After being a business owner (on and off) for more than two decades, I'm really sad to report the continued decline in certain standards in America. Not product standards, not working standards, but the core ethical standards that we use to live our lives by.

It's been coming for a while, but now I see directly the decline that has happened over the years rolling into one big mess.  From firing long term employees without thinking about the knowledge they will be taking out the door, to jacking up credit card rates before a new law comes into effect, it's not the same old America I once thought it was.

Case 1:  Corporation XYZ has employees that have worked there for decades, instead of leveraging that knowledge those employees have and working to redirect that knowledge to another, they instead pull the trigger and fire them based on "non acceptable level of performance".  Now that is not what the employee is told, no, the employee is told their job was being phased out due to reorganization or restructuring.  When the employee leaves, then it's announced by the top level that those individuals were "hiding and not doing their jobs", "You can't hide anymore, cause we will find you." is announced on the weekly corporate call.

What is wrong with this scenario? 

1.  Corporation XYZ just lost two decades of knowledge on how the legacy systems (still in place today) were run and how to connect the dots to fix it in a timely manner while transitioning to another enterprise system.

2.  They don't officially announce the reorganization or the firing, leaving all surrounding teams to question, "Who will be next" and creating a culture of fear throughout the organization.

3.  The top level of management that is making the changes is so far removed (physically, mentally, and emotionally) from the actual demographic that complete the work and buy the products that it's only a matter of time before they kill the very system that allowed them to have jobs at the top to begin with.

Case 2:  Corporation XYZ (plus Worldwide Pants - David Letterman Show) has a top-level employee who decides to bed a subordinate. (I know, I know - this next part could be a female-male tale or a male-male tale etc.) Whatever the reason, this man can’t keep it in his pants when he’s around a pretty younger gal who works under him.  So he decides she needs to work under him in the real sense of that definition.  It’s a mutual thing, except for the creepy underlying pressure that is present making this “relationship” anything but.

What is wrong with this scenario? 

1.     Even if the company states they have no policy against staff dating like Worldwide Pants has stated, you still have a person with the power to fire someone sleeping with that person.  It’s not only wrong for a person in the position of power it’s creepy too.

2.     This is the Enron mentality that got us so far in moral and financial debt that we still have not recovered as a society. "The only reality that matters is the one we create."

3.     What happens when that person at the top has to fire the person they are sleeping with?  Guess what?  They screw it up, not intentionally but with the lack of ethics involved it would naturally open up the company to a lawsuit. So the fired person threatens a lawsuit (cause that is all that really needs to be done at that point), the company would now have to find a “tenured” position for that “fired” person that removes them from the prior position.  You now have an employee who was not effective being promoted to a new position for life.  Really gives meaning to that phrase, “F*&^ Up – Move Up”.

Case 3:  As a business owner, I’ve had various credit cards for my business over the years.  One I had for over 12 years until last year when they raised my interest rate from 9% to 31.1% in the span of one month.  No, I was not late and no, I had not missed a payment in over a decade of being their client.  When I called and asked why, I was told that the rate was based on the assumption that more business owners would be defaulting on their balances and they felt the need to readjust all business owners’ cards. 

What did I do?  I closed the card and paid off the balance in one week.  Then I went to Rip off report where I saw thousands of complaints against the banking company.  I was pissed and angry and yet even with thousands of other business owners, in the same situation, I could do nothing but walk away.

Now, I see that the credit card companies are doing it again.  Chase Bank is raising rates on people who are current and working to pay off their balances before a new consumer credit protection law goes into effect.  The new law goes into effect in February unless Congress can get it moved to December, which is highly unlikely. 

You can read more details here:  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/09/credit.card.outrage/index.html 

What is wrong with this scenario? 

1.     Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries.  What power or change does a society have when corporations are running more than half of the economies?

2.     How are the many that make up the base for these companies, meant to survive?  I would have added prosper but don’t believe it can be anything more than survival in today’s corporate driven world.  At what point does it all tumble down and the madness is driven into such a bright spotlight that we mandate change?

Let me know your thoughts, I can’t be the only one out there seeing this.