There’s Gambling Going On Here

It amazes me how many pieces have been written over the last couple of months in which the author or the subject relays some epiphany they’ve had about the economy. Pick up today’s Times and read the business section and you’ll see what I mean.  Actually, most of these great insights aren’t about the economy at all. They’re really about horrible business practices and how the current situation stems from them. I think one can pretty much sum them all up as follows:

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.

I don’t mean to be holier than thou, but COME ON!  If you are running a business you know from where the money comes.  If it’s atrociously bad business practices that are resulting in this income, one of two things is true.  Either you didn’t really know the practices are bad and you’re an idiot or you did know and you were greedy enough to ignore it.  Either way, you’re a failure as a business person and, many would argue, as a human being given all the fallout from your decisions.

Here is my very simple plan to fix all this.  First, if you’re in charge you MUST take responsibility.  No more “mistakes were made”.  It needs to be “I screwed up.”  Second, you need to run your business with an eye towards your tombstone.  If everything that occurred on your watch was public and there forever for all to see, what would you do differently?  If it said, on the tombstone of someone doing the horrible mortgage things, “he knowingly encouraged people to borrow money they couldn’t afford to pay back so he could enrich himself” I think maybe we’d be in a different place.

There was gambling going on all right.  The gamblers knew.  The cops knew.  The people running the casino knew.  It seems only those of us whose money was on the table didn’t.