Financial Crime and Corruption by Samuel Vaknin

9. The quality of one's work, and of services and products

254 words  |  Chapter 27

one consumed, used to be guaranteed. One's personal idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, and problems were left at home. Work was sacred and one's sense of self-worth depended on the satisfaction of one's clients. You simply didn't let your personal life affect the standards of your output. This strict and useful separation vanished with the rise of the malignant-narcissistic variant of individualism. It led to the emergence of idiosyncratic and fragmented standards of quality. No one knows what to expect, when, and from whom. Transacting business has become a form of psychological warfare. The customer has to rely on the goodwill of suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers - and often finds himself at their whim and mercy. "The client is always right" has gone the way of the dodo. "It's my (the supplier's or provider's) way or the highway" rules supreme. This uncertainty is further exacerbated by the pandemic eruption of mental health disorders - 15% of the population are severely pathologized according to the latest studies. Antisocial behaviors - from outright crime to pernicious passive-aggressive sabotage - once rare in the workplace, are now abundant. The ethos of teamwork, tempered collectivism, and collaboration for the greater good is now derided or decried. Conflict on all levels has replaced negotiated compromise and has become the prevailing narrative. Litigiousness, vigilante justice, use of force, and "getting away with it" are now extolled. Yet, conflicts lead to the misallocation of economic resources. They are non- productive and not conducive to sustaining good relations between producer or provider and consumer.

Chapters

1. Chapter 1 2. 1997. The US Department of Justice brought another 30 3. 1989. Both events have forever altered the patterns of the 4. 1. Egregiously corrupt, high-profile, public figures, 5. 2. All international aid, credits, and investments must 6. 3. Corruption cannot be reduced only by punitive 7. 4. Opportunities to be corrupt should be minimized 8. 5. Corruption is a symptom of systemic institutional 9. 6. Corruption is a symptom of an all-pervasive sense 10. 1999. Its report remains classified but Stroev confirmed 11. 1995. PwC did make a mild comment in the 1997 audit. 12. introduction of best independent directors' practices". 13. 1989. Six years later, their number shrank to 1,612 and it 14. 2600. By 2002, it has increased elevenfold since 1995. 15. 2001. Nine of every 10 hijacked ships are ultimately 16. 4. NEVER expect ANY help from the Nigerian 17. 5. NEVER rely on YOUR Government to bail you 18. 1996. Iraqis are also being trained in Belarus to operate 19. 1. Job security is a thing of the past. Itinerancy in various 20. 2. Outsourcing and offshoring of back office (and, more 21. 3. The populace in developed countries are addicted to 22. 4. The other side of this dismal coin is workaholism - the 23. 5. The depersonalization of manufacturing - the 24. 6. Many former employees of mega-corporations abandon 25. 7. Despite decades of advanced notice, globalization 26. 8. The decline of the professional guilds on the one hand 27. 9. The quality of one's work, and of services and products 28. 10. Moral relativism is the mirror image of rampant 29. 11. The disintegration of the educational systems of the 30. 12. Irrational beliefs, pseudo-sciences, and the occult 31. 1. That the fair "value" of a share is closely 32. 2. That price movements are mostly random, though 33. 3. That the fair value responds to new information 34. introduction of a reciprocal visa regime between the two 35. 1. Legal activities that are not reported to the tax 36. 2. Illegal activities which, needless to say, are also 37. 1. How to make sure that the expenditures match and 38. 2. How to prevent the criminally corrupt activities 39. introduction of free marketry are unemployment and 40. 1. There should be no barriers to the entry of new 41. 2. A larger scale of operation does introduce 42. 3. Efficient competition does not exist when a market 43. 4. A competitive price will be comprised of a 44. 1. Blocking Statutes - which prohibit its legal entities 45. 2. Clawback Provisions - which will enable the local 46. 1. National laws should be applied to solve 47. 2. Parties, regardless of origin, should be treated as 48. 3. A minimum standard for national antitrust rules 49. 4. The establishment of an international authority to 50. 1. Agreements to fix prices (including export and 51. 3. Market or customer allocation (division) 52. 5. Collective action to enforce arrangements, e.g., by 53. 6. Concerted refusal to sell to potential importers; 54. 7. Collective denial of access to an arrangement, or 55. introduction of new management techniques (example: 56. 1. They attack the perceived source of frustration in 57. 2. They seek to subsume the object of envy by 58. 3. They resort to self-deprecation. They idealize the 59. 4. They experience cognitive dissonance. These 60. 5. They avoid the envied person and thus the 61. 2. It is impossible for two players to improve the 62. 3. Is not influenced by the introduction of irrelevant 63. 4. Is symmetric (reversing the roles of the players 64. 1. Crooks and other illegal operators. These take 65. 2. Illegitimate operators include those treading the 66. 3. The "not serious" operators. These are people too 67. 4. The former kind of operators obviously has a 68. 5. Speculators and middlemen are yet another 69. 6. The last type of market impeders is well known 70. 1995. But the phenomenon recurred in Kosovo. 71. 1. What part of the NGO's budget is spent on salaries and 72. 2. Which part of the budget is spent on furthering the aims 73. 3. What portion of the NGOs resources is allocated to 74. 4. What part of the budget is contributed by governments, 75. 5. What do the alleged beneficiaries of the NGO's 76. 6. How many of the NGO's operatives are in the field, 77. 7. Does the NGO own or run commercial enterprises? If it 78. 1. The process and rules of joining up (i.e., the 79. 2. The application and membership procedures are 80. 3. The system alters its membership requirements in

Reading Tips

Use arrow keys to navigate

Press 'N' for next chapter

Press 'P' for previous chapter