Hello! This is my first post on notbloggers, and I'm very excited to be a part of this fantastic team. On a normal blog, this is the post where I would introduce myself and say how I know the other authors, but since I'm not supposed to reveal any identifying information about a-corn and T-bone, I will forgo the normal.
Instead, I thought I'd write about an awesome article I read over at The New Yorker about the Enron meltdown. The essay is by Malcolm Gladwell, and points out that the Enron team didn't go far out of its way to hide their actions. Instead, all the necessary information to deduce that Enron was overvalued was out in the open, in public SEC filings, though it was (as expected) a bit convoluted. I don't think Gladwell is trying to apologize for or justify Enron's actions, but the article does bring up some questions about who is to blame for Enron's collapse. Gladwell's article struck a chord with me, because I have spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between illegal actions and immoral actions. In our society, many things that are immoral are not illegal, and vice versa. One might even argue that as the CEO of a publicly traded company, it is your duty to consider every legal option to increase shareholder value, even if such actions are immoral.* Is something wrong with this system?
* For example, we (society) never seem to care about every multinational hoarding profits overseas, or in the Cayman Islands, simply to avoid paying US corporate income tax.
1 comments:
Malcolm Gladwell, for those who'd like context, is the author of the seminal "The Tipping Point," as well as "Blink." Look 'em up.
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