An alternative view of capitalism.

Having grown up and lived all my life within a Democratic, Capitalist System I know no other and am the beneficiary of the System in many respects but this does not mean that I am blind to its faults. Not at all! As my one loyal reader has pointed out there is much in a capitalist system that creates injustice – great disparities in income between the “rich” and “poor”, for instance. And greed. While greed is certainly not confined to the capitalist system it seems to offer greater opportunities – just recall the antics of Wall Street brokers and financiers in 2008. This was just pure greed – and look what happened! Millions of people forced out of work; millions of people forced out of their homes as (greedy) banks and mortgage providers foreclosed loans.

Then there is the globalisation of Capitalism. This is where my one loyal reader is greatly puzzled. Why, he asks, should Australians, as an example, be paying more for their bread just because there have been poor wheat harvests in Russia, Ukraine and the USA forcing world wheat prices to record levels? There is (currently) no shortage of wheat in Australia. There is (currently) no drought in Australia.

I agree. Our Australian (domestic) wheat price should not be set by financiers in Chicago or where-ever.

I know I will be told that the “free market” will set the price and that it will all balance out in the end. But the thing is that the market is not “free” and it never has been. Many American farmers receive subsidies; French farmers are paid not to plant crops; the Chinese Government keeps the value of the Yuan artificially low to encourage exports; God knows what the Russians and Ukrainians do but I am sure it is not strictly legal; dumping products (selling produce at below cost) happens world-wide; subsidies and other currency manipulations are common throughout the world and distort the “free” market. So the “free market” is not free at all.  

The same argument applies to the general price of any food product. It is never that there is an actual world-wide shortage of food. It is just that we waste so much and store so much that food is not available where it is needed most – mainly sub-Saharan Africa.

Food is often stored – removed from sale – by unscrupulous (greedy) “free-marketers” who will keep the food until the price has increased to a level that they feel is appropriate. This is wrong! To withhold food from starving people because the price is not high enough is immoral, appalling and plain wrong! Food is a basic human right and should never be withheld. To withhold food because some poor people cannot pay the price demanded is obscene.

This happens in a “free market”. This is “allowed” by the Capitalist system but still does not make it “right”.

Bank bashing is serving its end!

It is a pleasant change to have my beliefs and ideas vindicated! As my one loyal reader will know I have been hammering away for years about the culture fostered by bank management that serves shareholders before their customers.

I have always maintained that profits should be the result of “service” and not the other way around. It seems that some banks are waking up to this fact. For instance the CEO of Citigroup, Vikram Pandit, was recently reported to have said that, "Banks have to start serving clients and really serve them, rather than serving themselves." At last some good sense and vindicates what I have been saying for years!

This “novel” concept has received support from a very surprising source, Elizabeth Murdoch (daughter of Rupert of recent newspaper notoriety) has recently said “Profit must be our servant, not our master," adding that colleagues needed to accept that they had a responsibility to each other and not just the bottom line.She also said that "It's increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose - or of a moral language - within government, media or business, could become one of the most dangerous own goals for capitalism and for freedom”.

Wow! Well done Elizabeth. I could not have expressed it better myself!

When all is said and done how many banks actually know what providing a “service” really means? Using my old standby the Oxford English Dictionary “service” in this context – is defined as, inter alia, “An act of helping or benefiting another; an instance of beneficial, useful or friendly action; the action of serving, helping or benefiting another; behaviour conducive to the welfare or advantage of another.”

In the context of a bank I believe that a bank should look to helping and benefiting customers - and I do NOT mean shareholders. By customers I mean people like me – a depositor, someone with a mortgage or a loan. I do not believe that any bank actually understands the need for or promotes a culture of “service” (certainly not in Australia at any rate).  

A “customer” is locked into whatever they have signed up to, regardless of changed circumstances. The bank  is not interested in anything but the money – the “bottom line” – and the customer can go hang. This may be legally “correct” and according to the letter of the law but is it according to the “spirit” of the law? Is such a legalistic approach providing a “service” to the customer? It may “serve” the bank and please the shareholders but does it engender good will with customers? Does it engender a feeling of trust with customers? Does it promote the welfare of customers? Does such an approach actually help customers?

Of course not! Banks have a lot to learn. This is why I continue to bash banks.

Whistleblowing has its roots in Injustice!

As always I rely on my one loyal reader and the support I receive. I know that this reader is concerned about the increasing injustice reported daily. Injustice affects us all and has a toxic and corrosive effect on society generally.

People know when they are doing  wrong – lawyers, accountants, real estate agents milking Trust Accounts, for example. So do businesses. So do banks. So do Governments. So do religious organisations. They are all aware of wrong doing but they keep doing it!

As I have stated many times before the root of injustice is unethical conduct – people, businesses, governments either for personal gain, trying to gain unfair advantage or to avoid scrutiny or to cover-up some dubious conduct. This applies to all levels of human conduct.

