I had to write this essay.  It is a recurrent question in my mind, and topic in my conversations with people.  I recently had a discussion with one of very close friends about this issue.  We had a discussion about THIS article, and I then asked the question:  “Why is it that ethics is not an intrinsic part of business.”  I don’t mean business ethics.  Yes, that is a course that is taught in most business schools.  I am talking about the kind of ethics that is the underpinning of the very foundation of doing business. 

For example, in medicine there is an understood value system, that is not just taught as a system, but built into the foundation of doing medicine.  “Do no harm” is the premise of doctoring.  Law has the same basic principle.  In the study of the law and the ultimate end point of practicing law, the attorney is trained to seek the truth.  To represent the truth.  In other words, justice is the core of law.  Wether you are on the prosecuting or defending side of the argument, you are both attempting to obtain justice.  Almost every skill or profession has an implied ethics system that is built in to the very core of doing that profession... except business.

Living in times like ours, these are important questions to ask.  We live in an era where economic earthquakes of the past are dwarfed by the magnanimous numbers being thrown around every day in the news today.  Hundreds of billions, Trillions, and now double digits of Trillions.  These are values and amounts that the average person cannot even fathom.  These numbers have desensitized us to the value of money and economy itself.  Yet, I ask you still, why is it okay to live in a system where profit is private and loss is public?  Why is okay for the American public to be swindled into bailing out companies that are in trouble because of their inability to compete and win fair and square?  Isn’t that the very basis for American Capitalism?

Our government, our public servants... YOUR ELECTED EMPLOYEES, have voted to give more of your children’s and grandchildren’s money to big, private firms like General Motors, Chrysler and Ford.  Just like the bailouts for the banks, the package is wrapped in a shiny, supposedly well regulated promissory note that is supposed to benefit the American public once the “loan” is paid off.  But as you have seen (and it didn’t take long) with the first bailout package, what your public servants promised you, didn’t pain out did it?  The first bailout changed form very quickly and the mortgages that were supposed to land in the government’s hands, wound up in the Fed’s hands.  And not to beat a dead horse, but if you STILL think that the Fed is the government, you need quit your browser, turn off your computer, and go to your public library and start reading up on the facts.

The reality is that these times are unprecedented... but let’s get back to the ethics.  The very core of business, the very ideology of business is based on profit.  Profit at any cost.  There is no backbone or underpinning in business that compels the proprietor to reconsider their product, or their business plan because it detriments the planet, or because it could detriment future generations.  Rather, if it costs less to make something, somewhere else, then you must act on that.  So the viscous spiral began when we started playing with this fire we call economy.  Profit being the ultimate master, commanded decisions that have nailed our coffins closed.  And because of it, we are on the brink of some serious problems. 

Problems with our water.  Problems with our food.  Problems with our air.  Problems with disease, population, poverty, housing, war, famine, limited resources religious persecution, racism, slavery, over consumption, and so many more; but these will kill us before the rest of the list.

We are like an ostrich with its head in the sand.  We pretend that these issues are figments of the imaginations of those people we call scientists.  We pretend that all will get better if we vote for Change.  If we have a new feeling or shift in our ideals. 

I hate to break the news to you... but you are wrong.  Like many of the authors I quote and refer to in my writing (like BIll McKibben, Kenneth Galbraith, Naomi Klein, Morris Berman, etc. etc. etc.) we need to change things immediately.  They and I mean literally CHANGE things overnight.  Research is leading us down the path that is painted with a grim picture.  THIS recent article by McKibben reveals how important and almost instant shift in lifestyle is. 

So ethics, consideration and respect for our planet, for each other, and for our future is NOT built into business.  This GM/Chrysler/Ford scam is a perfect example.  I clearly remember 20 years ago GM and the other 2 dimwits had many opportunities to scrap their antiquated business models for innovative truly American plans.  Rather, they stuck to their old ways and kept on doing business as usual.  Not one of those greedy overpaid CEOs did what they were supposed to.  Instead of looking at the next 20 years and shifting their production from fat lazy and obscenely inefficient SUVs to smaller, more advanced hybrids or completely electric cars... they got back into bed with their old mistress big oil and delivered products that the lemmings we can call the American public lapped up and parked in their over-mortgaged driveways.

I was debating this issue during surgery today, and one of the arguments made by a ultra-conservative ditto-head plastic surgeon friend was “GM is in this mess because they’ve been paying inflated pensions to their retirees which cuts into their profits unlike Japanese carmakers”.  Now with all due respect sir, let’s take a deeper look at the reality of the situation... if companies like GM conducted their businesses on an ethical foundation, they would consider the crappy products that they churned out for many years, and would look long and hard at decisions made to produce gluttonous cars like the Ford Explorer, and Chevy Suburban, AND they would stop paying the $50+ Millions of dollars every year to lobby politicians for looser EPA regulations.

We used to be the UNITED States of America.  A place where our combined resources and innovation put men on the Moon with the computing power of a handheld calculator today.  Now, we have been reduced to a fledgeling, indebted consumer population that can’t move left or right because every option involves debt, or more debt.

What I am arguing about cannot be changed.  You cannot marry profit with ethics.  Somewhere, there will be a leak.  You can reduce the ethical impacts, but if you are trying to profit, you will at one point have to make a decision that may not be beneficial to someone, somewhere.  That is business.  Hence our expression “It’s only business”, referring to “Don’t take it personally... it’s just business”.

So instead of getting mad, instead of holding GM accountable for the irreversible damage they have caused to your environment, you are going to bail them out.  All the hard work, all the taxes you’ve paid into the system... will be going to keep a defunct, archaic megalith car manufacturer that doesn’t believe in innovation or ethical business decisions.  Bailing out companies like GM, Chrysler, and Ford is rewarding villainy and allowing them to hide behind their smoke screen that American jobs are at stake, when in reality... THEY are responsible for these jobs being at stake.

This is it folks.  This is what you can consider “setting of the stage”.  The next few years are going to being changes like non-other.  Changes that American’s have never seen.  Mass nationalization of private companies and assets.  A let’s not forget about Amero. 

Umm... hey... can you be a sport and actually click on the link of the word before this sentence... yeah, that one... the one you read and pretended to know what it was... Click it... and then actually watch the video to the end.

Oh, and one more thing... please...

Then start researching the Amero... and see where you’ll be taken on this path of enlightenment. 

Maybe then, you’ll be as upset as I am.