Cheat-onomics

There is a saying that goes along the lines of 'how someone does one thing, is how they do everything.' So when somebody shows you who they are - believe them.

When it comes to money, integrity is paramount. The personal integrity and trustworthiness of somebody whose business you are investing, is critical.

Critical because as an investor you need to be able to believe that what somebody is telling you is actually true.

Which is also why leadership of any kind, needs to be done by people who are completely trustworthy. People with high-levels of personal integrity and a strong moral compass.

So when news breaks that the CEO of one of the world's most valuable companies, a company that is responsible for many billions of dollars worth of investments, is a liar and a cheat; alarm bells ring very loudly.

'How someone does one thing, is how they do everything.'

People who lie and cheat in one part of their lives can't really be trusted as leaders or custodians of billions of dollars worth of investor's money.

Without trust the integrity the system collapses and value evaporates.

But thanks to the world's obsession with making a fast-buck the value of trustworthiness has been forgotten in favour of a kind of belief in cheat-onomics.

As long as there's money to be made, who cares if it's thanks to a cheat...right?

Well, put another way, money that gets made thanks to the engineering of a cheat is called a Ponzi scheme and at some point in time it will fall apart.

Liars and cheats are everywhere.

Their fabricated stories tend to make for good entertainment so they become celebrities and people who are well-known, but this just intensifies the risk loaded into their position of leadership.

'How a company does one thing, is how they do everything.'

Stories of moral failure on the part of leaders or organisations should serve as warning signs.

When a company is accused for treating small suppliers poorly...that's a signal. When published financial statement are just a bit too confusing to be understood by analysts...that's a signal. When company CEOs publicly pledge allegiance to a villainous character... When things appear too good to be true...

Trust and ethics still get blown off as something that's optional for a business to be successful and yet the evidence for their value is everywhere.