Now we have the serious allegations (they are still just allegations) that a commercial subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia  has been offering bribes to encourage sales of the bank notes that it prints. This is the banker bank and is owned by the Australian Government! If the allegations are proved this will be a REALLY serious affair.

Also just recall the recent Olympic Games – taking drugs to gain an unfair advantage. Then there was the Tour de France – more drugs. Also of course there is the unethical conduct of banks and financial institutions – greed, manipulating interest rates, money laundering, betting on credit default swaps and fraudulent practices; the Catholic Church and paedophilia; businesses – poor customer service, greed, price gouging, squeezing suppliers to lower prices and general anti-competitive conduct; individuals involved in crime – be this “white collar” fraud, violence, sexual or physical abuse. Then there are the breaches of human rights by ALL governments (think Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib and “renditions”; China and the Falun Gong and official corruption; the basket case that is North Korea; Russia with endemic corruption and Putin’s attempt to crush all dissent; Australia and the “stolen generation”, the treatment of asylum seekers and the Defence Force sexual abuse scandal – and so on and so on. The list is unfortunately endless).

This type of conduct, which hurts people either physically or emotionally, is often carried out by people who show a complete lack of empathy – an inability to feel what another person is experiencing. They show no remorse, are callous, have poor behaviour controls, are impulsive and fail to accept responsibility for their own actions. This evidence of anti-social behaviour is typical of people who usually would have high scores on the relevant clinical checklist for psychopathy.

On the face of it, psychopaths are often highly intelligent, charming, outgoing people, who are eager to make a positive impression. But this behaviour is a façade and an imitation of what they know to be socially acceptable: the so-called “mask of sanity”. The clinical checklist for psychopathy refers to "glib and superficial charm, grandiosity, need for stimulation, pathological lying, conning and manipulating ", and such like.

You may think that sounds like some of the businessmen and politicians we know!

Research shows that high-functioning psychopaths are often very successful people. On the surface they appear to be confident and calm and seem to have their act together. The Human Capital and Management Library says: "High-functioning psychopaths...tend to rule the world. They rise to the highest levels of power in politics and business."

Research also indicates that about ten per cent of CEOs could be diagnosed as psychopaths compared to about one per cent of the general population who show this same tendency. What allows these people to manipulate and control others is their ability to do so on a very rational, logical level with no feelings of emotion or empathy for the other person.

The importance of whistle-blowers stems from the fact that most of the unethical, unjust and downright criminal behaviour in government and in commerce that has been exposed, has been exposed by people with a conscience – whistle-blowers! Without whistle-blowers how would we know, truthfully, how any government, of any country was actually governing? Without whistle-blowers how would we know truthfully, as tax payers, how our money was being spent in any jurisdiction? Without whistle-blowers how would we know, truthfully, how our law enforcement officers were performing? Without this knowledge provided by whistle-blowers how could there be any trust in the performance of any branch of any government or any company or corporation? Every one of them has something to hide. Every one of them has a skeleton hidden somewhere (as do we all as individuals).

Whistle-blowers perform the very important function of shining a light into the dark corners where these activities are normally hidden and exposing the perpetrators of injustice for what they are.

Remember the advice Polonius gave to his son Laertes:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82.

Long live whistle-blowers!

Manners Maketh Man

‘Manners Makyth Man’ is the motto of the establishments founded by William of Wykeham, (1324 - 1404) - Winchester College and New College, Oxford.  

I would not like my one loyal reader to think that I was at all discriminatory regarding women. Quite the contrary – I have always considered women to be a jump or two ahead of men – after all human life is created within them. This is a fact that deserves a high order of acknowledgement. It should, therefore, be obvious that I am not being sexist when I use the word Man – it is generic and means the species homo-sapiens – so most certainly includes women.

But to get back to what I want to say about manners. The old Winchester College (English Public School) motto that “Manners Maketh Man” may be old fashioned and from a different time and different generation but it still has value today. Manners – good manners (and not just etiquette which is different) – are recognised in every society and culture as important. Obviously they vary from culture to culture and within societies but the fundamentals are the same everywhere.

Manners are important as a respectful acknowledgement of the rights of others (worthy or not). Generally (and I must be careful what I say here), generally, good manners are an indication of the level of refinement in a person. People with no manners; those who are offensive in their behaviour; those who use abusive language; those whose conversation contains a high proportion of expletives are generally considered as impolite or vulgar and lacking good manners. Good manners give an indication of how one treats others and how one expects to be treated by others. In other words – how good a person is – and we all want be considered good.

There are, of course, those people who use their (apparent) good manners and (superficial) personal charm for their own ends. Confidence tricksters (con men or women) often appear to be charming and well mannered people but always, very obviously, use these attributes for their own nefarious purposes. The opposite of this are those people with hearts of gold – kind and generous - but who are rather uncouth in their behaviour and speech.

