Recent revelations that many corporate executives have backdated their stock options, ensuring excessive compensation even when their companies perform poorly, are merely the latest in a stream of examples of bad business behavior. In an era of evaporated pensions and benefits for the rank and file, piggish pay packets for CEO’s have led a cynical public to wonder where big business has gone wrong.
The answer may be quite simple: too many bosses have abandoned basic human values and embraced the credo famously uttered by Gordon Gekko in the movie
Wall Street
: “Greed is good.”
But a growing body of research concludes that greed is
not
always good, and that moral values are a necessary element in the conduct of business. The Gordon Gekkos are predators who take the quick payoff. Although they do serve a useful purpose by keeping other players on their toes and raising efficiency through competition, market participants for the most part avoid them, preferring to do business with the Warren Buffetts – hard-driving businessmen, but known for fair play and creating long-term value.
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In the longer term, oil and gas prices look set to rise unless investment picks up sharply, which seems unlikely given current policy guidance. Giant waves of supply and demand shocks will likely continue to roil energy markets and the global economy.
predicts further waves of supply and demand shocks in global oil and gas markets.
The American public has been alarmed and aroused by the US Supreme Court's growing extremism. But voters need to recognize the Court's radical majority for what it is: part of a carefully laid plan to turn the US into a repressive regime.
fears that the radicalization of the US Supreme Court is part of a larger plan to create a repressive regime.
Recent revelations that many corporate executives have backdated their stock options, ensuring excessive compensation even when their companies perform poorly, are merely the latest in a stream of examples of bad business behavior. In an era of evaporated pensions and benefits for the rank and file, piggish pay packets for CEO’s have led a cynical public to wonder where big business has gone wrong.
The answer may be quite simple: too many bosses have abandoned basic human values and embraced the credo famously uttered by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street : “Greed is good.”
But a growing body of research concludes that greed is not always good, and that moral values are a necessary element in the conduct of business. The Gordon Gekkos are predators who take the quick payoff. Although they do serve a useful purpose by keeping other players on their toes and raising efficiency through competition, market participants for the most part avoid them, preferring to do business with the Warren Buffetts – hard-driving businessmen, but known for fair play and creating long-term value.
To continue reading, register now.
As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.
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