[muleskinner]

Morality used to be taught at home, reinforced in the church and mentored in the business place.

It's not taught anywhere.

I beg to differ. Morality and ethics are very closely related, nearly interchangeable. In the business world, it's called Ethics training as opposed to Morality training. Now, I can't speak for other large corporations, but where I work, business ethics is stressed and enforced. We take mandatory business ethics training classes yearly. There are 7 or 8 on-line classes, professionally done, with graded quizzes at the end of each section, so you can't just sign on and slack off or snore through the lessons. It's required. Everyone must make time for the classes. Everyone has to take the training/enforcement.

Being in the headlines for poor ethical decisions is bad for business. Even the appearance of a poor ethical decision is bad - just look at McCain right now.

[Bear_Slayer]

I’ve spent time in the corporate arena. We were not taught ethics much, other than don’t discriminate unless they are white, christian males.

[Etoo]

[Now, I can't speak for other large corporations, but where I work, business ethics is stressed and enforced.]

 

A few years a go, I served on a jury along with a gentleman who was professor of Physics at University of California  Irvine (UCI).

 

We ate lunch together several times over the course of the trial and he was clearly frustrated with the level of cheating he saw going on in his classes.  He said his students completely rationalize their behavior via arguments like "everybody does it" and "that's what you have to do to compete".

 

It's not surprising at all, then, when these students graduate and apply their skills at corporations like Enron and Ameriquest.

 

Look at the scale of fraud perpetrated by Enron and Ameriquest alone... and then consider how few folks have been prosecuted for that fraud.   What's the lesson?

 

And now the gubmint is going to bail out "Liar Loan" sub-prime borrowers (and lenders).   What's the lesson?