In my book the importance of “good manners” lies in the fact that they are based on ethical principles which affect general behaviour. I always remember being impressed by something I read about Capt. Scott’s Antarctic Expedition in 1912. Scott apparently insisted on “good manners” – he believed that good manners reduced the opportunities for friction in a group of men forced to live together in a confined space for an extended period.

Generally it can be said that good manners set a standard of behaviour that those, in the culture concerned, understand and try to adhere too. Fundamental to good manners is ethics. And fundamental to ethics is the precept that a person’s behaviour should be governed by the standard of behaviour they would expect from others – in other words, treat others the way you would like to be treated. Someone who is ethical is, kind, generous, just, honest, courageous and temperate in manner (there is that word again). There is no other viable alternative.

So, in a way it is true - manners do make Man (as in a good person). 

Would you buy a used car from your banker?

My one loyal reader will be aware of my deep antipathy towards banks and big banks in particular. I am appalled by their lack of integrity; appalled by their total ignorance of the concept of “service” to the customer as a priority (and NOT shareholders as a first priority); appalled by the uncontrolled (and apparently uncontrollable) greed shown to be prevalent in all levels of management in all banks.

That the banking chickens have now come home to roost, as it were, in Britain, Europe and America, is a measure of the breathtaking hubris, the corruption, the dishonesty, the lack of moral compass, the disinclination to accept responsibility, a cynical interpretation of ‘trust’, the injustice and (apparent) total ignorance of the need for ethical conduct – at Board and senior management levels of all banks everywhere (including Australia). What is playing out in the financial market is indeed an astonishing example of a corrosive and toxic culture that permeates from the top down. With staff at lower levels it is a case of “follow my leader”. The end result of this has been a belief in the mantra of profits and growth at any cost; a mantra extolling the virtues of maximising bonuses and maximising returns to shareholders without any apparent thought for the consequences that would, inevitably, flow from this self-serving attitude.

That was the cause. Now for the effect. Now is the time to pay – and make no mistake there will be a massive payout; a massive cost. Not just in money (banks can always make more!) but in the damage to the brand of “Bank”.  The public have lost trust in the integrity and purpose of banks. In this context read Barclays, HSBC, CitiBank and many, many, others.

In the Australian context, and as a case in point, there is a media release by Steven Munchinberg, the former CEO of the Australian Bankers Association (not sure of the date but it is fairly recent) entitled “Think twice before bashing the banks”. Now in this article the word “profit” is mentioned many times. Share holders equity get a mention but the word “service” is mentioned only once in the second last line in the context of  “ good value services” (whatever that means). No mention of service to the customer (depositor); no mention of banks doing their very best for the customer (depositor) – providing a good “service” to the customer (depositor). Money and profits have nothing to do with service. And “service” does not just mean a bloke with a top hat and tails greeting customers at the door!!

In banking circles there appears to be no belief in, or even an understanding of the concept of ethics – that you need to treat others the way you would like to be treated. In banking circles there appears to be no understanding of the importance of trust – that sanguine belief that customers hold to, the hope that a bank (any bank) will do its very best for me (the customer). Some hope!!

Banks have forgotten that money will follow and flow from good service. Good service will NEVER flow from money!!

Without complete trust there can be no hope of any successful business outcome. So, in the words of the title of this post, “would you buy a used car from your banker”?

Think VERY carefully before you answer.

Ethics, Big Banks, the Catholic Church and big Pharma – what ethics?

Oh boy! What a week this has been for the public exposure of unethical practice, fraud, total disregard for the welfare of human beings, pure unadulterated greed and moral bankruptcy.

Whistleblowers have done their good work again!! Greg Thorpe and Blair Hamrick – their names should be written in gold for exposing the unethical practices and fraud in the US division of the giant British based pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKiline (GSK). This big-Pharma is now $3 billion (repeat billion) poorer after being fined for healthcare fraud in the US.

It would appear, again, that “insider information” – in other words whistleblowers, alerted the authorities in the UK about the Barclays Bank fraud and corrupt practices (manipulating the benchmark London Interbank Offer Rate, known as LIBOR) which has resulted in the bank being charged with a $400 million fine.

Then  there is the Catholic Church and its outrageous conduct regarding the cover-up of priestly paedophilia (that is a real oxymoron if ever there was one!).

From a psychological point of view it is known that when many people gather together to share one common emotive experience (or organizational culture) the level of consciousness experienced will be well below what would be expected of individuals in a similar situation – just look at football crowds where “mob rule” seems to apply. Mixing with and being influenced by the wrong crowd or “bad company” is a well-known phenomenon. In other words take an individual out of that particular group situation and he or she will behave quite differently. Most parents will identify with this.

