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Richard Fuld Knew How To Do Everything But Survive
In what was clearly one of the most difficult operating environments in several years, Lehman Brothers posted significant year-over-year increases in the fourth quarter.
Richard Fuld, CEO, Lehman Brothers
Boston
The Affliction
The Affliction
Greed is not the same as affluence, for, as logician Jeff Slee reminds us, greed is wealth that is acquired when your money works for you, not you for it.
Greed is akin to alcoholism in the sense that it is a fundamental human weakness. Put someone in contact with the habituating agent and nature takes over.
The Affliction
Greed is not the same as affluence, for, as logician Jeff Slee reminds us, greed is wealth that is acquired when your money works for you, not you for it.
Greed is akin to alcoholism in the sense that it is a fundamental human weakness. Put someone in contact with the habituating agent and nature takes over.
The world has become infected with Greed’s Disease — a debilitating affliction adversely impacting societies, cultures and institutions worldwide. It is no less prevalent in communist countries than in capitalist. It has widely infected Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and even atheist nations. It is no less found in India than in Indiana.
The existence of such a disease might explain how the evolution of global markets and finance produced the conditions that enabled, or caused widespread failures of oversight, bank insolvencies, credit market seize-ups, and immense economic loss. Greed, and the self-correcting nature of markets were central to the now discredited economic theories of Milton Friedman as well as the foundation for the commercial rise of China.
Greed is not the same as affluence, for, as logician Jeff Slee reminds us, greed is wealth that is acquired when your money works for you, not you for it.
Some explanations suggest that greed is akin to alcoholism in the sense that it is a fundamental human weakness. Put someone in contact with the habituating agent and nature takes over. It’s an interesting theory to the degree it has the feeling of being a bit far-fetched while appearing to be both logical and reasonable.
Interesting theories they are. But none of them answered the quintessential question: Have such widespread behavioral infections had happened before? The answer was a qualified yes.
Nothing Stays The Same Forever
Palliatives like “You have to change to survive,” fail to recognize the invariant truth that change always comes with inherent risk, unintended consequences and temporal uncertainty.
Greed is far more widespread today that it was at any time in the last century. What’s changed is not our predisposition to greed, but our emerging acceptance of it as normal, or a good thing. It’s not greed that has changed, it’s our attitudes that have turned one of humankind’s evolutionary predispositions into a threat to peace and tranquility, if not survival.
Change is not always constructive, or permanent. From an historical perspective almost all the successful institutions, regimes and nations were built around an infectious idea, concept or doctrine. But the same was true for regimes, nations, concepts and ideas that failed. Infectious ideas come in a wide range of flavors and sizes — some work out, and some don’t.
Widespread changes in attitudes and behaviors have indeed happened before. Change is part of the human experience. While it is often evidence of our ability to learn, overcome obstacles, or make our lives better — there is nothing sacred or reliable about change. Change for the worse is at least as likely as change for the better. Palliatives like “You have to change to survive,” fail to recognize the invariant truth that change always comes with inherent risk, unintended consequences and temporal uncertainty.
It isn’t change that’s a problem in human activities, it’s the nature, quality and efficacy of change. While change for the good, or change for the bad both arise from experience, expanded insight, elevated wisdom, and/or infectious belief it’s not the source of the stimulus but the underlying logical foundation that determines the outcome.
Force Majeure
Humanity’s
Seven Deadly Sins
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Sloth
- Wrath
- Envy
- Pride
Viruses are a force majeure in nature, in the sense that they have the qualities of being acts of God that are immensely powerful and capable of causing massive destruction. How would you judge Christian notions about the seven deadly sins? Are they acts of God, or merely the failings of mortals? What are your thoughts on whether such matters are good, or bad, or both?
In general, society holds that the seven sins, including greed, are endemic to human nature. If that’s true, one might wonder how some people avoid some or all of these human failings, some, or all of the time, while others fall prey to all of them daily.
And what about today’s widespread greed? Is this the normal state of human affairs? And if so, why wasn’t massive widespread greed common 20, 30, 40, 50 or more years ago?
The historical record reflects times when greed rose to epidemic proportions — often in the late stages of an immensely successful and powerful society. The evidence raises the possibility that while greed is normal, widespread, institutional greed such as what exists today, has infectious qualities.
