Monday, July 30, 2018

The slow progress of bad decisions or 'Who risks their half-a-million-dollar-a-year job for $70,000?'

The guy on the left probably isn't evil, but this is not a good look

Despite what movies and cop procedural TV shows would have us think, I don't believe most people who do terrible things are intrinsically evil. Sure, the Stephen Millers of the world exist, but he's an exception. (Even real jerks don't usually make speeches to their high schools arguing kids should be slobs because the school's janitors can clean up after them.)  A good chunk of people in positions of power believe on, some level, they're doing good, or at least, they're not actively evil. 

 That's why I was fascinated a by Planet Money episode that profiled a white-collar convicted felon. The cumulative effect of the episode is more like a dark comedy than a business podcast. Then again, this isn't a new feeling since most serious news these days plays like Dr. Strangelove.
LONDON: The people back in the studio on TV after this - they were talking about it. Like, who risks their half-a-million-dollar-a-year job for $70,000 
KESTENBAUM: Scott says his friends asked him that, too. And he does not have a great answer. He can't say exactly why he did it. I asked, was it exciting? Was the thrill part of it? 
LONDON: No - wasn't exciting at all. 
GOLDSTEIN: Was he trying to get his friend to like him more? Is that what was going on? 
LONDON: No. That didn't ever pass through my mind. 
KESTENBAUM: Scott says he was kind of overworked and unhappy with his job, so everything felt a little less important. Maybe that had something to do with it. But he says crossing over that line was somehow just not as hard as it should've been. 
GOLDSTEIN: Scott says what he did was just dumb. He says that. But he says, you know, as best as he can figure out, as best as he can reconstruct, he did it to help out his friend. And he says he didn't think they were going to get caught.
What struck me about Scott London's story was the ease of making increasingly bad choices. Of course, people make ruinous choices all the time and often for reasons as banal as what London describes in the interview with journalists David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein. In this case, London's choices led to criminal behavior, a guilty plea, and jail time. 

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 Some backstory: London was a CPA and partner at the giant firm, KPMG. He led teams that conducted massive audits of Fortune 500 companies. As he said, he made more than $500,000 a year. But he had a friend in the wholesale jewelry business who was struggling. It was during the 2008 recession and his friend asked him for a favor - can you tip some stock info to me? He proposed trades in the five figures, a small amount considering the tidal wave of money moving through stock markets.
LONDON: You know, it's a battle. The simple version of the one side is that I knew it was wrong. It was stupid. And then the other side is, all right, well, he's a good friend. I trust him. You know, if you are trading, and, you know, you're only going to make 10 or $15,000, who's going to know?
The answer to that last question? The feds. (The picture above was taken by FBI agents.) He was arrested in one of those 6 a.m. knocks federal agents pull. London didn't fight the charges, but he also didn't fully understand the ramifications of his actions. 
KESTENBAUM: It got worse. Scott got a lawyer. And one day, they were on their way to court in the lawyer's car. Scott's reading the news on his phone, and he sees this story about his case that has something he says he didn't know. His friend Bryan hadn't been just making small trades for a few thousand dollars. The story says Bryan had been placing much bigger trades, says he made $1.27 million. 
LONDON: And I almost threw up right there in the car. And I actually told my attorney, you got to pull over. He was driving. But I just - you know, I was just fearful that I was just going to lose it right there. So I just couldn't believe it. And once I saw that, I said, holy hell. This is - you know, this is obviously going to be a lot worse.
One would think a top-tier CPA, an expert in fiscal compliance, wouldn't need a reminder that a stock tip can used as easily for million-dollar trades as $10,000 ones. Greed is a funny thing, though. What we assume about others' decisions involving the seven deadly sins is usually wrong. 
***

I'm fascinated in a "can't look away from a car wreck" sort of way by the ostensibly well-off, competent people who've humiliated themselves working for this White House. Sean Spicer, for example, had a decent career as a press flack for Congress, then the RNC before becoming a punchline. Rex Tillerson ran the 10th-largest company in the world and then was fired while taking a call on the toilet. (Side note: Who answers the phone on the toilet?)

It's not hard to see similarities between London and the retinue of folks who've sold their soul for a nominally prestigious position. Take John Bolton, the national security advisor. This is a guy who's made his name pushing U.S military intervention is most every world conflict since Reagan was in office. (A short list of countries he's wanted to bomb: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Russia, Iraq two different times.) 






Note how quickly Bolton reversed himself on a fundamental view. I wonder if he even acknowledges the switch to himself. In a way, I thought of Scott London when I read that tweet. Both guys made decisions that seem counter to everything they've done up to that point. 

I'm not sure Bolton (or Spicer or Tillerson) could articulate the rationale for the series of choices they led them to hypocrisy and humiliation. But they -- educated and ambitious men, all -- did what they did. 

It's a bleak comedy, sure, but since we have the live their consequences, there's not much for the rest of us to laugh at.

Except for Paul Manafort -- I will be laughing all week at that crook getting methodically destroyed in a federal courthouse.

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Update on John Bolton's continuing humiliation:



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