scams

Vanity Size Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Esquire has revealed the result of its investigation, and it is this: many manufacturers of men’s pants routinely mislabel their products’ waist measurements, representing waist sizes as less, and sometimes considerably less, than they really are. Old Navy, by far the most outrageous of the size-liars, sells pairs of trousers with a 41 inch waist band as a 36. Other companies, like Hagar and The Gap, play the same game, though not as egregiously.

The practice is intentional, apparently, and even has a name in the industry—“vanity sizing.” The theory is that pants with smaller waist measurements make men feel better about their pot-bellied bodies, and thus have a competitive advantage over truthfully labeled pants. All other things being equal, a man is more likely to buy a comfortable pair of jeans that have a 36″ label on the waist than ones with a 38″ label. Continue reading →

Why We No Longer Trust Our Government, Reason #759: North Carolina’s Unethical Tax Stall

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Every time Gallup  does a poll to find out who the public thinks is ethical and unethical, one result always comes out the same. Over 95% of those polled will say that most ethical person they know is…themselves. I used to make fun of this result in my seminars as a classic example of self-delusion. The used-car dealer really thinks he is the most ethical person he knows? Tom Delay and Charlie Rangel really think that they are the most ethical people they know? I don’t believe it.

But I recently had an epiphany. People don’t really think they are the most ethical. What we do think is that each of us is the one person  that we most trust. Not our spouses, not our parents, not our employers, not our elected officials…no matter how virtuous they may be, the person whom we know, with absolute certainty, won’t betray us  is our self. That is an especially American attitude, embodying self-reliance, autonomy, and independence, and I was wrong not to misread it. Those who deride us for not trusting the government to solve our problems are wrong not to recognize it too, particularly when the attitude is being reinforced by stories like this one, from North Carolina.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue is reviewing  230,000 unresolved tax returns going back to 1994, including cases in which taxpayers overpaid and are owed money by the state. The state, however, has rigged the rules to make it less likely that the refunds are ever made. Continue reading →

Doritos, Web Hoaxes, and the Need For An Ethical Consensus

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

AOL reports:

“A fake coupon for a free bag of Doritos has gone viral, leaving consumers angry when they can’t cash it in, retailers holding the bag if they do redeem it and Frito-Lay dealing with damage to its image. The scam problem has increased in the past few weeks as more and more people e-mailed the coupon to one another. And though a $5 bag of chips may not sound like a big problem, Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the losses could end up in the multimillions: The dollar value of fake coupons submitted in recent weeks equaled 5 percent of Frito-Lay’s real coupon offerings for all of 2009, she said.”

Pretty funny, huh? Continue reading →

Proof That Republicans Are Led By “The Bad Man”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

If there is a Republican out there who does not want to hang his or her head in shame after reading this story, 1) I want to know why, and 2) don’t vote for this individual, no matter whom they are running against., or for what.

For this is the mark of the constitutionally unethical, the same warped comprehension of right and wrong that allows Goldman Sachs executives testify before the Senate, under oath, that they see “nothing wrong with” and have “”no regrets” about selling products to clients that they knew were terrible investments. It represents the credo of  Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous “Bad Man,” whom he described in his speech, “The Path of the Law,” a citizen whose only interest in obeying the law is avoiding penalties, and who can be counted on to lie, cheat and do others harm whenever gaps in the laws permit. And, of course, it typifies the political style of Michael Steele, who, by definition, could never lead an ethical organization, because any organization that will tolerate someone like him must not care about ethics.

Get this: Continue reading →

Michael Steele’s Census Scam, Uniting Congress at Last

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Despair not over the dysfunction of Congress, my friends! When a proposed measure is right beyond question, the warring parties are still capable of joining hands across the aisle and speaking with one unified voice. For example, they are capable of making an unequivocal statement that Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, has the same ethical bearings as that Nigerian prince who keeps e-mailing me. Continue reading →

Lies, Scams, Fiascos, and “Saved By the Bell”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Some diverse ethics observations while living the lonely existence of a traveling ethics trainer… Continue reading →