

The Real Roots of the Crisis - carterac
http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/02/the_real_roots_of_the_crisis.html

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Judson
While the story is true to some degree that "We didn't care", I think it all
ties back to government agencies that allow businesses to operate on a very
risk tolerant threshold; More than the free market would have allowed.

Take for instance, the FDIC, which allowed banks to only hold some kind of
ridiculous percentage, say 10%, of all demand deposits, and the fee the FDIC
charged to "insure" banks holdings was very small. There is not an insurance
company in the world that would allow anyone to lend out 90% of their money
stock and insure it all for almost nothing.

The government sets up safety nets which _allow_ people, who are inherently
risk conscious, to stop caring about risk.

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carterac
It is interesting though how much he emphasizes culture. I think that today we
are seeing more and more large companies take such a primary focus on it. For
Zappos it is their priority. Google is also very notable for this.

It used to be all gesture with out real motion. Think Enron with values like
"Integrity" chiseled into marble in their main lobby.

This is something I am very excited about for our future. More thoughtfulness
around company culture.

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jmount
The louder the noise the more they have to hide. Check out the beautiful Enron
code of ethics: <http://www.thesmokinggun.com/enron/enronethics1.html> .

