Analysis Of Michael Lewis 'Dishonesty In An Interview At Salomon Brothers'

In “The Death of Honesty,” William Damon raises the concern that current apathy towards increasing dishonesty threatens democracy. In this essay taken from the online volume “Endangered Virtues ” published by the Hoover Institute in 2012, Damon initially concedes that there are situations where lying could be considered acceptable. However, with that being acknowledged, he transitions to his main premise that honesty is losing its importance in society and will lead to its downfall, and he cites examples in politics, law, journalism, and business in contemporary society where dishonesty is expected, and even, condoned. Damon finally directs his remarks pointedly at teachers and current students who accept cheating in schools. To persuade

During my courses, I frequently remind students that most corporate executives, accountants, and auditors are honest and ethical. This case provides a stark and powerful example of one such individual. When I discuss a case such as this in my courses, I try to provide other examples of positive role models among corporate executives. Granted, most of these examples do not involve accounting or auditing matters, but, nevertheless, they help to blunt the impression that students may receive from studying my cases that most corporate executives are “crooks.”

The fact that the insider trading charges were thrown out, but the conspiracy charges stuck is curious. It appears, yet again, the judicial process and mainstream social construct of acceptable behavior collided with what Martha, her broker, and fellow investor touted as ‘nothing wrong’. Knowing more of John Savarrese’s role as Martha’s pretrial counsel, gives two more important points about Martha’s case of white collar crime. The first is questionable ethics and the other is arrogance. Mr. Savarrese has been criticized by legal analysts for not providing ethical legal advice to Martha or making the right professional choices himself. The belief is that Savarrese knew or at least suspected, Martha and Bacanovic planned to perjure themselves. As Martha’s legal counselor it was ethically negligent of Savarrese not to advise Martha of the legal repercussions of lying to the SEC. If Martha insisted on presenting her fraudulent story, Savarrese should have immediately withdrawn as her counsel (Hoffman, 2007). More importantly than if Savarrese knew or not, in her arrogance, Martha never thought this issue of a mere $45, 637 would develop into charges nor a prison sentence! She was simply above the laws and saw no reason to tell the

Sissela Bok’s book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life examines many aspects of moral and ethical influence, and the effects of lying, on individuals and corporations in various walks of life. Each chapter discusses a specific form that lying can take and describes how it intertwines with daily life. Bok’s arguments are grounded, in comprehensive research, tempered with a philosophical treatment, and rendered through the lens of critical thought. To ensure that readers are able to relate to the material, Bok employs social norming to make each chapter easier to grasp. To do this, each chapter is prefaced with two or three quotes, from a wide variety of sources that provides insight

The last study was data collected by an entrepreneur named Paul Feldman who decided to start a bagel business in the Washington D.C. area. He would drop off bagels to different offices and leave a basket for the employees to drop in the money for the bagel, a sort of honor system. He kept track of the payments and started an accidental study on honesty. The data showed that smaller offices are more honest than larger ones. Also, someone’s mood could affect if they would pay or not. After reviewing his findings, Feldman believed that morale was a key factor in whether the employees were being honest. Evidently people are not above cheating, even

The lead Mostyn J to search for the definition of each word and found dishonesty to be “the reverse of honesty; lack of probity or integrity;” and

In “Cheating in a Bottom Line Economy,” author David Callahan explains the fundamental reasons for the decay of simple business ethics in today’s economy in order to meet bottom line standards. Callahan draws conclusions from everyday businesses such as auto mechanic services, law offices, and even professional medical firms to prove that people will almost always choose financial stability over integrity. The economic life in America has transformed itself into a vast land of professionals focused on achieving “lean and mean” businesses in efforts to achieve the “American Dream,” but in essence lose sense of their morals.

