What's ailing this world? Are we drowning? Just 2 examples...

The Barclays LIBOR-rigging scandal

They say life often imitates art. So let's flashback to the 1987 movie Wall Street and the Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) character's famous quote, "Greed is good"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muz1OcEzJOs

Now digest this analysis by John Kay, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, on what's ailing the banking industry, the Barclays scandal being just one, if an extreme, example. Headlined " 'Not on my watch': A rule that applies to banks, too", this commentary is available in TODAY (5 July):

http://www.todayonline.com/CommentaryandAnalysis/Commentary/EDC120705-0000026/Not-on-my-watch--A-rule-that-applies-to-banks,-too

Here is an extract (with emphases added):

Las Vegas and Macau may be the glitziest gaming resorts but the destination of serious gamblers today is London, where margins are slim but profits high and tables famously honest.

One of the rules that keeps them [ie London's casinos] that way is strict separation between the house and the punters: The bank's interests are differentiated from and disclosed to the players.

Another is that senior management and the company are unequivocally responsible for the behaviour of their employees. Of course, any large organisation will sometimes make a hiring mistake and rectify it quickly...

The navy operates on a principle of strict liability in which the captain is accountable for everything on his ship, whether he knew about it or not, and, therefore, tries to know as much as possible.

London casinos are required to operate in a similar way.

Managers and politicians prefer to follow the maxim of poet TS Eliot's cat: "When they reach the scene of crime, Macavity's not there."

On that maxim, an officer is responsible only for things of which he can be shown to have direct personal knowledge: His incentive is, therefore, to have formal knowledge of as little as possible.

That defines the difference between the culture of the tight ship and the chaos of the school playground, which echoes with the cry of "it wasn't me!"

These contrasting concepts of management responsibility have profound effects.

There is a world of difference between an organisation in which you are rewarded for telling management what it needs to know and one in which you are punished for telling management what it does not wish to hear.

Casinos attract greedy people with deficient ethics: The fear this engenders frames regulation, the obligations we impose on executives and the culture we expect from operating companies. Perhaps banks should operate to standards as high as those of casinos.

There are two main arguments for splitting the utility of retail banking from the trading casino. One is to stop croupiers gambling with house money; the other is the incompatibility of trading and banking cultures.

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Amazing but true... lifeguard fired after saving drowning man!

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/weird/lifeguard-in-florida-fired-after-saving-drowning-man-2