The Ethical Barometer

Not bad work if you can get it.  Iowa Central Community College President Robert Paxton, whose photo-op moment with a beer keg and a bikini-clad young woman (original story featured at The Ethical Barometer on August 27, 2008) caused a firestorm of controversy, tendered his resignation and received a $400,000 compensation package from the Board of Trustees.  Trustee Larry Hecht came around to the Barometer’s view: “I guess what you do in your personal life does affect the public’s perception of what you do on the job.”  That’s tough talk.  It is newfound toughness.  The board took no disciplinary action against Mr. Paxton in 2002 despite his indictment for tampering with student-athletes’ grade transcripts. Continue reading →

Sometimes even the good are punished.  The fallout from the subprime mortgage market has hit the regional banks, even those banks that avoided the subprime mess.  For example, Zions Bancorp, headquartered in Salt Lake City, didn’t touch the subprime market with a ten-meter cattle prod.  And its loan loss rate is just 0.59% (the five largest banks have an average loss rate of 1.48%).  Yet, Zions has taken a hit to its stock price.  At one point, its stock was down 60%.  One analyst noted, “They’ve been dragged down by a function of what’s going on in their markets.”  This unjust systemic ripple is yet another reason for thinking through the consequences of actions that, while legal, raise ethical questions.  What is permissible is not necessarily prudent.  What you could do does not mean you should do it.  Your actions bring down those who made prudence their guiding light.  But, there is good news despite the beating Zions has taken for something it did not do. Continue reading →

Now that’s a clump of words I never thought I would be writing.  But, Robert Paxton, 52, president of Iowa Central Community College, had a rollicking time on a Fourth of July boating outing on West Okojobi Lake.  He was photographed holding a keg over the mouth of a bikini-clad young woman (young is the operative word) as another in the photograph is shown dispensing vodka in similar fashion.  So many lessons, such limited space.  Let’s take it one fallacy at a time.  President Paxton explained, “It’s my own private life.”  Ah, the justifications of the morally schizophrenic.  The theory that we can frolic with those less than half our age as alcohol flows but still possess the judgment and leadership it takes to run an institution of higher ed is claptrap.  Bad judgment is bad judgment. Continue reading →

The FBI served search warrants on City of Angels Medical Center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center as part of a Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud investigation.  A lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles against the hospitals alleges that the hospitals recruited homeless souls, including drug addicts and the mentally ill, from Skid Row as patients.  The hospitals are then alleged to have billed government programs for phony care for these folks.  Indeed, one operator of a Skid Row health center is alleged to have accepted $20,000 per month in kickbacks for the Skid Row referrals.  “Human pawns” is the term the lawsuit uses in describing the use of the homeless in the scam. In exchange, the homeless received food, cigarettes, and cash for their round trips to the hospitals. Continue reading →