April 25, 2004

The dynamics today dictate that in order to reach the top, everything is permissible, including lying and cheating. Many opt for financial security over personal integrity

In the end, her best friend and neighbour betrayed her. Martha Stewart stood convicted. The billionairess who began business from her kitchen table, some 20 years ago, climbing to the top of the ladder as America’s domestic diva, cheated on her stocks only to save $50,000 on a tip from her broker and got slammed for insider trading. On June 17, she could well be heading to jail.

Daughter of Polish immigrants, Martha, 62, lived in hardship and deprivation while growing up. A strict disciplinarian, her father made Martha pull weeds out from their garden for three straight hours. The girl was no bigger than four years then. Hardened, ambitious and arrogant to the point of irritation, Martha matured into a coldly driven woman, madly in love with money.

When she got her hair poofed up (which often is the case), Martha Inc., her company, picked up the tabs; when she got her toenails polished, ditto, and wait, there’s more — the weekend chauffeur affixtured to give her rides charged $17,000 for his services that her company had to foot.

A real cheapstake then. But why?

She thought she could outsmart the world and save a few pennies. So when the federal prosecutors questioned her on insider trading, she lied, and for perjury there’s a price to pay — prison.

The IRS (Internal Revenue System) is another arm of the government that catches you if you have cheated on your taxes. Specially the nonentities of this country. When the dreaded tax deadline ended last week, George Bush had only declared earnings around $730,000 and was taxed to the tune of $200,000, while his VP Dick Cheney (the Haliburton heavyweight) and SLOTUS (Second Lady of the United States) said they had earned only $ 820,000 and got taxed a little more than Bush and Laura. Cool cats, both!

These two millionaires many times over have garaged their zillions in a trust for safekeeping. It will always remain there for them to dip into whenever they feel like. No sleepless nights for them. Thanks to their smart accountants and attorneys, both POTUS (President of the United States) and his Veep, will be laughing all the way to their banks while the ordinary Joe and Jane will forever be emptying out their pockets to the IRS.

We also have our leaders in Pakistan, the $20 income tax paying brand such as the Bhuttos, Legharis, Sharifs, feudal lords, fatcat industrialists and the uniform chaps who cheat on taxes brazenly, leaving a corrupt CBR (Central Board of Revenue) hungering for more.

How come the rich everywhere are allowed to get away cheap? In America, tax shelters and loopholes designed by sophisticated accountants deprive IRS from getting billions. In the ‘90s two-thirds of American corporations paid no income tax despite soaring profits. And in 2000, these filthy-rich companies paid only $14.75 for every $1,000 gross revenue!

So who makes up for this humongous loss? You guessed it right! The little guy on the street.

“There’s a moral decline,” says David Callahan in his book, The Cheating Culture. Today, cheating is not considered bad, just as sex, drugs and alcohol. It’s accepted and the author gives us three rationales for it: “The carrots are bigger, juicier and more tempting,” he says. The rewards for the ‘winners’, i.e. CEOs, big-time journalists, movie stars and sport heroes are touching the roof! Everybody wants to be a millionaire, no matter how crooked the method.

Winner take all ... that’s the current cult ... when the stakes are raised and big money is involved, cheating is the consequence. The dynamics today dictate that in order to reach the top, everything is permissible, including lying and cheating. Many opt for financial security over personal integrity.

Second: In today’s jaundiced economy, where people get laid off every day, “sticks are hitting a lot harder” says Callahan, “professionals who are not stars but considered average Joes continually live under the threat of being sacked, or their jobs going to someone in Bangalore.”

More than 90 per cent of college students admit that they would cheat to get a job, says Callahan. “With economic insecurity rife in today’s jobless recovery, and credentials determining compensation more than ever, resume padding may be accelerating. And in a nation that worships the super successful, even those who have already succeed burnish their CV to climb yet higher.”

“The world isn’t fair and sometimes to get where you want to go, you have to sacrifice some integrity,” says a student who cheated and fudged his grades to get admission to a top tier school. He did! The culture then indulges cheating, encouraging the young to become materialistic. In 1968, the number-one priority of college freshman was imbibing meaningful philosophy of life, but today it’s only making a lot of money.

Third: “The watchdogs are weak.” Cheaters can get away with millions because the government machinery is very poorly resourced, says Callahan. So much so that even the weakened intelligence agencies of America lowered their defences and got attacked by the 19 Arab hijackers, dislodging their national foundation forever. The FBI and CIA failed to connect the dots because the ‘dots’ were just a lot of chatter that their outdated and ill-equipped tools could not properly decipher, nor were the personnel (forbidden to share information with each other) motivated to move fast enough to have prevented 9/11.

Selling health insurance is the greatest fraud in America. People who pay hundreds of dollars as premium to their insurance companies are not protected against cheating, and get the rudest shock when their claims don’t get honoured. The government can do nothing.

Likewise, the Better Business Bureau, set up by the government to help people with their business queries, is unable to stop crooked business brokers from cheating their clients. The butt of jokes are the used car salesman! However, I have heard more horror stories of business brokers from immigrant families looking to buy small businesses like a launderette, a deli, a convenience store or a flower shop, who got ripped by this tribe.

And even those who were selling their businesses without the help of a middleman are anxious to sell their businesses by cheating on their taxes to show inflated earnings and profits for their business.

Almost all of them said that they preferred cash business and therefore their IRS tax returns did not reflect the actual earnings as they never showed it on paper. Their comment: “Why pay any money you don’t have to Uncle Sam” was always preceded by a wink.

I recently bought a cell phone from one of the kiosks run by an Indian in a shopping mall. He quoted a lower price than the market and as I took out my credit card to pay him, he asked for cash. He didn’t want Uncle Sam getting the sales tax, wanting to pocket it himself by asking less than the store next door, in the hope I’ll buy from him. Of course I did!

Even tandoori naan! A new Indian restaurant — they are stealthily spreading their wings in the suburbs — opened round the corner and offered to sell me a naan that originally costs $3 for $2, if I paid cash! Of course I did! I’d be a loser to have walked away from a delicious dinner!

Callahan warns of the return of the ‘survival of the fittest’ as seen in Social Darwinism, where society evolves toward increasing freedom for individuals and government intervention is minimal in social and political life.

Preaching that the weak and unfit deserve to fail and die, and that it’s morally right to jettison them, thinker Herbert Spencer, in the 19th century, advocated Social Darwinism, advocating that losers deserve their fate, winners take all.

Yikes! That sounds so heartless. But that is exactly what’s been happening in capitalist America since the Stars and Stripes were born, except cheating didn’t figure in the ‘survival of the fittest’ equation before.

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