Greed As Affliction
Chances are you deal with business large and small who openly prey on their customers in pursuit of satisfying their greed. Then there’s politics — where money and greed seem the only measure of success. Fact is, greed is epidemic in the United States.
And what if there were such an infectious agent today? Would it be virus-like in the sense of being spread by some intermediary? What if, we wondered, the spreading belief that persons with MBA degrees were carriers? What if MBA programs, colleges of business, and higher education in general had become infectious sources of Greed’s Disease? How might one tell?
If that were the case, there would be evidence of Greed’s Disease in institutions, organizations and professions beyond business. Places with few, if any, business-trained workers. That exists today, for there is evidence of greed more or less everywhere today. For most people it may not rise to the excesses of bankers, tycoons, CEOs and financial services executives, but greed has become prevalent at nearly every level of society — worldwide.
Chances are you deal with business large and small who openly prey on their customers in pursuit of satisfying their greed. Then there’s politics — where money and greed seem the only measure of success. Fact is, greed is epidemic in the United States.
What about Britain? Has Greed’s Disease spread beyond American bankers, financiers and tycoons?
Indeed so, Tony Koorlander reports, insisting that there is still more to be learned from the British experience. Tony’s reports have documented how pervasively Greed’s Disease has spread to, and through British institutions, including, as was recently revealed, Parliament.
“Well, we assured our British colleague, the House of Lords is made up more or less entirely of the wealthy and the titled.”
“No, no, there’s far more than that,” Koorlander argued. “We’re having one helluva public outcry about the misdeeds of of Members of Parliament ( House Of Commons ) — whose arrogant members openly used the public treasury as personal piggy-banks.”
Widespread Infection
There is a direct comparison between what Tony Koorlander reported his Pillars To Pillocks article last month and what’s been going on in the U.S. Congress in recent years. In both cases, there is clear and convincing evidence that there’s a growing sense of entitlement in American politics. One that has given rise to excessive salaries and reprehensible behavior by everyone from clergy to corporate executives.
No part of society is immune, for Greed’s Disease appears to have infected labor unions, police and fire departments a fully as insurance, pharmaceuticals, finance, lawyering, athletics, schools, and even education — especially higher education.
Epidemic Proportions
Those who have followed Tony Koorlander’s insightful coverage of banking, finance, governance and political opportunism in Britain, well know that the problems of failed British institutions and governmental oversight are wide spread. Koorlander’s ongoing coverage of misdeeds by Lloyds, The Bank Of Scotland and London’s city-based financial services businesses, confirms that Wall Street was not alone in its speculative madness.
BBC-2: NewsNight
In a world where economic collapse and its causes are treated as if simple and unary, Koorlander describes British and European conditions as complex and desultory — every bit the same as the societal, cultural and educational failures that have plagued America. Britain and the United States may speak the same language but they are far from one another in more ways than they are close.
For nearly a year we have followed the very different coverage of the issues by the BBC ( NewsNight ) where Oliver James exclaimed, “What’s just happened … is as extreme as the end of the Soviet Union.” Compared to the far more vapid American news coverage of the issues, to favor storylines, personalities and talking heads, BBC’s Jeremy Paxman and David Dimbleby, have been far more willing to look into the underlying causes than their American counterparts.
Just last month, Tony emailed his American colleagues, saying, “Last night’s Question Time was a bit ruthless about the British American relationship. Michael Heseltine was – as ever – brutally honest about how he felt – having experienced years of IRA atrocities in Northern Ireland whilst the US Government stood by and allowed American fund raising exploits for the ‘freedom fighters’.”
BBC NewsNight Programme Segment
Get the Flash Player to see this content.U.K Airdate: February 11, 2009
Koorlander’s essay [ Democracy At The Brink ], assured Newsroom Magazine readers, that “… the earthquake which befell us just one year ago is neither the first nor the last.”
The point Tony Koorlander makes is that today’s worldwide economic affliction has the characteristics of an epidemic, not a single, isolated event. To make his point, Koorlander has suggested that there’s reason to believe most, if not all, aspects of western culture may be infected. What Koorlander wants us to consider is the possibility that there’s a long hidden and easily spread virus loose in western culture and institutions. One that could do immense harm.
We think he’s right.