There has been a lot of attention in the media recently concerning the large and growing number of executives that are being brought to justice for a wide variety of crimes related to business and finance. This can be seen in articles such as those posted on Natural News or by reviewing cases posted by the IRS concerning compliance and enforcement.
The problem has become so wide spread that the issue is even drawing attention in humor-based elements of pop culture such as Hello with Cheese.
The terrifying thing is that this is not a new phenomenon or a sudden outbreak of immoral business tactics.
Many of the major corporations that are collapsing in the wake of scandals recently were actually started during the depression era. The men who started these companies were able to fight their way up and prosper under extraordinarily harsh economic conditions. And, today these same companies are unable to even turn a mild profit without the executives being hauled away in handcuffs.
Without insight this situation seems implausible. The thing to remember is that those early businessmen came from a generation where even day laborers hid their money in their mattress. Finding creative and devious methods for controlling one’s finances was a survival tactic, and those who became successful were the best at managing strategies of questionable ethical foundation.
Today’s executives are the third and fourth generation products of those families. They were raised wealthy and never had to develop the skills for controlling dubious fiscal strategies as a matter of survival. They have simply been raised on stories of previous generations attitudes without the need to develop those skills on their own since they have never experienced a cash shortage or had a need to fight to get ahead.
This means that executive corruption has always existed. It isn’t a new occurrence. The forensic accountants haven’t gotten better at catching criminals. Society in general has not developed an improved awareness giving them the ability to detect fraud. The simple truth is that today’s executives just aren’t very good at being criminals.
http://www.dernwerks.com/HWC/?p=278
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