Labour peer Lord Swaraj Paul, was suspended from the House of Lords, in the United Kingdom, last week for allegedly cheating the taxpayer out of tens of thousands of pounds in wrongly claimed expenses. Apprently the Lord cannot be expelled!
It amazes me as to why somebody as rich as the peer would try to deprive the system of its due.What is even more amazing is that the British MP thought he could get away with a simplistic scam that he tried to pull off................
It was found that Swaraj Paul, a steel magnate and one of Britain's wealthiest men, lived in London but designated a one-bedroom flat in an Oxfordshire hotel that he owned as his main home.
The question is 'Are politicians the world over, no different from each other'?
On that note lets look at the business world:
On August 6, 2010, Mark Hurd resigned from all of his positions at HP, following discovery of inappropriate conduct in an investigation into a claim of sexual harassment made by former reality TV actress Jodie Fisher.The probe concluded that the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards of business conduct were.Hurd said he "realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP" and added that he believed it would be "difficult to continue as an effective leader at HP." In exchange for releasing HP from future litigation, Hurd received $12.2 million in severance, plus vested options and restricted stock for an estimated total of $34.6 million.
What followed was even more bizarre!
Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison, a close friend of Hurd who has also been the object of sexual harassment claims, sent an e-mail to the New York Times saying "the HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple Board fired Steve Jobs many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them. HP had a long list of failed CEOs until they hired Mark who has spent the last five years doing a brilliant job reviving HP to its former greatness".
The only sad conclusion that one may draw from these rather distasteful episodes are:
1. The richer you get the meaner you become.
2. The better you are at your job, there is a latitude for indiscretion, that mere mortals are not offered and you are entitled to believe that normal rules do not apply.To me it smells of 'megalomania'.
3. You swing along as long as you do not get caught.
At the end of the day, it is sad that many believe, that one can be dishonest, if you do not get caught and if you do then have friends or a system that can bail you out.
Honor & Ethics! You gotta be kidding......the buzz word are networking and money, any which way you can!
3 comments:
Networking and money making looks interesting as a subject rather than business ethics...As How ethically we learned it is a question! Do teaching ethics actually ensure that you will become ethical? I doubt..MBA grads are the most unethical creature in the corporates..and more sophisticated university means higher degree of unethical behavior..Enron,Phaneesh murthy and add ons..
Sir,
When someone climbs the ladder of wealth,they think that they still follow ethics in their life. But they fail to understand one thing that their soul gets unconsciously corrupted by the delusions of the world....... At the end of the day everything depends on how much we control our soul....
Don't forget that Harvard has produced some of the biggest crooks of the century.....
Does wealth corrupt....I guess it does!
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