Narcissists are driven by the need to uphold and maintain a false self – a concocted, grandiose, and demanding psychological construct typical of the narcissistic personality disorder. The false self is projected to the world in order to garner “narcissistic supply” – adulation, admiration, or even notoriety and infamy. Any kind of attention is usually deemed by narcissists to be preferable to obscurity.

The false self is suffused with fantasies of perfection, grandeur, brilliance, infallibility, immunity, significance, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. To be a narcissist is to be convinced of a great, inevitable personal destiny. The narcissist is preoccupied with ideal love, the construction of brilliant, revolutionary scientific theories, the composition or authoring or painting of the greatest work of art, the founding of a new school of thought, the attainment of fabulous wealth, the reshaping of a nation or a conglomerate, and so on. The narcissist never sets realistic goals to himself. He is forever preoccupied with fantasies of uniqueness, record breaking, or breathtaking achievements. His verbosity reflects this propensity.

Reality is, naturally, quite different and this gives rise to a “grandiosity gap”. The demands of the false self are never satisfied by the narcissist’s accomplishments, standing, wealth, clout, sexual prowess, or knowledge. The narcissist’s grandiosity and sense of entitlement are equally incommensurate with his achievements.

To bridge the grandiosity gap, the malignant (pathological) narcissist resorts to shortcuts. These very often lead to fraud.

The narcissist cares only about appearances. What matters to him are the facade of wealth and its attendant social status and narcissistic supply. Witness the travestied extravagance of Tyco’s Denis Kozlowski. Media attention only exacerbates the narcissist’s addiction and makes it incumbent on him to go to ever-wilder extremes to secure uninterrupted supply from this source.

The narcissist lacks empathy – the ability to put himself in other people’s shoes. He does not recognize boundaries – personal, corporate, or legal. Everything and everyone are to him mere instruments, extensions, objects unconditionally and uncomplainingly available in his pursuit of narcissistic gratification.

This makes the narcissist perniciously exploitative. He uses, abuses, devalues, and discards even his nearest and dearest in the most chilling manner. The narcissist is utility- driven, obsessed with his overwhelming need to reduce his anxiety and regulate his labile sense of self-worth by securing a constant supply of his drug – attention. American executives acted without compunction when they raided their employees’ pension funds – as did Robert Maxwell a generation earlier in Britain.

The narcissist is convinced of his superiority – cerebral or physical. To his mind, he is a Gulliver hamstrung by a horde of narrow-minded and envious Lilliputians. The dotcom “new economy” was infested with “visionaries” with a contemptuous attitude towards the mundane: profits, business cycles, conservative economists, doubtful journalists, and cautious analysts.

Yet, deep inside, the narcissist is painfully aware of his addiction to others – their attention, admiration, applause, and affirmation. He despises himself for being thus dependent. He hates people the same way a drug addict hates his pusher. He wishes to “put them in their place”, humiliate them, demonstrate to them how inadequate and imperfect they are in comparison to his regal self and how little he craves or needs them.

The narcissist regards himself as one would an expensive present, a gift to his company, to his family, to his neighbours, to his colleagues, to his country. This firm conviction of his inflated importance makes him feel entitled to special treatment, special favors, special outcomes, concessions, subservience, immediate gratification, obsequiousness, and lenience. It also makes him feel immune to mortal laws and somehow divinely protected and insulated from the inevitable consequences of his deeds and misdeeds.

The self-destructive narcissist plays the role of the “bad guy” (or “bad girl”). But even this is within the traditional social roles cartoonishly exaggerated by the narcissist to attract attention. Men are likely to emphasise intellect, power, aggression, money, or social status. Narcissistic women are likely to emphasise body, looks, charm, sexuality, feminine “traits”, homemaking, children and childrearing.

Punishing the wayward narcissist is a veritable catch-22.

A jail term is useless as a deterrent if it only serves to focus attention on the narcissist. Being infamous is second best to being famous – and far preferable to being ignored. The only way to effectively punish a narcissist is to withhold narcissistic supply from him and thus to prevent him from becoming a notorious celebrity.

Given a sufficient amount of media exposure, book contracts, talk shows, lectures, and public attention – the narcissist may even consider the whole grisly affair to be emotionally rewarding. To the narcissist, freedom, wealth, social status, family, vocation – are all means to an end. And the end is attention. If he can secure attention by being the big bad wolf – the narcissist unhesitatingly transforms himself into one. Lord Archer, for instance, seems to be positively basking in the media circus provoked by his prison diaries.

