Finance

Death by Ethics: John Paul Getty III

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The tragic life of J. Paul Getty III, grandson of the late oil tycoon who long held the title “The World’s Richest Man,” is testimony to the truth that wealth is no match for a family culture devoid of ethics.

Getty III, known to his friends as Paul, died last week at the age of 54. He had been confined to a wheelchair-bound for 30 years, after a drug overdose caused a stroke that left him paralyzed, mute and mostly blind. His father, J. Paul Getty II, who had little contact with his son after divorcing his mother when Paul was a child, refused to help him with any of his inherited billions, declaring that his son had earned his misfortune with his irresponsible ways. In truth, few sons have been given more reason to doubt their self-worth based on their callous treatment by their father figures. Continue reading →

Ethics Heads-Up: When the President Talks About “Investment in Infrastructure,” Pay Attention

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yesterday, a massive water main rupture shut down part of the Washington area Beltway, tying up traffic and swamping cars. From the Associated Press story:

“At one point, water from the broken main shot eight or nine feet in the air, said Lyn Riggins, a spokeswoman for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission. There was significant damage to the office park, with chunks of asphalt strewn across the parking lot, building windows shattered and three cars filled with water.

“It looks like somewhere where you would go white water rafting,” Riggins said.”

Advance reports discussing President Obama’s State of the Union message tonight note that he will be talking about, among other things, investing the nation’s resources on infrastructure renewal: roads, sewers, bridges and more. Already, Republican budget hawks and the conservative talk shows are mocking this as simply a euphemism for more “out of control spending.”

Addressing this country’s dangerously decrepit infrastructure will be expensive all right, but it is definitely an investment, and not undertaking it immediately is irresponsible, short-sighted, dangerous and foolish. For a quick refresher on why the neglect of U.S. infrastructure has been a scandalous breach of duty  of duty by generations of U.S. leadership, read this.

Ethics Dunce: Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gesslar

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Less than a week after taking office, attorney Scott Gessler, Colorado’s newly elected  Secretary of State, announced that he plans to keep working part-time as an attorney for his law firm, the Hackstaff Law Group. In an interview with the Denver Business Journal, Gessler acknowledged that his plan to moonlight as a contract attorney raised ethical issues, but he needed the money.

Well that’s certainly an encouraging ethics orientation! Continue reading →

The Comment of The Day: Yes, It’s About Tide Commercials, But Read It Anyway

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Ethics Alarms reader Lianne Best weighs in on the Tide (with Acti-lift!) ads, with a valuable observation with far broader ethics significance. She aptly describes exactly how norms of appropriate conduct become corrupted and coarsened (or sometimes enlightened and improved!) over time:

“I hope I’m not too late to the Tide with Acti-Lift! party, but for those who say these ads are “just marketing” and don’t have any real impact … the first time I saw each of these ads, I was horrified. With each subsequent viewing I was less and less offended, until they became normal. Participating in unethical behavior starts with it becoming normal, so these seemingly innocuous commercials are actually pushing the snowball down the slippery slope. Those with influence, whoever they may be, must be cautious with its use.”

Health Care Reform: Capitol Hill Illusions, Delusions and Lies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The biggest political lie of 2010 is off to a flying start in 2011. As the new Republican House majority sets out to “repeal” the new health care law, Democrats are waving a report from the Congressional Budget Office that the media describes as stating that such an act would actually add to the deficit, because the CBO has calculated that the law, as it stands, will reduce the federal deficit by about 270 million dollars.

But wait a minute! What CBO is really saying is that if the assumptions and projections incorporated into the law are accurate, then the law will cut the deficit. The Congressional Budget Office is not allowed to challenge the assumptions written into a law, only to calculate what a law will cost according to those assumptions. This also means that the CBO will not assume that the costs of implementing the many administrative measures in the law will rise—as the costs of all major federal programs inevitably do. Speaker John Boehner has stated that he doesn’t believe that anyone in Washington, including the Democrats, really believes that the new law will reduce the deficit. Ezra Klein, the Washington Post’s mouthpiece of the Left, claims that the Republicans actually know the law will lower the deficit. Who’s lying? Or perhaps a better question is, what constitutes a lie in such a convoluted context? Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Sen.Tom Coburn

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has become the main villain in the battle over the  9/11 First Responders Bill, which will grant over 7 billion dollars in health care assistance to those who have become ill as a result of their heroic work in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombings. He is leading Republican opposition to the bill, on the grounds that it still needs to be paid for despite its worthy purpose and its undeniably deserving beneficiaries.

Coburn is one of the most dedicated deficit hawks in the Senate, which means that he realizes that the federal deficit will never be brought under control if feckless House members and Senators can always be shamed and bullied into spending money the government doesn’t have, or into rejecting necessary cuts, through the use of one or more predictable refrains: Continue reading →

Omnibus Spending Bill Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

One silver lining in the despicable, 2000 page omnibus spending bill unveiled by Senate Democrats is that Republicans also have their grubby fingerprints all over it, so even though the bill lumps together a huge and expensive mess of pet Democratic projects, the richly deserved attacks on the monstrosity cannot be easily derided as “partisan.” Another is that it should put to bed forever the revolting slander that  the Tea Party movement was motivated by racism when it proclaimed that it wanted its country back. If there was ever a democratic institution that demonstrated utter contempt for the public, its legitimate and fervently expressed concerns, and the obligation of responsible government, the 2010 Lame Duck Congress is it. Continue reading →

Tax Deal Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

A few brief ethics observations on the current tax deal machinations on Capitol Hill:

  • It was an unconscionable breach of responsibility for Congress to neglect to address this issue months ago. Not only would a timely decision whether to extend all, part or none of the Bush tax cuts have avoided the present uncertainty; it would have aided the recovery, as businesses and individuals would have known what the tax requirements would be, and could invest, spend or hire accordingly. The reason the Democrats waited, even when it was obvious that their House majority was a goner and that President Obama would be negotiating from weakness as a result, was pure, unadulterated cowardice. Congress was willing to withhold needed policy certainty, harming the economy and the public, so they wouldn’t have to take a stand before elections. Continue reading →

TARP Ethics Dilemmas: A Guide For Advocates and Critics

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Surprise! The TARP bailout of October 2008 seems to have turned out remarkably well.  The Troubled Assets Relief Program, which was and still is attacked by conservatives and Tea Party critics as a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street giants who should have been allowed to fail, is now anticipated to eventually only cost the federal government about $25 billion, according to the Government Accounting Office.

When a policy that is widely criticized as wrong-headed in principle actually works, it presents ethical problems for both advocates and critics alike.

A few helpful tips: Continue reading →

Kelli Space’s Cyber-Begging? Not Unethical, Just Desperate

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Northeastern alum Kelli Space, 23, owes $200,000 on her student loans, and has to pay federal student loan agency Sallie Mae $891 per month. That figure will nearly double in a year, and Kelli doesn’t make enough to pay off her debt. In desperation, she has launched a website called Two Hundred Thou, asking for donations. These aren’t charitable donations, now—you won’t get any deduction for giving to Kelli, any more than you will giving to the homeless guy on the street. This is begging, plain and simple.

Her pitch: Continue reading →