When it all breaks down

I know, I know, no postings for a week and then an explosion. Last minute Holiday shopping, people traveling, blizzards, appliance malfunctionings, etc. has prevented me from posting what has needed to be posted. But I didn’t stop paying attention or thinking or feeling about the world.

This posting is again about the need for the economy, any economy, to exist within an ethical system that inspires and engenders trust amongst market participants. I have talked at length about this subject so this post will be short.

This comes from a conversation that I was having with my wife, Dawn. The two of us were talking about how pervasive the “Anything For A Dollar” culture is in the United States (and most of the World these days). We were also talking about the fact that while the economy was roaring and people were content then they tolerated a lot of bad behavior on the part of many individuals and businesses alike. Dawn’s point was, and I agree with her, that while people are making money then everyone is happy, but that as soon as people start losing money then they start to care about the issue of how honest the counterparty is in their business transactions. This thinking led us to the natural destination of such a situation: when it all breaks down. When it all breaks down, and when it always breaks down, is when people start losing money and then they start to care about issues such as business ethics. The point is that ethics are always an issue, not just in economic declines. So until we, as economic citizens of the worldwide economy, start to care about ethics and people issues, we are fated to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. The only way to do this in the future is to make sure that as the economy rises that the ethics are brought along with the rise. If the two are not anchored then more collapses are inevitable.

Jason