The narcissist does not victimise, plunder, terrorise and abuse others in a cold, calculating manner. He does so offhandedly, as a manifestation of his genuine character. To be truly “guilty” one needs to intend, to deliberate, to contemplate one’s choices and then to choose one’s acts. The narcissist does none of these.

Thus, punishment breeds in him surprise, hurt and seething anger. The narcissist is stunned by society’s insistence that he should be held accountable for his deeds and penalized accordingly. He feels wronged, baffled, injured, the victim of bias, discrimination and injustice. He rebels and rages.

Depending upon the pervasiveness of his magical thinking, the narcissist may feel besieged by overwhelming powers, forces cosmic and intrinsically ominous. He may develop compulsive rites to fend off this “bad”, unwarranted, persecutory influences.

The narcissist, very much the infantile outcome of stunted personal development, engages in magical thinking. He feels omnipotent, that there is nothing he couldn’t do or achieve if only he sets his mind to it. He feels omniscient – he rarely admits to ignorance and regards his intuitions and intellect as founts of objective data.

Thus, narcissists are haughtily convinced that introspection is a more important and more efficient (not to mention easier to accomplish) method of obtaining knowledge than the systematic study of outside sources of information in accordance with strict and tedious curricula. Narcissists are “inspired” and they despise hamstrung technocrats.

To some extent, they feel omnipresent because they are either famous or about to become famous or because their product is selling or is being manufactured globally. Deeply immersed in their delusions of grandeur, they firmly believe that their acts have – or will have – a great influence not only on their firm, but on their country, or even on Mankind. Having mastered the manipulation of their human environment – they are convinced that they will always “get away with it”. They develop hubris and a false sense of immunity.

Narcissistic immunity is the (erroneous) feeling, harboured by the narcissist, that he is impervious to the consequences of his actions, that he will never be effected by the results of his own decisions, opinions, beliefs, deeds and misdeeds, acts, inaction, or membership of certain groups, that he is above reproach and punishment, that, magically, he is protected and will miraculously be saved at the last moment. Hence the audacity, simplicity, and transparency of some of the fraud and corporate looting in the 1990’s. Narcissists rarely bother to cover their traces, so great is their disdain and conviction that they are above mortal laws and wherewithal.

What are the sources of this unrealistic appraisal of situations and events?

The false self is a childish response to abuse and trauma. Abuse is not limited to sexual molestation or beatings. Smothering, doting, pampering, over-indulgence, treating the child as an extension of the parent, not respecting the child’s boundaries, and burdening the child with excessive expectations are also forms of abuse.

The child reacts by constructing false self that is possessed of everything it needs in order to prevail: unlimited and instantaneously available Harry Potter-like powers and wisdom. The false self, this Superman, is indifferent to abuse and punishment. This way, the child’s true self is shielded from the toddler’s harsh reality.

This artificial, maladaptive separation between a vulnerable (but not punishable) true self and a punishable (but invulnerable) false self is an effective mechanism. It isolates the child from the unjust, capricious, emotionally dangerous world that he occupies. But, at the same time, it fosters in him a false sense of “nothing can happen to me, because I am not here, I am not available to be punished, hence I am immune to punishment”.

The comfort of false immunity is also yielded by the narcissist’s sense of entitlement. In his grandiose delusions, the narcissist is sui generis, a gift to humanity, a precious, fragile, object. Moreover, the narcissist is convinced both that this uniqueness is immediately discernible – and that it gives him special rights. The narcissist feels that he is protected by some cosmological law pertaining to “endangered species”.

He is convinced that his future contribution to others – his firm, his country, humanity – should and does exempt him from the mundane: daily chores, boring jobs, recurrent tasks, personal exertion, orderly investment of resources and efforts, laws and regulations, social conventions, and so on.

The narcissist is entitled to a “special treatment”: high living standards, constant and immediate catering to his needs, the eradication of any friction with the humdrum and the routine, an all-engulfing absolution of his sins, fast track privileges (to higher education, or in his encounters with bureaucracies, for instance). Punishment, trusts the narcissist, is for ordinary people, where no great loss to humanity is involved.

Narcissists are possessed of inordinate abilities to charm, to convince, to seduce, and to persuade. Many of them are gifted orators and intellectually endowed. Many of them work in in politics, the media, fashion, show business, the arts, medicine, or business, and serve as religious leaders.

By virtue of their standing in the community, their charisma, or their ability to find the willing scapegoats, they do get exempted many times. Having recurrently “got away with it” – they develop a theory of personal immunity, founded upon some kind of societal and even cosmic “order” in which certain people are above punishment.

But there is a fourth, simpler, explanation. The narcissist lacks self-awareness. Divorced from his true self, unable to empathise (to understand what it is like to be someone else), unwilling to constrain his actions to cater to the feelings and needs of others – the narcissist is in a constant dreamlike state.

