but don’t they already use their influence in enough marginally appropriate ways and sufficiently trade-off on their political positions to... Read more →
Banning Gifts to Lobbyists: Who Represents the Public Interest? Here are some numbers for you to think about – 65%, 36%, 16%, 15%, and 9%. According to CBS News, ten years ago, as many as 65% of Americans actually liked their elected officials. But as Congress has gotten more and... Read more →
Declining Work Ethic Threatens Economic Competitiveness in America You may have heard President Obama’s recent statement with respect to the decline of American economic influence around the world and lagging efforts to promote foreign investment – “We've been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades."... Read more →
Citizen Watchdog Groups Have an Important Role to Play in the OWS Movement It’s been one month since the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement set off a chain of events that have literally spread throughout the world. I believe the motivation for the movement comes from two sources: (1) the... Read more →
Trustee Picard on the Losing End of Clawback Lawsuits Unless you’ve been living on a remote island since December, 2008 where communication with the outside world is difficult, and if so please pass along the details, Bernie Madoff was arrested on December 11, 2008 in the largest Ponzi scheme ever... Read more →
Sexual Abuse at Penn State Raises Questions About the Integrity of the Institution Integrity is a basic characteristic of an honest person – a principled person – one who does not stand idly by while others violate basic societal norms and standards. A person of integrity does not allow another... Read more →
Courts Increasingly Stay Executions and Release ‘Criminals’ You may have heard that on Monday a Texas court granted a stay of execution for convicted murderer Henry "Hank" Skinner, giving Skinner time to pursue DNA testing his lawyers say could prove his innocence. Skinner had been scheduled to die by lethal... Read more →
Education in the U.S. and Declining Global Competitiveness The United States has fallen to "average" in international education rankings released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. America has received scores around 500 on a scale that goes up to 1,000: 487 in math, 500 in reading and 502... Read more →
Happiness, Ethics and the Occupy Movement I teach my accounting students about the Greek philosophy of ethics because I believe it provides a roadmap for living the good life. Today’s students are searching to find what will make them happy. However, they all too often look in the wrong places.... Read more →
Reform of Capitalism Should be the Underlying Message of OWS We’ve heard it all before. Corporations have no soul. Critics complain that those with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree act out of self-interest and not those of employees who work for them, the community affected by its actions,... Read more →