The Ethical Barometer

Greg Akcelrod, the French soccer player who, through an exaggerated rèsumè quite nearly climbed to the top of Euro soccer.  Mr. Akcelrod has apologized “if I lied a little bit on my CV,” but rationalizes that he never took a single euro from anyone.  That’s the second rationalization — the first is that 99% rèsumè fraud.  The French have us beat on that — only 50% of us here in the states have the good sense to lie on our rèsumès.

Bill  Thomas, vice chair of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, to Robert J. Levin, former chief business officer of Fannie Mae, who said the decision to stop investing in low-income housing was above his pay grade.

Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, to Robert Rubin, former Chairman of the Board of Citigroup and former U.S. Treasury Secretary.  Indeed, Mr. Angelides, there should no such thing as a garden-variety board member.  That there were such complacent and complicit souls at that level was and is part of the problem.

MD Sass has a formula for investment that sprang from the ashes of the great salad oil scandal of 1963.  Mixed metaphors aside, Martin Sass was fooled by a New Jersey company that was storing vats full of water, not the soybean oil in which his firm was heavily invested.  But, cash, unlike revenues, is tough to fake.  So, Sass uses the following formula to evaluate companies: Continue reading →

Mark Hurd, CEO of Hewlett-Packard.  Mr. Hurd references sales ability.  The Barometer would prefer to think of “good” as goodness.  The Barometer hopes the sales folks are capable, competent, and good.  The first two do not always walk on the same side of the street with goodness. They must if Mr. Hurd is to accomplish his stated objective to Forbes:  Cleaning the clocks of IBM, Cisco, et al.