To the narcissist, his life is unreal, like watching an autonomously unfolding movie. The narcissist is a mere spectator, mildly interested, greatly entertained at times. He does not “own” his actions. He, therefore, cannot understand why he should be punished and when he is, he feels grossly wronged.

So convinced is the narcissist that he is destined to great things – that he refuses to accept setbacks, failures and punishments. He regards them as temporary, as the outcomes of someone else’s errors, as part of the future mythology of his rise to power/brilliance/wealth/ideal love, etc. Being punished is a diversion of his precious energy and resources from the all-important task of fulfilling his mission in life.

The narcissist is pathologically envious of people and believes that they are equally envious of him. He is paranoid, on guard, ready to fend off an imminent attack. A punishment to the narcissist is a major surprise and a nuisance but it also validates his suspicion that he is being persecuted. It proves to him that strong forces are arrayed against him.

He tells himself that people, envious of his achievements and humiliated by them, are out to get him. He constitutes a threat to the accepted order. When required to pay for his misdeeds, the narcissist is always disdainful and bitter and feels misunderstood by his inferiors.

Cooked books, corporate fraud, bending the (GAAP or other) rules, sweeping problems under the carpet, over-promising, making grandiose claims (the “vision thing”) – are hallmarks of a narcissist in action. When social cues and norms encourage such behaviour rather than inhibit it – in other words, when such behaviour elicits abundant narcissistic supply – the pattern is reinforced and become entrenched and rigid. Even when circumstances change, the narcissist finds it difficult to adapt, shed his routines, and replace them with new ones. He is trapped in his past success. He becomes a swindler.

But pathological narcissism is not an isolated phenomenon. It is embedded in our contemporary culture. The West’s is a narcissistic civilization. It upholds narcissistic values and penalizes alternative value-systems. From an early age, children are taught to avoid self-criticism, to deceive themselves regarding their capacities and attainments, to feel entitled, and to exploit others.

As Lilian Katz observed in her important paper, “Distinctions between Self-Esteem and Narcissism: Implications for Practice”, published by the Educational Resources Information Center, the line between enhancing self-esteem and fostering narcissism is often blurred by educators and parents.

Both Christopher Lasch in “The Culture of Narcissism” and Theodore Millon in his books about personality disorders, singled out American society as narcissistic. Litigiousness may be the flip side of an inane sense of entitlement. Consumerism is built on this common and communal lie of “I can do anything I want and possess everything I desire if I only apply myself to it” and on the pathological envy it fosters.

Not surprisingly, narcissistic disorders are more common among men than among women. This may be because narcissism conforms to masculine social mores and to the prevailing ethos of capitalism. Ambition, achievements, hierarchy, ruthlessness, drive – are both social values and narcissistic male traits. Social thinkers like the aforementioned Lasch speculated that modern American culture – a self-centred one – increases the rate of incidence of the narcissistic personality disorder.

Otto Kernberg, a notable scholar of personality disorders, confirmed Lasch’s intuition: “Society can make serious psychological abnormalities, which already exist in some percentage of the population, seem to be at least superficially appropriate.”

In their book “Personality Disorders in Modern Life”, Theodore Millon and Roger Davis state, as a matter of fact, that pathological narcissism was once the preserve of “the royal and the wealthy” and that it “seems to have gained prominence only in the late twentieth century”. Narcissism, according to them, may be associated with “higher levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs … Individuals in less advantaged nations .. are too busy trying (to survive) … to be arrogant and grandiose”.

They – like Lasch before them – attribute pathological narcissism to “a society that stresses individualism and self-gratification at the expense of community, namely the United States.” They assert that the disorder is more prevalent among certain professions with “star power” or respect. “In an individualistic culture, the narcissist is ‘God’s gift to the world’. In a collectivist society, the narcissist is ‘God’s gift to the collective.”

Millon quotes Warren and Caponi’s “The Role of Culture in the Development of Narcissistic Personality Disorders in America, Japan and Denmark”:

“Individualistic narcissistic structures of self-regard (in individualistic societies) … are rather self-contained and independent … (In collectivist cultures) narcissistic configurations of the we-self … denote self-esteem derived from strong identification with the reputation and honor of the family, groups, and others in hierarchical relationships.”

Still, there are malignant narcissists among subsistence farmers in Africa, nomads in the Sinai desert, day laborers in east Europe, and intellectuals and socialites in Manhattan. Malignant narcissism is all-pervasive and independent of culture and society. It is true, though, that the way pathological narcissism manifests and is experienced is dependent on the particulars of societies and cultures.