Many large organisations arrange group training, or bonding sessions for new staff to be indoctrinated into the “culture” of that particular organisation – boot camps are used for similar purposes.  In these sessions “conformity” is the rule – whatever you do must be the group way, must be the company way.  A person often yields to group pressure because they want to fit in with the group or they may conform because of fear of rejection by the group. This means adopting the culture – the “social” norms of the group (or organisation).

In group or organisational situations, by doing what everyone else is doing, an individual generally feels no responsibility and also no fear. There is anonymity and a safety in numbers.

The first casualty in these situations is ethics.

In the case of GSK (above) not only did the company commit fraud but they placed the lives of millions of people at risk by deliberately promoting the use of their drugs for unauthorised purposes – uses not approved by the Federal Drugs Administration (FDA) and they also committed fraud by over-charging. In this case greed (commissions) and profits took precedence over the lives and well-being of vulnerable people - the very people the drugs were designed to help. Another thing – aren’t these drugs called “ethical drugs” because they need a doctor’s prescription to be administered? In this case it is another oxymoron!

This appalling behaviour is not only immoral but is also unethical. By engaging in such behaviour GSK has not only damaged its “brand” but also, crucially, trust. Consumers of the GSK products (and those of other similar companies) will now have, justifiably, an element of doubt about the efficacy of the drugs they use.

Similarly greed (commissions), profits and maintaining shareholder dividends would all have featured in Barclays Bank’s extraordinary and outrageous conduct in colluding with other banks in manipulating the LIBOR. Barclays is guilty, with other banks, of collusion, of corruption, of veniality and grossly unethical conduct. Obviously “Group Think” took hold and like sheep those guilty of the manipulation complied with the attitudes of the group without an apparent care in the world.

No wonder I and others “bash” banks. They deserve everything that is thrown at them! Their “culture” of profits before service to their customers is a continual complaint of mine. Again, not only has Barclays activity damaged its “brand” but also weakened whatever trust people may have had in Barclays, in particular, and banks generally. The old Australian saying that ‘banks are bastards’ would seem to be holding up quite well!!

Then there is the Catholic Church – what a mess. It is rotten to its core and needs a clean out from the top down! Paedophilia is an abhorrent practice that damages the most vulnerable of all – children. Didn’t Jesus say “Suffer little children to come unto me”? Isn’t it a Christian Commandment that “Thou shalt not covert”? Isn’t it a Christian Commandment that “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”? Isn’t it a Christian Commandment that “Thou shalt not bear false witness”?

The Catholic Church leadership has broken every rule in the Book (the Bible) and ignored secular law by allowing these awful people to remain in the Church and worst of all, allowing them to go unpunished. Paedophiles need to be tried and convicted by a court of law – not an in camera church organised “enquiry” set up to protect its “image”! By condoning paedophilia within the ranks of its priesthood the Catholic Church is breaking the Commandments of the very Man, the Son of God, whom it professes to follow. No wonder Church attendances are falling!

Large organisations without exception have Codes of Ethics so I am sure GSK and Barclays have theirs. The Catholic Church has the Bible which should be even better. But unless ethics comes from the heart it becomes a disposable item – “use it if you feel like it” sort of thing.

Ethics is very simple really. Always treat other people the way you would like to be treated AND if everyone did what you are doing or propose to do, would the World be a better place? If you cannot answer both in the affirmative then you are not being ethical.

More on “illegal immigrants”.

Why can’t we consider ‘asylum seekers’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘boat people’ or whatever label or category they are given, as people with feelings and emotions just like you and I? They are not aliens from outer space. They are human beings who have found themselves in an intolerable situation in their home country and are now trying to improve their lot by migrating to Australia. There is nothing wrong in this – their actions are to be commended as it shows initiative. There are many millions of current Australians who did the same – as did I. The only difference is that I came by plane not by a leaky boat. But then I was not oppressed; I was not targeted because of my religious beliefs; I was not unemployed or living in poverty; I was not subjected to cruel and harsh treatment or sexual abuse. I can speak English and I had a good education.

Instead of spending billions of dollars keeping these people in detention, doing nothing, why not offer them some inducement, some encouragement to learn English and employment opportunities by offering then some form of short term work permit? Many will be skilled and quite willing to work. By mixing with the general population they would quickly be introduced to Australian laws, social customs, our way of life and familiarity with the English language and thereby become integrated and better immigrants.

They might need to be monitored by electronic means until all necessary background checks have been completed and to prevent absconding. They would be working and paying taxes, not costing the tax payers anything; they would be contributing to the economy of the country – not a drain.

This is, I suggest, a better and more compassionate way of treating these so called “illegals”  and a possible solution to Australian current shortage of skilled (and unskilled) labour.

Why not? It is not as if there are millions of them in an armada just over the horizon. Just a few thousand desperate people who wish to improve their quality of life.

Why not give them an Australian fair go?