Ethics in Financial Management - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... In the article discussed in this paper we see how a person in power takes advantage of his position for personal gain.
Henry M. Paulson was the Treasury secretary during the Bush Administration. He was also a major shareholder of Goldman Sachs. Mr. Paulson wanted to make it seem as if his ethical standards were implacable. He sold all his shares of Goldman Sachs and vowed not to get involved in any issues associated with the investment banking sector since he had many friends and colleagues in the industry. Getting involved in issues associated with the investment banking sector would constitute a conflict of interest ethical violation. A conflict of interest occurs when a person has a conflict between his private interest and the individual public obligations (Answers, 2009). The Treasury secretary was in the middle of the entire bailout package scandal. When the government allocated $85 million dollar of the bailout money to the American International Group (AIG), Mr. Paulson’s former employer, Goldman Sachs, received millions of dollars in debt collection from AIG as a consequence of the bailout package deal.
Even though Henry Paulson claims he did nothing wrong and that his actions were not unethical in any way because he was simply doing his job as secretary of treasury, many Wall Street experts believed Goldman Sachs received preferential treatment during the entire process. During the AIG bailout package took place Mr. Paulson spoke the CEO of Goldman Sachs over two dozen times (Morgenson & Van Natta, 2009). The amount of phone calls exceeds by a lot the conversations the governmental official had with any other Wall Street executive. Mr. Paulson claimed he received an ethics waiver. To me this waiver seems like a cheap excuse because the treasury secretary’s actions were clearly an ethical violation since his former employer was receiving preferential ...Download file to see next pagesRead More