Insight Beyond the Occupy Movement Dr
InSight Beyond the Occupy Movement Dr. Gloria C. Duffy President and C.E.O. he Bay Area was are not supporting a healthy economy at this time. You might ask, host to numer- How do ethics affect an economy? David Callahan, a Princeton T ous street protests Ph.D., founder of the Washington, D.C., research institute Demos, this fall, stimulated by and author of the recent book The Cheating Culture, has described the Occupy Wall Street how cheating and rule-bending are occurring in nearly every aspect movement. In addition to of the American economy. marches in downtown San Callahan has studied what he identifies as systematic cheating in Photo courtesyPhoto of Gloria Duffy Francisco, many outlying over 30 different areas across numerous sectors and professions in cities have seen their own American life. These include sports doping, workers comp fraud, demonstrations. As the protests spread to Occupy Monterey, Occupy pension abuses, Ponzi schemes, insider trading, scientific misconduct Santa Rosa, Occupy San Jose and Occupy Oakland, some of them and accounting fraud. The professions in which he finds significant turned violent. Occupy Oakland shut down the port and resulted in cheating include law, medicine, accounting, business, real estate, clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators in which some finance, politics, the media and education. Enron, Bernie Madoff, serious injuries occurred. Arthur Anderson and Eliot Spitzer are just a few of the names promi- Obviously the banking and financial practices of the past few years, nently associated with cheating scandals in recent years. ranging from rip-offs like Mr. Madoff’s to sub-prime mortgage lend- The effects of widespread cheating on the economy are to create ing resulting in widespread home foreclosures, are sparking concern an uneven playing field for citizens that disadvantages those who play among the American public.
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