Global Business Ethics

Global Business ethics today have proven themselves to be non-existent. If there had been some degree of self-regulation in the global financial industry, then there is little doubt that the current financial situation that now exists around the world would not be happening.

This lack of business ethics in the financial industry has caused riots in many European countries and no doubt many deaths that have gone unrecorded. This obvious lack of business ethics globally is to be deplored at every level of society and in every nation on earth.

There is little wonder that our financial industries are in such disarray. The banks have not been able to resist the temptation of greed and have operated on the assumption that because they can, they should. So they have.

The problem is that they have nearly brought the whole world crashing into utter chaos due to their greed and lack of ethical behaviour. Business in every country today is often held in little regard; and many big Multinational businesses in many instances are loathed. Once upon a more regulated time, to be a business person meant something and was considered to be an honourable profession. Today this loathing of the International financial sector stems from the fact that many 'ordinary' people have lost their life savings.

As baby-boomers are nearing retirement age and many were thinking they would have a safe and secure retirement fund, have now lost many hundreds of thousands of dollars. This in some instances has caused untold hardship through no fault of their own. After all, they did what they had been advised to do and saved their pennies and added them into retirement packages and other financial products to increase their wealth for a comfortable retirement.

The Financial Investment industry who were serving two masters ended up serving none. In fact, they are a large part of the problem. If a financial advisor is receiving commissions from the products he is recommending to prospective investors and then claiming investment or brokerage fees from those same clients, the question has to be asked as to who is his actual client? Many reputable stockbrokers and financial advisers didn't do that but there were far too many who did.

The banks between themselves sold off packages to each other and rewarded the selling broker financially.

This unethical behaviour gets much worse though as it goes up the regulatory financial chain. The banks themselves, all around the world, invented their own financial products or packages, by bundling up these products being sold to Joe and Jane Citizen and started selling them backwards and forwards to each other. In essence, they were re-selling something that had been sold several times previously. This greed is actually fraud.

It gets even more unethical because they put some 'bad' products (that is, some financial packages that they knew were never going to be redeemed) amongst valuable properties that paid enough to partly cover the losses on the properties that weren't earning. The International banking fraternity then sold these financial products back and forth to each other and from country to country. So that is why we had the global financial crises that I believe, quite frankly, is a long way from being over yet.

As I see it, the only way the International financial industry will get some ethics restored back into our financial systems, is to put in some meaningful financial regulation to halt the rape and pillage we have all been subjected to.

Now if only we could all find a politician somewhere who has the gumption to stand up to this greedy unethical industry and say "Enough and No More".

Instigating ethical accounting practices back into our banking industry will help many small businesses today