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Moral attitudes and business scruples

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xris
 
Reply Tue 28 Apr, 2009 12:26 pm
Moral attitudes and business scruples.The old westerns gave me view of America as a fair moderate community that valued ethics and moral standards in commerce.The banker who knew his farmer and would extend his credit knowing his friend would do his best to pay him his interest when things improved.
I have been sadly disappointed in American attitudes and the coldness of its response to it fellow citizens.A social attitude of the frontier soon made way to the harsh detached ways of the successful having no sympathy for the less fortunate.It results in views that i can not assimilate with and my socialist politics find Americans so very far from their proposed ethical intentions.
 
Elmud
 
Reply Tue 28 Apr, 2009 03:28 pm
@xris,
xris wrote:
Moral attitudes and business scruples.The old westerns gave me view of America as a fair moderate community that valued ethics and moral standards in commerce.The banker who knew his farmer and would extend his credit knowing his friend would do his best to pay him his interest when things improved.
I have been sadly disappointed in American attitudes and the coldness of its response to it fellow citizens.A social attitude of the frontier soon made way to the harsh detached ways of the successful having no sympathy for the less fortunate.It results in views that i can not assimilate with and my socialist politics find Americans so very far from their proposed ethical intentions.
I don't think , and this is just my perception, that some of us are willing to take too many risks these days. Maybe, for various reasons, we have lost confidence in each other. Maybe some have been burned too many times by taking risks. I guess in any business, you have to play the percentages. Maybe those days of investing in each other are over. I do see your point Xris. Thanks.
 
Aphoric
 
Reply Tue 28 Apr, 2009 04:06 pm
@xris,
we've gotten much too big and bureaucratic to bother with ethics and scruples. These days bankers aren't lending money to their good friend farmer John, they're lending it to consumer #8081398472457
 
Elmud
 
Reply Tue 28 Apr, 2009 05:10 pm
@Aphoric,
Aphoric wrote:
we've gotten much too big and bureaucratic to bother with ethics and scruples. These days bankers aren't lending money to their good friend farmer John, they're lending it to consumer #8081398472457

And consumer # so and so, must qualify. They qualify by having a good track record, collateral, and a realistic guaranty of a return. Its just business. Heard a fella I use to work for many years ago say this. "Nice guys and business are two different things."Hard pill to swallow, but, thats how it is.

---------- Post added at 07:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 PM ----------

Xris. I could not let this one go without asking you this question. If I were to ask you to borrow money, with the promise to pay you back in a certain amount of time, with interest, what reason would you have for "not" lending the money?
 
xris
 
Reply Wed 29 Apr, 2009 02:54 am
@Elmud,
Elmud wrote:
And consumer # so and so, must qualify. They qualify by having a good track record, collateral, and a realistic guaranty of a return. Its just business. Heard a fella I use to work for many years ago say this. "Nice guys and business are two different things."Hard pill to swallow, but, thats how it is.

---------- Post added at 07:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 PM ----------

Xris. I could not let this one go without asking you this question. If I were to ask you to borrow money, with the promise to pay you back in a certain amount of time, with interest, what reason would you have for "not" lending the money?
If i had a friend who by trust, i had lent money to and he came to me with a valid reason why he could not pay me.I would i hope to understand his predicament.
If i was a banker and i knew my client, i would not pull the rug from under his feet.That's what we see happening.Bankers created this problem but are not prepared to help those they damaged.
The only reason i would not lend new money would be because the plan he put in front of me did not add up.
 
Elmud
 
Reply Wed 29 Apr, 2009 03:34 pm
@xris,
xris wrote:

If i was a banker and i knew my client,
You would not lend the money because you do not know me Xris. We simply do not know each other. Credibility cannot be assumed anymore. It must be proven. Jmo.
 
xris
 
Reply Thu 30 Apr, 2009 02:46 am
@Elmud,
Elmud wrote:
You would not lend the money because you do not know me Xris. We simply do not know each other. Credibility cannot be assumed anymore. It must be proven. Jmo.
Bankers used to know their customers.I could recognise my bank manager and speak to him in the high street.Good businesses are going bust for lack of understanding.
 
Elmud
 
Reply Thu 30 Apr, 2009 04:01 pm
@xris,
xris wrote:
Bankers used to know their customers.I could recognise my bank manager and speak to him in the high street.Good businesses are going bust for lack of understanding.
Yeah. Bankruptcy laws don't help either.
 
Khethil
 
Reply Thu 30 Apr, 2009 05:36 pm
@xris,
xris wrote:
I have been sadly disappointed in American attitudes and the coldness of its response to it fellow citizens.A social attitude of the frontier soon made way to the harsh detached ways of the successful having no sympathy for the less fortunate.It results in views that i can not assimilate with and my socialist politics find Americans so very far from their proposed ethical intentions.


Absolutely, as are the verbalized -vs- real life ethics of most countries. But in terms of the country of which you speak, I think that most of this is due to our deification of the almighty dollar.[INDENT]Life revolves around it, our value system is entwined in it. We judge the 'success' and 'failure' of life around it. Add to this our pop culture with the TV-and-Internet couch potato syndrome and what you have are a bunch of separated, over consumerized people who live and die by their ability to consume things. In a depressed neighborhood I see king-cab after king-cab (30,000 Dollar-plus) roll down my street with fat, unhappy people complaining as they roll along to mcdonald's, their children left unattended at home.

For these people, their minds are as shut and locked as their doors. Fear and consumption our are watchwords; blame and consume are their battlecries. Then, these same people log on to forums like this and complain about 'whiners'.
[/INDENT]This "Shoot the Whiners"-attitude is - essentially - the end of human compassion.

But take heart, there is still that small town goodness - it's just not as widespread as it used to be. I obviously have issue with this 'dark side' of what we've become but I know - and happily see - the goodness that still exists amongst us. Besides, since when has any country's politician's been representative of the 'way things really are' in their country :p

Thanks (apologies for the rant - it's an axe of mine)
 
YumClock
 
Reply Fri 1 May, 2009 08:37 pm
@xris,
Seeing this as a "chicken and egg" kind of thing...
It would make sense that the consumer, i.e. the Farmer John, would be the one to start such a trend. If it is true that bankers used to be so personal in the past, it would seem that the need for all this security would only come from a breach in it, meaning that the company is not, in fact, the one who "started it."
And now, perhaps because the change in trust made higher profits (more clients seen instead of more happy clients), the companies kept doing it.
After all, they have a monopoly of the kindness; you can't go from one bad bank and expect to find a good one across the street.
 
xris
 
Reply Sat 2 May, 2009 04:04 am
@YumClock,
YumClock wrote:
Seeing this as a "chicken and egg" kind of thing...
It would make sense that the consumer, i.e. the Farmer John, would be the one to start such a trend. If it is true that bankers used to be so personal in the past, it would seem that the need for all this security would only come from a breach in it, meaning that the company is not, in fact, the one who "started it."
And now, perhaps because the change in trust made higher profits (more clients seen instead of more happy clients), the companies kept doing it.
After all, they have a monopoly of the kindness; you can't go from one bad bank and expect to find a good one across the street.
The concept of banking has changed and how it administers it business is not local but in some far away corporate office..It never considers the local knowledge or the unthinkable.
Profit for its own sake has become the motivation, not good sound banking practice.When you look at the city bankers who help drag down our banks, they had not got one degree in banking between them.Not one had any experience in banking practice,a practice that has been accumulated over centuries.Those real bankers who tried raising the alarm where sacked or moved.Its like removing all doctors from a hospital and replacing them with pilots.
 
 

 
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