In some cultures, it is encouraged, in others suppressed. In some societies it is channeled against minorities – in others it is tainted with paranoia. In collectivist societies, it may be projected onto the collective, in individualistic societies, it is an individual’s trait.

Yet, can families, organizations, ethnic groups, churches, and even whole nations be safely described as “narcissistic” or “pathologically self-absorbed”? Can we talk about a “corporate culture of narcissism”?

Human collectives – states, firms, households, institutions, political parties, cliques, bands – acquire a life and a character all their own. The longer the association or affiliation of the members, the more cohesive and conformist the inner dynamics of the group, the more persecutory or numerous its enemies, competitors, or adversaries, the more intensive the physical and emotional experiences of the individuals it is comprised of, the stronger the bonds of locale, language, and history – the more rigorous might an assertion of a common pathology be.

Such an all-pervasive and extensive pathology manifests itself in the behavior of each and every member. It is a defining – though often implicit or underlying – mental structure. It has explanatory and predictive powers. It is recurrent and invariable – a pattern of conduct melding distorted cognition and stunted emotions. And it is often vehemently denied.

Narcissism in the Boardroom is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

My experience has been one of honest return for honesty when dealing with customers. Maybe it’s not a quick buck, but I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning and know I did the right thing. I would rather have a customer for life than a fly by night sale to a customer that I tricked into buying my product. It isn’t always about the bottom line of making cash. It should be about service and product value. Over the past couple of years I have had more business cleaning up computers that have been completely overran with viruses, trojans, and spam than I’ve done computer builds. The number one complaint is ‘I just want to be able to use my computer, not worry about viruses and trojans and updates!!!’ Do I profit from unethical business practices? Yes I do when I spend an hour cleaning up a computer. Do I take the time to teach the user? You bet I do! I spend an hour to two hours with a client after I do a cleanup or a computer build. Do I lose money with this practice? Yes I do, but I gain respect from the customer and that customer will always come back.

The one major challenge with doing business online is that we don’t always get to be face to face with our customers. Even so, there are ways around this that will bring value to your customer and value in repeat business. It doesn’t cost that much to call and thank someone for their business. It doesn’t cost much to send out a thank you card. I think at times we forget that email isn’t the only way to communicate. With the prevalence of spam it isn’t always the best way to communicate either. The internet can be a very impersonal place. It is ethically challenging to all of us who try to sale a product or business online. Is there a chance of giving away too much with little return? That is always a chance we take when we offer advice or tips to a customer. I can guarantee that over time, the word gets around, and your business will develop a core group of customers who value your service and will tell others.

Being a small business is a challenge in the fast paced retail world of chain stores. We can’t offer the huge discounts the major chain stores can, but we can offer service value for the product. I challenge anyone in the IT industry to take that little bit of extra time to teach users the do’s and don’ts of surfing the web. It will benefit your business and benefit the customer as well.

Honesty in Business is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

As the low economy in the United States takes its toll on many, people are constantly looking for alternative ways to solve their dilemma, including the internet.

In a frantic search to find the ultimate solution, they spend their hard-earned money on “Get Rich Schemes” only to find out that the bargain they hoped for wasn’t a bargain at all.

With crushed hopes, dreams, and an empty wallet many people retaliate. Some may pass it off by learning negative things such as not trusting anyone else… possibly for the rest of their lives. Others quit buying altogether. While still others, run and tell there friends they got ripped-off and by whom causing a viral rift, giving marketers a bad reputation.

Either way we look at these facts, we still come to the same conclusion. We need to change the way we are doing things and become more ethically inclined when running our businesses.

Honesty has a great deal to do with any marketer, if not for any other reason but to be able to continue with one’s business. Secondly, it helps someone else get what they need.

I remember a time when people put great trust in their local merchant. You remember those days? The marketer was fair and usually gave the consumer more than they bargained for…They new the secret to long term success.

We too have that same power to claim long term success and to help change what is going on in the internet marketing circle! By claiming this power and making a few changes, we can help stimulate the economic growth that is needed to overcome hard times.

You may be saying to yourself, but I am honest in my work. You may be! There are still many marketers that use ethical marketing when selling their products. That’s great, but what about passing these ethical techniques to future merchants? Like our affiliates for example…Are we teaching them about honesty? How about the new marketer who seeks wisdom and a JV with some of the old timers?

I know some folks who have been making money for several years are going to say, “We’ve tried to teach the young about ethical marketing, but they aren’t listening.” That may be so. We cannot twist anyone’s arms to get them to do the right thing.

However, we can be examples for them. We leave the ball in their court. The young will then learn from their mistakes. Without customers and future financing, they will once again seek wisdom from the old timers.

