True, But pointing out problems, Does not mean we have the answers.
Perhaps you have an answer ?

I'm still not understanding your point, but what happened in the Enron scandal was certainly illegal. Many of the execs went to prison. That happens when they do something illegal, not something legal but immoral.

Whose morality? Is it immoral to sell a product that kills people? Is it immoral to allow people to gamble? Is options trading gambling or is it an effective tool to facilitate market clearing and risk reduction? Is promoting ritualistic cannibalism or mutilation of infant boys immoral?

I just don't think you can appeal to morality to restrict what corporations or groups do. You've just got to enforce transparency and let their members/customers decide what they will tolerate.

Jim Gilmore's morality. As I understood his post, he's claiming Enron was legal but immoral.

Except that Enron execs were convicted of fraud, ie lying about their actual actions via complicated accounting manuvers and illegal loans.

Basically, enron was being loaned money by citigroup, except they reported the loan as operating income. If they had been completely transparent with the public, no crime would have been committed.

I'm not defending Enron!

But in general I think one major problem with regulating anything is that some people will use the rules as a roadmap to doing bad things. They will stay within the law/rules yet still find a way to rip people off. Much of what Enron did was legal (the off balance sheet stuff) yet was clearly designed to deceive. While their executives deserved the jail time they got, investors partly deserved what they got. It did not take much to figure out that it was a house of cards.

I guess Enron wasn't too big to fail.

As I said Enron was not convicted for what they were doing...
As far as shutting down powerplants during peak need in Ca and buying electricity from their other out of state plants at much higher rates...they were found guilty and convicted on different things.
As far as making great rates from the public it was legal though immoral...

And as DH asked, whose morality?

How do we set up a "moral" system when morality is defined differently person by person.

I think morality is too personal to apply to a whole society. I think telling someone else what to believe is inherently immoral. In my opinion one must think for themselves and exercise good judgement in order to be moral. That means anytime you do something just because someone else tells you it is the moral thing you are not being moral. You are just following someone else's bidding.

Wait, what was the question again? All this fuzzy, philosophical stuff is making my brain hurt.

My guess is the taxpayers will write them a huge bailout check, their previous ownership will be wiped out, their creditors will receive pennies on the dollar, and their employee union will be given ownership of a big chunk of the reconstituted company.

Theoretically.


You know that was a fictional story, right?

Neither of your examples (the movie nor Enron) qualifies as an "immoral but legal event".


You might want to read up a bit on what actually caused the failure of Enron.


If the laws weren't intended for that purpose, then that purpose would have been expressly prohibited in the mortgage contract.

As long as banks are too big to fail, and the taxpayers still backstop the mortgage industry, there's no motivation for the industry to concern themselves with that non-payment end result, so it will likely continue. Eventually, though, I suspect those backstops will come to an end. When they do, lenders will be much more careful about who they lend to, and will take far more steps to protect themselves when they do, which probably means it will be much more expensive to take on a mortgage when you do, and you'll probably be held accountable for not complying with the terms.

And that is the way it should be.

+1

-1. I want a handout. Everyone else gets one. Why should I be penalized for working hard, educating myself, and saving? Yep, let's just vote to give ourselves everything we want and let someone else pay. Wait, we've already done that.

:)

Reminds me of this:

I would source the quote, but my brief search indicated that the actual source is not certain.