In July of this year Goldman Sacs announced that it would be paying over five hundred million dollars SEC to settle an investigation alleging that Goldman defrauded and misled customers by marketing funds that it anticipated to collapse and little of the subprime mortgage crisis. Goldman intentionally marketed it’s Abacus fund which was comprised of contracts of bad mortgages to investors while having knowledge that the investment fund would collapse as a result of the projected rate of default on the mortgages.
Goldman Sacs purchased insurance against the Abacus fund in hopes that when the fund did fail they investment firm would recoup more capital on the insurance then what the fund was initially worth. From Goldman’s perspective their success depended on the demise of their clients investments; the more money that was invested in the fund from the clients the higher the insurance payout to the firm if and when it collapsed.
Goldman Sachs wasn’t the only corporation during the subprime mortgage to take advantage of other people’s misfortunes it was merely one of many that have gained billions of dollars by relying on the failure of others. In the housing market there was a large public outcry against the “misery profiteers” but the housing market isn’t the only sector affected by this form of profiteering. More and more companies are seeking ways to exploit the misfortune of other human beings and citizens.
It seems as if society has acquiesced to the fact that it is an accepted business practice for companies to profit from the downfall of the general public. There are even companies that have started to develop trading practices in life insurance policies. Companies purchase life insurance from elderly and ailing people at a discounted rate to collect the full amount of insurance policy when the policyholder dies. This type of profiteering from misery is becoming all the more common in today’s society with little objection from the public.
The professionalization of society has reached a point that there are arguably no sectors of business that are considered immoral to the general public. It is this form of degradation of society that makes human rights violations much easier to occur in a modern world because general public’s detach themselves from a moral mindset when it involves areas of business.
The concept of having life insurance is to ensure that those who care for you are taken care of after you pass away. Instead life insurance policies are now being used to benefit big businesses. A point of concern for the general public is that businesses may start targeting some of the elderly sellers of life-insurance policies because they are more vulnerable to being persuaded.
There was a time when there was no separation between the individual’s morality and what they did for living. In pursuit of money society has separated what we do for money and our morality but are we sacrificing just the notion that morality is attached to a profession or are we sacrificing our society’s morality as a whole?
By: Andre Philogene
Did you forget to mention the law makers, Judges and lawyers?
Who else profits more then peoples misery? … Weasels with a license to steal.