Then, and only then, will online marketing be instrumental in economic growth so it can stand firm throughout the trials that face all of us.

If this article offends anyone maybe it’s time to take a look at the overall marketing picture.

Trust is built on the very foundation of honesty, especially when dealing with costumers. It’s a two-way street…the consumer gets what they paid for, their hopes are flying high and their wallets still have money in them so they can buy other things.

The marketer on the other hand, gets a repeat costumer that will tell his/her friends, who will tell their friends, and so on, making more money in the long run, while building great lasting relationships, and a fantastic reputation. To put a sugar coating on top, they are helping someone else.

So, I guess we need to ask ourselves these questions: Do we continue with this “Dog-eat dog” attitude and eat dirt?

Or… Do we claim the power from past years and help change the mindset of the consumer which will lead us to bigger profits where everyone is happy?

The choice is ours! I know what I am doing do you?

© Mary Murtha
Web Marketing Tools Co.
mmurtha@zoominternet.net

Article may be freely distributed in its entirety! Absolutely no selling, editing, or altering of content including the link provided. You may add your text box and link under the text box.

Has Honesty Become a Thing of the Past? is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

Giveaways are not just for kids; adults have long participated in incentive giveaways ranging from a free tote with the purchase of makeup or perfume at a department store, to $500 gift cards with a new account at the local bank. All of these giveaways are designed to entice the consumer to try particular brands and services.

Recognizing the power of free offers to drive consumer purchases, NetFree Direct LLC, a leading Internet marketing company, has taken the concept to the next level. Through the company’s Web site, consumers can obtain a variety of rewards including mobile phones, flat-screen TVs, laptops, PlayStations and other game consoles, digital cameras, gift cards and more, simply by completing advertisers’ surveys and signing up for subscriptions and free trial offers.

The Web site is sponsored by well-known advertisers such as BMG, Blockbuster, Netflix, Discover Card, USA Today, Disney and hundreds of others. Upon registration, consumers are directed to a special area of the site where they can complete advertisers’ surveys and sign up for subscriptions or free trials and redeem their rewards. Trials or subscriptions can be canceled without obligation.

Giveaways by Web Site Draw in Consumers is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

It’s no surprise that a great deal of lawmakers’ time is spent reacting to advances in commerce and science. It’s also no surprise that one of their favorite tactics is to call on their enforcement agencies to bring scrutiny against any topic about which they’re struggling to understand.

We’re now seeing this applied against at least two e-currency operations.

One of them, INT Gold, saw their head offices in Texas raided by the FBI in December. No arrests were made and no disclosures were presented to indicate the reason for their actions. The only auspices mentioned were that they were pursuing an ongoing fraud investigation. It’s now been over a month and nothing further has happened.

At roughly the same time, e-Gold was also served with a search warrant. It seems the justification was petty — they allegedly didn’t have a ‘required’ currency-exchange license — and they were upset enough to place the following posting on their website:

e-gold® welcomes US Government review of its status as a privately issued currency January 20, 2006

“Starting in mid-December 2005, Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. (G&SR), contractual Operator and primary dealer for e-gold, has been the subject of a warranted search of its premises and records, had its domestic bank accounts frozen, and been the target of a precisely timed, extraordinarily misleading attack by a major business publication.

“In an emergency hearing in US District Court January 13, 2006, the freeze order on G&SR’s bank accounts was lifted. Though numerous criminal claims had been made in obtaining the search and seizure warrants, the Government has not sustained these allegations and the only remaining claim is a contention that G&SR has operated as a currency exchange without the proper license. G&SR had previously proposed to the Government that e-gold be classified for regulatory purposes as a currency, enabling G&SR to register as a currency exchange. In a Treasury report released January 11, 2006, however, the Department of Treasury reaffirmed their interpretation of the USC and CFR definitions of currency as excluding e-gold.

“G&SR, for nearly a year, has been engaged with an agency of Treasury in a BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) compliance examination it had voluntarily initiated. G&SR, though preferring that the venue was not a courtroom, welcomes the opportunity to extend its discussions with the Government on how best to achieve appropriate statutory or regulatory cognizance of e-gold while continuing to build e-gold’s market share as a medium of international commerce.

“Despite the unfounded charges and adverse misleading publicity that have severely damaged both e-gold and G&SR, G&SR has continued to meet all financial obligations and remain completely operational. e-gold remains highly committed to its goal of bringing, for the first time in history, to people of any financial means across the globe, a secure payment mechanism at a fraction of the cost of any other system. e-gold fully expects to transcend the unfortunate events of the past month and resume its exponential growth.

