Take me to your leader!

As children we are taught certain mores and ethics which are generally agreed upon by consensus. We develop and grow up under the basic guidelines of these values.  We have respect: mutual respect for each other as well as respect for institutions such our schools, police, and banks. What could be more important than those we grant the responsibility to handle our finances, our investments, our retirement? In fact we grow to expect even a higher level of moral values in those we hold in such esteem.

However as we move into the reality of today, it seems we are witnessing an exponential increase in the decay and breakdown of these values and what we viewed as rock solid institutions.  Tero Pollanen, a well known financial anti fraud specialist says, “Welcome to the reality show! We can talk about economic crisis; we can discuss Libor; the fixing of artificially high interbank lending rates which affects every transaction we make even on an individual basis. But, if we stop just for a breather we are hit with the realization that this goes much deeper.”  We are talking fraudulent and criminal activity from the top and thus a new perspective on the “tickle down theory” whose verbage defined the 1980’s. What we are actually facing today is a leadership crisis.  What needs to happen is twofold: (1) Fraud needs to be criminally prosecuted and, (2) and white collar crime needs to be deemed as no longer profitable.

It seems today that leaders, or those in positions of leadership whom once had as integral a higher standard of values have lost all credibility and thus respect. Are we to remain apathetic about this? Again Mr. Pollanen asserts “If appropriate action is not taken from the top, corruption will only continue to proliferate.” Is there any doubt as we witness breakdown in the educational system as to why this occurs?  Is this the torch we wish to pass onto the next generation?  What will you tell YOUR children?

Ref.: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2168286/Fraud-greed-We-crisis-leadership.html?ito=feeds-newsxml