Month: October 2011

“An estimated 2,000 people have gathered in Lower Manhattan, New York, for the largest protest yet under the banner Occupy Wall Street.”-BBC

This headline caught my eye as I surfed the web without a particular thought in mind; no more than two paragraphs into the article, I found myself seething with frustration.

Demonstrators protested against “corporate greed, politics and inequality” by camping out in the financial district of New York City, most commonly known as Wall Street.

What gave these protesters the inclination to protest against corporate greed and inequality? These are citizens of a nation that has rigorously enforced commercial laws and a judicial system with unparalleled accessibility. As for the question of inequality; the protesters’ argument is that the wealthiest 25% of Americans posses 87% of American wealth, with the bottom 40% owning about 1%. However, the reality is that the 1% of wealth owned by the bottom 40% of Americans is still a princely sum when compared to most nations of Asia and Africa. Perhaps these protestors should keep this humbling fact in mind while attempting to provide their nations’ economy with a solution by shutting down its’ financial hub.

In the end my thoughts were best summarized by the words of Anthony D’Angelo, “Realize that if you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15143509

In my first blog, I analyzed an ethical diplomatic and economic dilemma; the Palestinian bid for U.N entry being blocked by Israel. This gave rise to a query in my mind as to why ethics and morality are so highly upheld in western society today. Indeed Machiavellianism in the context of business transactions is frowned upon, and business schools seem to trumpet the need to be socially responsible. However a school in Russia is doing exactly the opposite!

Enter the Moscow School of Management, branded by newspapers as a school of the darks arts, due to its unorthodox and unethical approach to MBA training.

Trainees are frequently sent into problematic regions to complete assignments that include having to deal with bribery and lack of property laws. When questioned of the wisdom of imparting such training, the dean of the university, Professor Vanhonacker, astutely replied “You will not learn anything about China or Russia looking out of the window of a five-star hotel”  

With such a realistic training process, it is not surprising that almost half of the schools’ alumni in the past 3 years have set up their own companies. It is clear to me that this school and its’ faculty are providing their students with the tools they need to achieve financial-if not moral sucess.