“Further information can be found at:

www.e-gold.com
www.omnipay.com
www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/js3077_01112005_MLTA.pdf”

The proactive approach by e-Gold should be applauded. INT Gold should have done the same thing.

If more of the public only knew how many times search papers were served on financial institutions for one reason or another, they’d no doubt be as skeptical as I am about the publicity the authorities have given their actions against these two e-currency companies.

Let’s consider how authorities move against major banks when wrongdoing is suspected. One characteristic which becomes quickly evident is that any releases issued by the investigating authorities have always been very specific in their nature, because major banks have enough financial and political clout to strike back at anything less.

An example of a precisely identified transgression is the Citigroup private banking scandal in Tokyo in 2004. The Japanese authorities said the bank helped clients manipulate accounting records through improper real estate transactions, failed to process tax refunds for clients and mismanaged customers’ confidential information. As a result, they ordered Citigroup’s Japanese private banking operations to close, but took measures to ensure all unaffected investors would be minimally affected while they moved their accounts.

Rarely, total loss to depositors happens. The Silverado collapse in Colorado sent Charles Keating to prison for what should be a thousand life terms, as more people than that lost their life savings. It’s notable that this occurred in what was a laissez-faire junk bond scenario.

Raids only receive mention when it serves the authorities’ purposes to do so. One reason for this is because the searches and/or seizures don’t yield sufficient results to merit charges being filed. There can exist a vast gray area in modern financial activities, and when the fine print of a certain situation is scrutinized, it often occurs that, perhaps those activities have sailed close to the legal wind, but they did not take the airs of disrepute.

It remains to be seen what they’re investigating at INT Gold. As opposed to their treatment of major banks, the nature of the authorities’ announcement of this raid was quite vague, which I’m sure was by design. So, the issue is one of whom they were attempting to stir. However, American law says the parties involved are innocent until proven guilty, so they should duly be accorded that right. Until the entire story comes to light, it’s improper to cast aspersions. After all, as with most raids at major banks that go unpublicized, it may be that the transgressor is not the company, but a client who has abused its privileges within that company’s facilities.

The e-currency investigations are surely a result, in part, of one government’s indecision as to how to regulate e-currencies within their borders when those currencies are neither fiat nor necessarily domiciled within those borders.

This reminds me of broadcasting’s early days, when the Feds were perplexed about how to best cope with radio signals that only obeyed the laws of physics and thus had the ability to cross state lines without governmental permission. As ridiculous as that sounds today, the thought of a particular technology being more advanced than political and/or geographical delineations was of deep concern to them. It ultimately took nearly 15 years for the American government to create the Federal Communications Commission to cope with such an ‘advanced’ business as interstate broadcasting.

Given the fact that e-currencies are privately generated and administered, and given that no central monitoring system exists to aid in their regulation, it is no surprise under the current environment of American laws to now see a bustle of authoritarian attention directed toward them. Until they are able to determine a palatable policy, the best they can do is assume a self-righteous position in the interests of ‘consumer protection’ and cast aspersions by means of rationalization. It’s not particularly fair, but as we’ve seen in related online forums, it’s quite effective.

Hopefully, the issue will be settled in a much more expeditious manner than it was in broadcasting.

FBI Raids: Pertinent or Paranoid? is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

One of the most compelling definitions of a leader is an individual whose mere presence inspires the desire to follow. When asked if leaders are born or bred, the general consensus is that leadership can be taught. While few of us have had the opportunity to be formally trained or mentored in leadership, all of us are called to be a leader at different times and circumstances in our lives. Leadership is first about who you are as an individual, not what you do, and the term character best describes the core characteristic of a leader. It is this part of an individual that inspires other to follow, so we see character as the summation of an individual’s principles and values, core beliefs by which one anchors and measures their behavior in all roles in life. Principles and values of a positive leader include loyalty, respect, integrity, courage, fairness, honesty, duty, honor and commitment.

If character is the summation of our principles and values, then ethics is the application of them. To understand more about character development, we can reach back nearly 2500 years to the writings of Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle taught that moral virtue is acquired by practice. Ethics, according to Aristotle, is moral virtue that comes about as a result of habit. Ethics has as its root ethike, formed by the slight variation of the word ethos (habit). Aristotle explained that moral virtues do not arise in us by nature; we must accept them, embrace them and perfect them by habit. Leadership training emphasizes that understanding leader values and attributes is only the first step in development. A leader must also embrace values and practice attributes, living them until they become a habit.

In the Business Development role, success requires a fusion of who we are as an individual, along with our principles, values, ethics and their application. It’s a unique combination of what we know, how we apply it and what we do.

