In the world of the obvious, Gary Weiss at Salon writes about how the Enron case didn’t and won’t alter the behavior of executives inclined to commit corporate crime. My response on Salon was as follows:
… But a lot of this seems, frankly, OBVIOUS. There is little incentive not to commit crime when you are an executive. And the problem is not the executives, but that the crimes committed have little penalties, and would willing be committed by someone else. In economic terms, there is too much opportunity cost (read: money), to not commit a crime that is at best lightly punished.
I don’t want to condone any behavior, but regardless, you cannot expect much out of people who have gained their positions with a combination of intelligence and greed.