Many Wall Street executives says wrongdoing is necessary | Hacker News Reader

Many Wall Street executives says wrongdoing is necessary

reuters.com

21 pointsrayiner5 comments

There's some badly defined stats here, with no info on overlaps between the various groups. But anyway, so what? even nailing these figures down a bit, would they compare less favourably with any other industry? I doubt it: every business I've ever been involved with or studied has benefitted from tactics or stratgegy ranging from underhand to downright illegal.

I'd be very surprised if a quarter of academics believed that falsifying results or plagiarism were key to success in research. Perhaps this is only because fraudulent research is so likely to be discovered and virtually guaranteed to end careers. Still, this shows that a higher standard exists in other fields.

Perhaps it's time that we, as a society, demanded greater accountability from the financial sector. Perhaps those found guilty of insider trading, etc. should be banned from work in finance for life.

I think you're right regarding research related academics, but then if you get into the degree machines aka universities these statistics would probably hold true… I remember hearing direct from professors how it was necessary and just part of the program.

Depressing but true.

by "industry" I meant commercial ventures, not academic research. But now that you mention it research funded by commercial enterprises tends to be very biased in favour of the enterprises' interests - which i think further strengthens my original thesis above.

I think thing missing from this is a perspective on whether the respondents are happy with this situation, or feel that they are/would be "forced" to commit wrongdoing--to keep up with everyone else's wrongdoing.

This distinction matters because if it is the latter, then it should be possible to take steps to change the culture to something that is more sustainable and self-policing. Most people want to do the right thing, and they just need to feel supported in doing so. This is the essence of "nation building" like what the U.S. is trying to do in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But if 25% of Wall St. executives are happy committing wrongdoing, then a much more aggressive and intrusive level of ongoing enforcement will be needed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com