Bill Scheessele is CEO/Founder of MBDi, a Business Development consultancy based in Charlotte, North Carolina. For the past 27 years, MBDi has assisted client firms in leveraging their high level expertise into bottom line business. Information on the company and the MBDi Business Development Process™ access: www.mbdi.com.

Ethics & Leadership in Business Development is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

First of all, some numbers:
The total market for cut flowers and house plants in the UK is estimated to be £2.2 Billion and is expected to exceed £3 Billion by 2011. Despite the incursion of mutiple alternatives including gifts, chocolates and wines, people are still saying it with flowers, although the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in annual per capita spend on flowers.

There is a perennial debate regarding industry standards for flowers, as consumers have historically been confronted with confusing symbols of ethical quality. The Kenyan Flower Council which accounts for much of the imports into the UK, is governed by Fair Trade, which regulates the code of conduct for more than 1,000 farms in Kenya, although only about 25 large farms supply over 75% of Kenya’s flower exports. Ever since its introduction to the flower industry in 1999, Fair Trade has done an excellent job of supporting more than 10,000 workers in developing nations, by setting ethical standards to improve working environments. However, in the intervening years the industry has grown considerably and the competitive landscape has evolved. In particular, fair trade initiatives tend to work best in highly fragmented industries such as fruits and vegetables, which are crowded with numerous small producers, but less well in more consolidated industries, such as the flower industry. This is because fair trade initiatives can benefit larger organisations disproportionately, thus effectively disadvantaging the development of smaller producers within the competitive environment.

Fair Flowers Fair Plants (FFP) is a European initiative which addresses historic shortcomings by creating a level playing field for all producers by setting uniform, global standards. One of the unique features of FFP is its emphasis on auditing the entire supply chain to regulate the use of pesticides, land, energy and the working environment. Furthermore, it also offers flexibility to florists to source their produce either from flower auctions or directly, through FFP compliant growers. This latter approach guarantees fresher floral produce, reduced wastage and a happier customer (key!). In the longer term, FFP’s aim is to unify all existing standards to make it simple for growers, traders and consumers.

As in all free markets, if there is demonstrable consumer demand then that will stimulate growth in supply. If no-one wants FFP-accredited flowers, then they simply won’t be grown. It is estimated that 18.1 million Fair Trade stems were sold in the UK in 2005 so there are clearly people willing to buy ethically-sourced flowers. The challenge for FFP is to get into the national consciousness when Fair Trade is already the de facto standard in most peoples’ minds. One thing that people most love to hear is that FFP-accredited flowers typically cost no more than non FFP flowers; so being a good egg doesn’t have to mean a dent in your pocket as well!

Ethically Sourced Flowers is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

Some terminally ill patients are in so much pain that they would rather end their life than to go on suffering and experience a poor quality of life. Because of physical and mental limitations, people in pain have a much different view on living than people with good health. This altered view makes some choose certain courses of care in a debilitating illness he or she may not even consider in a healthy state of being. Many healthcare providers claim that terminally ill people’s pain can be controlled to tolerable levels with good pain management, yet there are tens of millions of patients who do not have access to adequate pain management in the U.S. alone.

Many religious organizations believe that suffering can be used to purify us. This purification can be for the caregiver and for the patient. It is a time to learn and be aware how the body becomes more soul in the process of transformation associated with dying and death. Christians believe that life is a gift from God and God does not send us any experience we cannot handle. Islam states in the Qur’an, “Take not life which Allah made sacred otherwise than in the course of justice.” And “Since we did not create ourselves, we do not own our bodies.” Orthodox Judaism states that “This is an issue of critical constitutional and moral significance which Jewish tradition clearly speaks to. We believe that the recognition of a constitutionally recognized right to die for the terminally ill is a clear statement against the recognition and sanctity of human life….”

It is clearly evident that religious influence upon PAS deems such an act as going against one’s Creator, and as such, the need to pray and discern the direction of one’s life and dying should be in the consultation of clerical status of one’s own faith. To override such influence would take an autonomous individual whose beliefs have taken him or her from what can be known religiously to what can be known through them by the same force that gave them life. It is here that terminal patients choose a course of action from the core on one’s being transcending his or her belief in their creator (religiously) leading to an active participation of one’s assessed values (personal transformations) that includes their religious influence, but it is not limited to it as well.

Ethical and Religious Considerations in Physician Assisted Suicide is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

First of all, when I say that there isn’t such a thing as corporate crime, I simply mean that it is always individual people who commit crimes. With that in mind, you can imagine what my better way to reduce this crime is: Go after the criminals!

Who Pays For Corporate Crime?

