The attempt to find a good working relationship between morality (in one arena) and amorality (in another) – is foolishness.
Ross Perot famously said he couldn’t trust Bill Clinton because Hillary couldn’t.
Those who dream about the existence of a world where economic morality reigns peacefully right alongside sexual amorality – are the opposite of “enlightened.”
From Dr. George Friedman – “on a crisis in global economy”:
“I’ll put it this way: this is a crisis in virtue — in the virtue of the political leadership, in the virtue of the financial leaders. There’s expected to be a certain degree of self-restraint and moral probity. You can’t substitute regulations for that, and you can’t worry about whether or not they’re going to be enforced in the future. The heart of the matter is that the integrity, the intelligence, the morality of these elites, have now been called into question.
Empirically because of their failure to operate, but also the way they operated. No one at this point is certain that they can resurrect themselves or have new leadership enforced, and this is leading to a deep moral crisis.
But it’s not just confined to England, it’s not confined to Europe, it’s not confined to the United States. It’s not even most deeply felt in the United States. It’s in China as well, and in other countries. The issue is: who are these people who are running things, what gives them the right to do so, and if that right does not somehow flow from competence, what does it flow from?
So we have a crisis I think, not in corruption, but of sheer incompetence and indifference to incompetence, and that is something that is not necessarily unmanageable, but it’s certainly not a question of getting better regulations.”
