Friday, November 21, 2014

Wall Street Banks in Commodities Businesses: An Inherently Unethical Conflict of Interest

Writing to the bank’s board of directors, an executive at Goldman Sachs wrote that the bank’s commodities division would achieve higher value “if the business was able to grow physical activities, unconstrained by regulation and integrated with the financial activities.”[1] According to Sen. Carl Levin, Goldman’s goal here is “to profit in its financial activities using the information it gains in the physical commodities business.”[2] The integration could be achieved in part by using the bank’s access to nonpublic information from the banking or trading operations to manipulate the price of a commodity by artificially restricting or adding to supplies through ownership at the production or storage stages. This structure contains a conflict of interest. Because resisting the temptation to exploit the conflict would put the Goldman bankers at odds with the bank’s financial interest, I contend that reliance by the public on intra-bank firewalls (i.e., policies) separating the commodity businesses from the bank’s trading operations is too weak to protect the public, including buyers of the commodity.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.


1, Sen. Carl Levin, “Opening Statement,” Wall Street Bank Involvement in Physical Commodities Hearing, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, U.S. Senate, November 20, 2014 (accessed November 21, 2014)
2. Ibid.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Ethical Theory in Business Ethics Courses

It may seem like an oxymoron, but faculty administrators at even research universities can be hopelessly narrow-minded regarding knowledge and how it is to be conveyed. For example, how often are faculty members encouraged to give a lecture or two re-teaching material largely missed on exams (followed by another, shorter examination on that material)? Do faculty administrators work with faculty members in professional schools to see to it that the applied courses are not severed from their basic (i.e., more theoretical substratum) discipline? One of the secrets in the “sauce” at Yale’s professional schools (e.g., Law, Divinity, etc.) is this salience of the respective basic disciplines (e.g., political theory and theology, respectively). Synergy comes gushing through once the false dichotomy is recognized. Before I went to Yale, I was a masters and doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, where the dichotomy was alive and well in the university’s social reality; I had to “walk back” the dichotomy myself as I discovered philosophy (and religious studies) while I was still studying business.

The full essay is at “Ethical Theory in Business Ethics” 

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Missing Out on Reducing the Carbon Footprint: Human Reason Lapsing on Opportunities

Wind farms and solar panels—these alternatives to coal and natural gas could play a larger role in reducing the human impact on climate change were it not for missed opportunities. That any would be passed by when the species itself may hang in the balance points to a certain recklessness in the reasoning process akin to ill-afforded complacency.


The full essay is at “The Carbon Footprint

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Faith Leadership and Ethical Leadership

Leadership under religious auspices can be distinguished from ethical leadership. The shift from ethical to religious principles is more involved than merely swapping one kind for another. The dynamics pertaining to faith are distinct. Kierkegaard makes this point very well in his text, Fear and Trembling. In short, an individual of faith must go it alone when the paradox of faith violates ethical principles.

Material from this essay has been incorporated into The Essence of Leadership: A Cross-Cultural Foundation, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon. 



Monday, November 17, 2014

Homelessness in the U.S.: A Reflection of American Values

According to a report by the National Center on Family Homelessness in 2014, nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013.[1] The U.S. Department of Education had reported that 1.3 million homeless children were going to school. California, which accounted for one-eighth of the U.S. population at the time, had one-fifth of the 2.5 million, which comes out to nearly 527,000. The relatively high cost of living and shortage of low-income housing, along with a largely stagnant minimum wage, are the more visible factors behind the gap.

The full essay is at "Homelessness in the U.S."





1. David Crary and Lisa Leff, “Number of Homeless Children in America Surges to All-Time High: Report,” The Associated Press, November 17, 2014.