Exactly who pays when a large corporation is fined for breaking the law? To begin with, the stockholders pay. Many of these are innocent retirees who have money invested with the company and had no idea they were breaking the law. Then the employees pay with the loss of jobs, if the financial situation of the company is damaged by the fines. Who doesn’t pay? Just the criminals – the individuals who chose to break the law.

All crimes are committed by PEOPLE, not companies. When a company dumps poisons into the environment, a PERSON made the decision to do that (or several people). When a company steals from a pension fund or violates workers rights, INDIVIDUALS made those decisions. People commit corporate crime, not corporations!

If you want to stop corporate crime, start putting the individuals who are involved in the crime in PRISON. Our current system often has company officers making cost/benefit calculations as to whether the profits from certain crimes are greater than what the occasional fines add up to. Even though laws are broken, they stand little chance of being held personally responsible. Why not hold them responsible?

To fine companies for the actual costs imposed on others by a crime is appropriate. We have to clean up toxic messes, and in other cases compensate those who suffer damages. This also means that shareholders have a reason to be careful in who they elect to the board of directors. However, “punitive” fines are ridiculous unless they are levied against the individual criminals. Make the person who committed the crime pay the fine.

Is this such a radical idea? I don’t think so! By the way, which do you think is more likely to deter a corporate officer from committing a crime, a fine that is paid by the company, and doesn’t even affect his salary, or ten years in jail? The answer to that gives us the answer to corporate crime.

Corporate Crime is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com

Whether you ‘ re hiring a CEO, a subcontractor, a babysitter, or comparable looking for a uncontaminated renter or boon companion, you ‘ re fascinating a prodigious risk. Indubitable ‘ s the essentiality of field unfortunately for individuals to push to extended lengths to misrepresent themselves and wherefore actualize the duty for inwardness check resources and references.

Avoid acquaintance employment secrete unreal mortals adumbrate these 5 clue factors notoriety psyche:

1. Prepare comprehensive histories from fuzzy or misleading responses
2. Filter actuality from fiction and deal hole up wrong interviewees
3. Deal hush up legal issues including which questions you encumbrance and cannot ask
4. Fabricate a confident, hardy – researched hiring decision
5. Bag waivers that protect you legally during the exposure check process

Personal References

A personal reference could reproduce anyone whom the candidate happens to comprehend but most likely has never worked for. For landlords or people looking for a nanny for their descendants the desire for references should still correspond to for occupation references and not personal ones. The hotelkeeper – dweller consociation is still a business one being is the consociation between nannies and ropes – inland health disquiet sect and their employers. Nowadays, personal references hold come one of those overused catchphrases that disguises the heartfelt salt mines of compelled, energetic reference checking.

Background Checks

The spell maturity check is amassed catchall title that means checking the precision of basic propaganda provided by a candidate for employment or similar. Existent ‘ s an marked step significance the employee selection growth seeing material is a relatively accessible and inexpensive journey for the next gaffer to whittle down the pile of applications to sole those candidates who are, at primordial, who they tell they are.

While meaningful whether or not the candidate is whom he or girl claims to act for is an primary inaugural step, rightful should climactically cause into bona fide reference checking. Finished is since much more to learn about a candidate for employment or a prospective tenant or even a babysitter before the final decision can be made. And the only way to learn that is by talking to people who have worked with, rented to, or received service or care from the candidate in question.

Job Application Issues

There are several things employers can do to increase the likelihood of receiving honest responses to job performance questions:

1. Always ask the job seeker to provide a resume that contains a complete work history, including dates of employment for every job held.

2. Ask the candidate to provide the name of the person to whom he / she directly reported.

3. Employers should always require candidates for employment to fill out a formal job application that asks for the same information. One way or another, even if you have to ask for it during the first interview, you ‘ ll get a description of the tasks for which the job seeker was responsible at each position held.

If the list of references doesn ‘ t include at least one of the people to whom the candidate reported directly, a red warning flag should appear in the prospective employer ‘ s mind. Some job seekers will suggest they didn ‘ t list a previous supervisor as a reference because the two of them didn ‘ t get along and that ‘ s understandable, but throughout an individual ‘ s entire work history, there has to be at least ONE supervisor who can be a reference. If it ‘ s true the candidate has never gotten along with any supervisor ever, then it ‘ s best to look for another person for the job.

No, every job doesn ‘ t result in a happy ending, but with the above precautions in mind, one can reduce the possibility of getting burned or hiring the more suitable person for the job. Having more information about a job seeker is always better than having less. It ‘ s through working with other people that we reach most of our goals so choosing the right ones is therefore, essential.

Caution Checks and Balances is a post from: Business Directory for Business Information | Joevsken.com