Trump Removes Top Government Ethics Official By now you have likely heard that President Trump removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) from his post in one of many executive orders issued since he took office just three weeks ago. The agency’s director, David Huitema, was confirmed... Read more →

Do the Benefits Exceed the Costs? The use of marijuana has been increasing over the years as a result of additional states permitting it for medicinal purposes and, more recently, states are allowing it for recreational uses. As of 2024, 38 U.S. states have legalized the use of marijuana for... Read more →

Protecting Yourself Against Elder Fraud Abuse I recently read several articles posted online about the rise in elder fraud and how federal government agencies are dealing with them. One stands out by Laurie Archbald-Pannone is an associate professor of medicine and geriatrics from the University of Virginia that was originally... Read more →

How Corporate Culture Drove Decision-Making The story of Boeing is it placed profits ahead of safety and the result has been a series of crashes/mechanical problems that have led to inspections by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and litigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In this blog... Read more →

Internet and Digital Fraud on the Rise Recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission disclosed that consumers reported losing more than $10 billion from fraud in 2023, This is an astonishing number and reflects the decline of ethics in society over an extended period of time. Consumers alone reported losing more... Read more →

An Example of Hubris, Incompetence, and Greed I always tell my students that the best way to learn about ethics, or the lack thereof, is through a case study. What follows is a mini-case study of the FTX fraud. Last week Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of misappropriating and embezzling... Read more →

OVERVIEW OF THE PANEL DISCUSSIONS: I am moderating a panel at the 2023 Ethics Symposium presented by the Public Interest Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA). The panelists are well-known observers of financial statement fraud and critics of audit failures. They will look back and forward to assess where... Read more →

Protections and Retaliation What makes one person speak out and blow the whistle on wrongdoing while another remains silent? Is it a “moral sense,” as Thomas Jefferson wrote, that instinctively motivates a person’s thoughts and actions? Is it motivated by avoiding harm to others? Is the act of blowing the... Read more →

Why is America Such a Violent Country? The number of senseless murders that have occurred in the U.S. in 2022 is alarming, several of which have occurred in November alone. We need to recognize that the country has now returned to the days of the “Wild West” that began after... Read more →

Cheating on Internal Training and Ethics Exams Is a Wake-Up Call for the Accounting Profession By Michael K. Shaub, June 29th, 2022 The following is a a very thoughtful blog published by my friend and colleague, Mike Shaub. Mike addresses the recent scandals where three of the four Big Four... Read more →