Monish,
Thank you for not calling me names. And thanks for giving me the opportunity to just talk about this.
First, I agree that 3rd world farmers will have difficulty competing with American farmers. I think it is ridiculous the way the US government subsidizes farmers in this county. I recently read (sorry I can't back it up with the source and I'm at work so I don't have the time to do the research now) that Ted Turner and Scottie Pippen (a billionaire businessman and a millionaire basketball player) were two of the largest welfare collectors in Montana or Wyoming or one of the other big states in Western US because of their ranches. Obscene!
However, I do not understand why there would be no penalty for Enron for bribing government officials in India. The US government is fairly corrupt, but we do sometimes get around to finining/etc. businesses that do stuff like that. If the folks at Enron really thought that they would have to worry about the government of India caring about things like that, maybe that would change the way they do business. I'm not sure that it is reasonable for anyone to expect the rest of the world to keep unethical businesses away from the easily corruptible. Here in the US, we are fairly busy keeping (or trying, anyway) unethical businesses away from our own politicians, without much success.
As for my suggestions to Ms. Roy, I wasn't suggesting that she be arresting people, but she appears to have done some investigating into what is at least unethical behavior, and what it appears that she is charging as illegal. However, her outrage seems pointed at a US government official, who she has no problem naming, who went to work for Enron. In her investigations, was she able to find the names of any of the people who were 'educated' by Enron? Were there any consequences for those people? Or is the only solution to this problem for the US gov to change its domestic farm policies?
You are right, shareholders of Enron might have been able to do something about this by trying to prevent their company from bribing all those Indian officials. But there are lots of companies in the world. What seems more reasonable and would provide more benefit in the long run: constantly police the ethics of every company in the world or set up a stable, democratic system that follows the rule of law and has an independent press the helps police such things? Just asking. (if someone figures out how to perform the latter, please come to the US and help us figure it out as well)
Regards,
Chris |