In the past few years, enterprise integrity has come up on a regular subject of conversation. In the past ten years only, we have seen numerous situations associated with collaborative scams which have shaken the people 's trust in businesses and also the general economic climate. A few of the many salient frauds are the WorldCom and Enron 's scams, the ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff 's, the latest accusations of Goldman Sachs tricking option traders to guarantee the company 's personal profit. Incidents such as these designed us all, as upcoming corporation professionals as well as market leaders, think about ethics and its particular function in the commercial world (Gross, 2010.)

In his article “Is business bluffing ethical?,” Albert Carr makes a distinction between an “unethical” poker player and a “crook.”

Liar’s Poker, by Michael Lewis, is a book that thoroughly looks into the author’s life as a broker on Wall Street working for Salomon Brothers, the most profitable firm in the 1980’s. Michael Lewis graduated from The London School of Economics and decided to take his career into trading when offered a job by the top- trading firm. At this time, the mortgage market started booming, and money was flowing all over Wall Street.

The word “fraud” was magnified in the business world around the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. No one had seen anything like it. Enron, one of the country’s largest energy companies, went bankrupt and took down with it Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest audit and accounting firms in the world. Enron was followed by other accounting scandals such as WorldCom, Tyco, Freddie Mac, and HealthSouth, yet Enron will always be remembered as one of the worst corporate accounting scandals of all time. Enron’s collapse was brought upon by the greed of its corporate hierarchy and how it preyed upon its faithful stockholders and employees who invested so much of their time and money into the company. Enron seemed to portray that the goal of corporate America was to drive up stock prices and get to the peak of the financial mountain by any means necessary. The “Conspiracy of Fools” is a tale of power, crony capitalism, and company greed that lead Enron down the dark road of corporate America.

“People are honest as long as they can afford to be.” Although American mob boss Benny Binion lived in a different era, his words on human’s morality continue to ring true in modern day. Honesty is a virtue that is widely valued; in spite of this, it can be abandoned depending on the direness of the scenario. The decency and integrity of people varies based on their situation. This is because man is not innately righteous.

Carr argues that bluffing in business is closer to the strategic bluffing normally found in poker, than it is to bluffing in private life. (Carr paragraph 2) He uses a quote from Henry Taylor to describe bluffing in poker and business: “falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is understood on all sides that the truth is not expected to be spoken” (Carr paragraph 3). He argues that several people lie about their opinion if their job or their business could suffer if they answered truly, and that this is considered an acceptable business strategy (Carr paragraph 4). Two examples of deception in the hiring process are given; one where the applicant chooses the options he thinks his employer would most agree with and another where the applicant lists himself as younger than he actually is in order to increase the odds of being hired (Carr article, section: Pressure to Decieve). The author mentions that both fall within acceptable business ethics. These examples serve to illustrate the discrepancy between private ethics and the ethics of public business.

Enron’s ride is quite a phenomenon: from a regional gas pipeline trader to the largest energy trader in the world, and then back down the hill into bankruptcy and disgrace. As a matter of fact, it took Enron 16 years to go from about $10 billion of assets to $65 billion of assets, and 24 days to go bankruptcy. Enron is also one of the most celebrated business ethics cases in the century. There are so many things that went wrong within the organization, from all personal (prescriptive and psychological approaches), managerial (group norms, reward system, etc.), and organizational (world-class culture) perspectives. This paper will focus on the business ethics issues at Enron that were raised from the documentation Enron: The Smartest Guys

The overwhelming facts point to a shady underworld of self-dealing and opportunistic exploitation of the poor and working class, which was until recently, well hidden from the commoner. The executives of WorldCom and Enron provide real world examples of unethical business practices, where the desire to make money for their shareholders transcended into an addiction to greed and self-dealing that were displayed by their, “excessive pay, perks, and golden parachutes”(Carson 392) at the expense of all stakeholders. All is not lost, there are corporations that pride themselves in their sound business model and commitment to ethical business practices. Such companies as Eaton Corporation, and Weyerhaeuser, who according to Ethisphere.com, a business ethics watchdog, are among the “2010 World`s most ethical companies.” (Ethisphere)