I would call it a must read for academics and everybody else who is interested in business ethics and the lack of it in the spectacular downfall we saw and the resulting recession. Not only does it highlight the enormous “loophole” benefits enjoyed by the extremely wealthy (a very creative one was – that you could take your plane/jet outside Ireland at the end of your working day and it would count as if you had been outside Ireland the entire day – result: 0% tax for top-earners – because only the top-earners could afford a private jet.)

With all the talk of toxic assets (real estate) and the resulting fallout in the States – its easy to overlook what happened in Ireland. Particularly the situation with NAMA (National Asset Management Agency), that holds the toxic assets.

The most eye-popping fact in the book is the fact that NAMA holds more assets than any other publicly quoted property company in the entire world. These are properties that have fallen immensely in value and will have an effect on Ireland and its people for years to come.

The extremely clear and easy to follow way in which Fintan O’Toole details the web of corruption in the public and private sectors that is built on loopholes designed to give a heavily favored hand to the richest leaves one feeling sorry for the state of affairs in the world today.

All-in-all a great informative book – well worth the read – and a fantastic job by the Irish Times columnist.

The need of the hour is with the basic necessities: food, electricity, heating and so on. You need food on the table, the lights on, and a comfortably warm living space to make it home. Beyond that if you don’t have a car – you can take public transport. If you can’t afford a phone line – you can get a prepaid cell phone. If you can’t afford new books – the library is there.

Many organizations have been working to provide foodstuffs to low and fixed-income people. Another avenue is providing them with help in paying their electricity bills. I’m aware that many utilities already do offer programs – but they would do well to increase their generosity by allowing more people to participate and offering more rebates and discounts.

Its not only the right thing to do – its a must thing to do. Electricity is a must have – and a need nowadays (who can argue with that?) – for the people that live in urban centers of the world. They need access to electricity to run the heater, and turn the fan on.

Without such programs many elderly and small children can be at risk. Also we should have some concerted effort to provide the ability to compare programs and see which electricity supplier offers the best or the right program for a specific household. One such blog is Electricity Price Comparison which provides tips and ideas on reducing your electricity bill along with information on utility rate changes and average utility costs for business, residential and commercial usage.

By having private corporations focus their non-profit efforts on the things that really matter – they will automatically do a better job of increasing their public awareness, it will be a natural public relations effort, and the country as a whole will be all the more better for it.

I’ve thought about this and I genuinely think that Google decided that they would no longer sacrifice globally accepted values in order to gain a foothold in China. That has to be applauded. However there’s too much of a gray area to accurately pinpoint what exactly was the motive – or was it a combination of motives?

One thing is clear, Google wouldn’t throw in the towel so quickly. With its search engine technology and being a global brand, it has no reason not to wait it out. Even if expectations were not being met, Google could easily hold on. It would have no problem convincing employees, shareholders, and everybody else because of the huge size of the Chinese market.

That leads us to the second point. Take a look at the figures of Chinese internet users and the swiftly rising middle class. For confirmation you can read Martin Jacques’ book “When China Rules the World” if you are in doubt. Why would Google do such a thing – unless something went really awry – it seems Google is really trying to make a stand.

The estimated amount of $20 million is about 100 times,  Sujata Sachdeva’s 2008 compensation which was around $200K.

Just unraveling this thing will be a huge mess. It will be a beast to tangle not to mention that if this went on for some years (news reports are estimating it was 4 years in the making) then other small primarily family owned companies that are thinly traded like Koss might have similar issues that have yet to surface.

Koss would certainly appear to be an exception with such a huge amount but it says something about financial controls at other firms. Perhaps a hundred baby Enrons in the making.

Its not fair to say that business ethics training would have averted such a financial disaster – but along with tighter controls – such embezzlement might have been corrected earlier and at lower cost.

With such a high unemployment rate you don’t want companies laying honest employees off and shutting its doors because of the actions of one executive. But that’s what one executive can do if given the reins in such an unchecked way as we seem to have in this case.

Since this is my first post on the topic – I want to just focus on one word: Trust. In the workplace of the future – with everybody competing for more business, and fierce challenges in the face of recessions and depressions – trust will win out over the rest.

If there is trust in you as an individual and if there is trust in your organization you will have credibility that will positively influence your bottom line.

You want to make “gaining the trust of your market, of your competitors” a top priority. You want to play fair – to ensure a level playing field where winners are chosen on merit instead of internal politics, bribes, kickbacks, favors, you name it.

We’ll evaluate case studies, discuss the challenges, and how we can be better trained to perform ethically and morally in our workplaces.