Is Modern Banking Fundamentally Flawed?

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase and board member of the New York Federal Reserve (a banking regulatory body), advocates not only that financial regulation reform is not necessary, but also that deregulation is the best course for the American financial sector. Meanwhile, JP Morgan lost $2 billion in an effort to reduce risk. President Obama quickly pointed out that if one of the smartest bankers in the room can preside over such a massive loss, then a deregulated financial sector would likely present us with an unacceptably high level of risk to the entire financial system (and economy). Elizabeth Warren suggested that relying on bankers to regulate themselves would not reduce the systemic risk. The alternative would seem to be strengthening financial regulation, even though—according to Sen. Dick Durbin—“the banks own Congress.”

The full essay is at " Banking as Flawed."

Wall Street CEOs Suffering with Lower Pay: Self-Preservation or Greed?

As much as the titans on Wall Street pull in during a year, they still want more. It must be human nature. If so, nature may be at odds with narrowing economic inequality. Even as 2014's compensation figures show such a narrowing, I suspect that such a case is an exception rather than being indicative of a fundamental shift.

The complete essay is at “Wall Street CEOs” 

Religion and Business Meet in a Catholic Church’s Food Pantry

The sacred and the profane are like oil and water—oil for anointing and water for cleaning. The viability or value of the sacred does not depend on denigrating that which is exogenous to it. In other words, praising the sacred does not require trashing the world. Being in the world but not of it does not imply that the world is necessarily bad. From this perspective, the sacred and profane can both be viewed as viable in their own rights, respectively. The inevitable distance that distinguishes them so starkly is breached only with great difficulty, even if pressed out of sheer practicality. For example, a theological interpretation undergirding a religious organization’s food pantry can clash with a business calculus such as would be held by an auditor pouring over the numbers and procedures. As theology and business enjoy their own, sui generis (i.e., of its own genus or type) bases of justifications or rationales, unraveling a clash can be notoriously difficult for want of a common denominator. 

The full essay is at "Religion and Business Meet"

McDonald’s Strategic Use of Its Charity: Clowning around with Ethics?

Corporations have undoubtedly oriented their philanthropy to take advantage of the potential synergy with marketing their products and services. This “revelation” should not surprise anyone in modernity. Even so, overdoing any convergence to maximize profits is certainly open to ethical critique, even if leaning excessively on strategic interest at the expense of reputational capital is perfectly legal. This point ought to impress itself on the frontal lobe of any dean who hires lawyers to teach business ethics. In this essay, I focus on McDonald’s funding of its own charitable organization, McDonald House Charities. Has the corporation’s financial contribution been sufficient, ethically speaking, to justify the resulting reputational capital, marketing synergies, and long-term profitability?


The full essay is in The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.