Category: Business Ethics

Two days ago, I wrote about the CEO of Radio Shack, who somehow didn’t notice that he hadn’t actually gotten the college degree he’d been claiming to have.

Now, I’ve discovered that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (a Democrat, I’ll point out to those who think I only attack Republicans) somehow didn’t notice that he hadn’t been drafted by the Kansas City (now Oakland) Atheltics major league baseball team.

I don’t believe this any more than I believed the guy from Radio shack. Sheesh! What’s with these people?

You’d think people would know by now not to lie on their resume. Apparently not, however. Reuters reports that Radio Shack’s CEO, David Edmondson, lied about his degree. Here’s the story as reported in USA Today. Plus he’s had at least three rounds of court proceedings for drunk driving.

Two things astonish me about this article.

First, his utter shameless chutzpah:

Edmondson issued a statement Wednesday admitting that he erroneously said he received a Bachelor of Science degree, a four-year college degree.

The CEO said he now believes he received a ThG diploma, which is awarded for completing a three-year degree in theology.

Uhh, hello–you don’t erroneously claim a degree. An error implies an honest mistake. This was a lie, plain and simple, and please let’s not try to pretend otherwise. the article goes on to speculate about whether he even receive the ThG, and also noted that he claimed a degree his school didn’t offer, and that the school has no record of his graduation at all. Not pretty! This is the sort of ducking of responsibility you expect from an irresponsible teenager raised by incompetent parents–not the CEO of one of the largest electronics retailers in the world.

Second, the amazing statement at the end of the article:

The resume issues and DWI issues raised speculation about whether Edmondson would survive as RadioShack’s CEO.

Speculation? Speculation! Any company that doesn’t instantly demand the resignation of a CEO caught lying on his resume should have its collective head examined. If ethics means anything anymore, that should be a zero-tolerance, one-strike-and-you’re-out, no-severance package offense. Followed by a lawsuit for fraud.

OK, it’s starting: the sworn testimony under oath that tells us what we knew all along.

Here it is: Enron’s top executives were directly ordering their cooked books.

In this story on the BBC, Convicted executive Ken Rice, who ran Enron’s EBS Internet business subsidiary, testifies that Jeffrey Skilling himself told him, “this is what the number is going to be.”

A number, of course, that had no relation to the real number. Rice said this division was actually selling future revenues, becuase there were no current ones.

And Skilling was involved at every level. “Mr. Skilling was very engaged in the business, he was very hands-on,” Mr Rice said. “Almost any transaction of any size we would bring to Mr Skilling to get his approval.”

Why am I not surprised?

Yesterday, ExxonMobil announced its 2005 profits–the largest of any corporate entity in any year in history.

$36.13 billion, of which $23.2 billion was distributed to shareholders (up $8.3 billion over last year’s distribution.

The company obviously feels embarrassed by its riches. The press release, linked above, is full of all sorts of justifications and rationalizations.

The simple truth is that this is simply an obscene amount of money, and ExxonMobil should be embarrassed!

Especially since this was the year where gas prices shot up by over 30 percent for a while, before settling down. Especially considering the impact in the Gulf of Mexico of environmental damage wreaked by hurricanes going through the offshore oil rigs. Especially considering the wretched fate of New Orleans’ poor. Even Wal-Mart, not exactly a paragon of corporate virtue, managed to dedicate significant resources to the relief effort. But for ExxonMobil, it’s just another chance to line the pockets of its shareholders.

While no oil companies have totally clean hands, I will continue to buy from more responsible companies like Citgo and BP whenever possible.

Let’s see…if I’m not mistaken, it is now 2006. If I recall correctly, we are talking about an indictment that was handed down in 2004, for crimes allegedly committed in 2001 and earlier.

You’ve got to wonder–would it have taken so long to come to trial if Ken Lay hadn’t had so many “friends in high places?”

Oh, and I think a fair punishment for Lay and his ilk would be some jail time and then strip him of all assets, use them to at least partially reimburse the innocent Enron employees who watched their retirement nest eggs go up in smoke, make him get a job in a factory somewhere, pay him minimum wage, and let him see if he could support himself in the style to which he’s accustomed. Oh yes, with community service in the form of unpaid presentations to b-school kids on how he “done us wrong” and what the human consequences were. It might be rather educational, don’t you think. And cheaper for us taxpayers than throwing away the key.

This from a financial currency exchange newswire:

A corporate scandal involving Livedoor, a Japanese high tech company caused such a big drop in the stock market that trading had to halt on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

People get hurt when other people cheat. Ethics crimes are not victimless. Just ask those poor Enron employees who saw their retirement funds go up in smoke as the company stock turned worthless.

Run your company the right way… Sign the Ethics Pledge so you can brag about it. And build a company that grows itself and the economy instead of shooting it in the foot.