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Friday, October 10, 2008

Ethics and Economics Don't Mix?

I was watching Fox News this morning, and some poll numbers were displayed about which issues are apparently the most important to you and me in this presidential election year. Far and away, the economy finished on top at something like 46%, while ethics was at the bottom with 6% or 7%.

Now if I'm interpreting these statistics correctly, if a presidential candidate holds an economic policy that many or most Americans like, it doesn't really matter if that candidate has made certain decisions in his life that shed a questionable shadow on his ethical makeup.

"My 401(k) is going down the crapper," you say. "I don't care if candidate X knowingly got his political career launched by unrepentant domestic terrorists, or that he used to work for and has given large sums of money to an organization that has engaged in widespread voter fraud." "I like what candidate X has to say about protecting and increasing the size of my bank account, and I'm voting for him!"

You know, Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Anderson were once very successful multi-billion dollar corporations. It wasn't stupidity that brought these companies down.

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