The recent scandals at Barclays Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other banks might give the impression that the financial sector has some serious morality problems. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that: We are dealing with a drop in ethical standards throughout the business world, and our graduate schools are partly to blame.
Analyzing one of American corporate history’s greatest mysteries—the lost decade of Microsoft—two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.’s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success.”
Our romance with capitalism is a Faustian bargain, but two critiq:ues warn that giving free rein to markets comes at the cost of giving up a part of our soul
Martin Sandbu reviews:
What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael Sandel, Allen Lane /Farrar, Straus and Giroux
How Much is Enough? The Love of Money, and the Case for the Good Life, by Robert and Edward Skidelsky, Allen Lane
Opening paragraph:
Is it one minute to midnight in Europe?
We fear that the German government’s policy of doing “too little too late” risks a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid-20th century that European integration was designed to avoid.
John Maynard Keynes’s generation of economists assumed that as people became more efficient at satisfying their wants, they would, and should as rational agents, work less and enjoy life more. Yet power relationships and the insatiability of human wants are such that we have maintained an ethic of acquisitiveness.
On Saturday, famed hedge fund billionaire and economic theorist George Soros gave a speech in Trento, Italy before the Festival of Economics about the European financial crisis. It's quite long, but still well worth reading because his understanding of Europe's problems is clear and deep. You can find it on his site GeorgeSoros.com.
Nike's uber-hyped Air Yeezy II is finally coming out next week (June 9th, to be exact).
The Kanye West-designed sneaker is the most anticipated shoe ever.
Located close to Silicon Valley, Blueseed aims to be the first offshore floating startup community for firms whose employees do not have US work permits.
With plans to launch between the third quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, Blueseed will consist of a large vessel located 12 nautical miles from the coast of California, in non-territorial waters.
It's not completely clear how the fire started, but most historical accounts hold that burning trash in a landfill near an abandoned strip mine ignited an exposed coal vein. The fire spread throughout a labyrinth of coal mines beneath the town, creating a giant underground inferno.
That was 50 years ago today.
Half a century later, Centralia, Pennsylvania still burns.
Value is the only commonality in an increasingly complex, challenging and interdependent world.
Laurance Allen: Editor + Publisher
