ANOTHER FARCE

After the last round of business scandals (Enron, etc.), people were asking if business schools can successfully teach ethics:

Can Integrity Be Taught?
Penelope Patsuris, 10.04.02, 8:00 AM ET
Forbes Magazine

NEW YORK - Ex-Veritas Software CFO Kenneth Lonchar may not have had a master's in business administration from Stanford, but even if he did, it's doubtful that the program's required ethics course would have altered his deceitful ways. "

"A course on ethics is not like a polio vaccine," says Wharton School professor Tom Donaldson. "We can't inoculate students who have been inclined toward unethical behavior for the past 20 some odd years."

Now, the same question is being asked again:

Is It Time to Retrain B-Schools?
By KELLEY HOLLAND
Published: March 14, 2009
NY Times

JOHN Thain has one. So do Richard Fuld, Stanley O’Neal and Vikram Pandit.

But with the economy in disarray and so many financial firms in free fall, analysts, and even educators themselves, are wondering if the way business students are taught may have contributed to the most serious economic crisis in decades.

“There are extraordinary things taking place in business education, and a lot that is very promising,” said Judith F. Samuelson, executive director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute. “But what’s the central theorem of business education? It’s wanting.”

The real central theme is "Take the money and run" and that's not going to change because someone takes a course in ethics.