SORRY STATE OF OUR BUSINESS CLIMATE

From the point of view of morality, a Master of Business Arts degree is the worst possible degree a person can obtain in higher education.  No one I know sets around their living rooms or in grades school classrooms and teaches children to be greedy. Yet, when these young children get to be college, it is OK to teach them how to maximize profits over everything else. To me, an MBA represents greed; it represents covetousness, acquisitiveness, and materialism of the worst kind.

Look at the mortgage driven fiscal crisis we have just gone through. There was a line of people, each person in turn being greedier than the next. The people who wrote the mortgage for people who they knew they could not afford them. It cost the people a lot of money, which they could not afford. The mortgage company packaged the bad mortgages and sold the bundled mortgages they knew were bad to a finance company. The finance company knew the mortgages were bad but used the excuse that a rating company, that new the bundled mortgages were bad rated them as AAA. People, involved in each step of this greatly simplified process made lots of money. They based their judgments on one thing—profit—individual greed without even an iota of remorse for the people they hurt. I call this MBA-ism.

I recall a story a successful businessman in Belize told me many years ago. It was story told to him by his immigrant father. A man went to a camel dealer and said that he was looking for a camel that could carry 300 pounds, last for one week in the desert without water, and did not kick, bite, or spit. Surprisingly, the dealer had exactly the camel that fit the buyer’s needs. They made the deal. Three days later the unhappy buyer showed up with the camel; it cannot carry but 100 pounds, it only lasted one day in the desert, and it kicks, bits, and spits . . . the deal quickly puts his finger up to his lips and said, “Shish, if you talk about your camel that way, no one will buy it. The camel dealer just gave his costumer a lesson in the “art of business”. Why do we have to live this way in a civilized society?

My mother taught me always to tell the truth and my father told me that if a man cannot look you in the eye and close a deal with a handshake, a written contract has no meaning. The “golden rule” of business is buyer beware.  What this means is that we walk around not trusting anyone. Do not believe anything anyone tells you. I am tired of living like that. I am tired of U.S. society the way it is. Let’s start to change it by following my new golden rule; if you are dealing with an MBA . . . don’t.