What is your notion of ethical behavior in the financial world?

Compete unto others as you would have them compete with you. Employ others as you would want to be employed. Extreme simplification, but the core value is valid.

greed is not a good thing. rewards should go to those that deserve them. liars and people that steal for their own benefit should be punished.
Eventually, what goes around comes around. I’m a firm beleiver in that.
Unfortunatly, I think ppl are so into themselves and what will make them sucessful, they don’t even think of anyone else.

Read the news stories about the Congressional panel interviews with the former execs. of AIG and Lehman Bros. today. Everyone blamed everyone else and everything else; everyone justified the grotesque re-imbursements he received and no one showed an iota of remorse or responsibility.

Greed is definitely bad.

Once again, I must say that my religion is the age-old wisdom of mankind – and the age-old wisdom of mankind looks poorly on greed.

And blaming a con is like blaming yourself – he was cunning and you were simple.

Why would they be any different in finance than in life? One conducts oneself according to a moral and ethical code. You don’t check that at the door in business. You operate on the same principles.

Howver, it is clear that many folks in business do not feel like they have responsibility to customers or to the community. Some do, of course, but the wild west culture that encouraged the attitude of “getting over” on California to the tune of billions of dollars. Not to mention defrauding the stock market.

Well now AIG. Lehman Brothers. The CEOs are parading in front of Congress, and are in total defensive mode. Does anyone want to solve the problem? If they focus on technical issues and not on ethical issues, I think we will solve nothing.