Monday, January 23, 2012

An encouraging sign

What with depressing things to consider like the 39th anniversary of Roe V. Wade and a repeat philanderer winning the South Carolina primary, it's good to think of something positive.

For example, I had a very encouraging talk with one of my coworkers, who was truly disturbed over some things being done where I work--we had a fun chat about the difference between legal, ethical, and moral.  Lots of things that are legal, and some that are even OK according to business ethics, are yet not moral.

An example--not from my company but from my investment company.  Looking at some of the directors of my mutual funds.  Apparently, some of them are providing tons of guidance to no less than 153 mutual funds, while finding time to be an executive, professor, and so on.  Now don't get me wrong, but if I remember typical fees for directing a company or mutual fund properly--$10k and up--and calculating the actual amount of time they'd have to devote to this enterprise--less than a day per mutual fund if they're really putting in the hours.  Good work if you can get it, I guess, but can we really say that they're likely to be adding anything significant to this enterprise?

Legal?  Yup?  Passes business ethics?  Of course.  Moral?  I'm thinking "no."  More like "discreet payback to college frat buddies."

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