by Cinda Smaagaard

Created on: August 15, 2009

One of the most distinctive characteristics of our modern age is that just about anything and anyone can be bought or bribed. Rationalization and justification for one's behavior have been elevated to an art form in this uncertain economy. Somewhere along the way children who were paid for cheating on grades went on to become employees who lie and "cook the books." Those who held the purse-strings like parents and bankers and lending agencies rewarded all this bad behavior too which has culminated in our modern culture which now makes immediate reward and remuneration more important than personal responsibility, standards and morality.

Can ethics overcome greed in the 21st century? Yes, but only if companies continue to promote people of moral character to supervise and hold their business and people to higher standards. This may not happen any time soon if bonuses and financial security are made more important than anything else in life. We are seeing just a taste of this in the socialized medicine town hall debates. It is easy to understand why it seems everyone can be bought or bribed. If they do not have any kind of personal investment in you and yours, why not take whatever handout the highest bidder is offering? Insurance companies, employers and even state officials with tight budgets have yet to weigh-in on the cost/ratio factors when it comes to expensive health care. Here are a few reasons why money should not always be the most important element to how we live our lives - how about integrity, character, responsibility, legality, fairness and conscience (if a person by the grace of God still has one)?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wishing to advance oneself financially, but trouble starts to brew when ideas or products or information are stolen or worse services become inferior - intentionally. Ecoli showing up in peanut butter is one thing, but when people knowingly and with malicious intent provide a product or service they know will harm others in advance, for example a dirty factory or false information, they have crossed the line into making a profit at any cost. They have sold their very soul to make a buck or maybe just to get revenge against a successful and honest competitor.

It is hard to understand why someone would purposely falsify information or withhold evidence or take away what little livelihood another has for one's own enrichment, especially when they know it is wrong. When trust breaks down most systems

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