New Study: The Wealthy are more Unethical (This is rich)

[geckosfeet]

Most of this is no surprise but it is quite an interesting and telling read. Great video embedded in the piece.

New Study: The Wealthy are more Unethical

It's been said that money is the root of all evil. But does money really make people more likely to lie, cheat and steal? New research released by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says "yes".

• exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3)


• take valued goods from others (study 4)


• lie in a negotiation (study 5)


• cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6)


• and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals

This might help explain why some people like Wal-Mart's Christy Walton can rake in $1.2 million a day in unearned income with stock dividends, while at the same time,
refusing to pay her employees a living wage in earned hourly income --- costing the taxpayers $6,000 per employee in government entitlements (aka "wage subsidies&quot .
It seems that some of these people just can't help themselves...they're mentally ill!

Bud Meyers: STUDY: 10% on Wall Street are Psychopaths - "Studies conducted by forensic psychologist Robert Hare indicate that about 1 percent of the general
population can be categorized as psychopathic, but the prevalence rate in the financial services industry is 10 percent."

New Study: The Wealthy are more Unethical

Read it and weep.

[reformist2]

1. It's practically a truism: people with money more likely to have stolen it than people with no money

How can you be a thief if you have no money?

[Cleita]

2. Good. I'm glad someone wrote it down.

I've worked for wealthy people all my life and now I live around them and it's all true. I do know a lot of nice ones, but there's too many of the type your OP describes. Thom Hartmann also had a theory that many of them suffer from hoarder's syndrome and what they hoard is wealth. Once they get to the point that they really don't need any more or anything else, they still obsess on getting more.

[geckosfeet]

3. Agreed. Some rich folks are nice. But the stat about psychopaths in the financial industry kills me.

[Xolodno]

4. A liberal Jew once said...

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

[geckosfeet]

5. A wise man I think.

[QC]

6. kick

[DreamGypsy]

7. Don't worry, the U.S. won't be funding this type of research much longer...

[link:https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/washhigh/highlights2013/335414/ostpdirectordefendssocialscienceresearchpeerreview.html|
OSTP Director Defends Social Science Research, Peer Review]

May 3, 2013—Appearing at a May 2 policy conference at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren, Ph.D., director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), addressed recent efforts by members of Congress to prohibit the National Science Foundation (NSF) from funding certain areas of research or to add additional layers of review of such projects. He also emphasized the administration’s support for peer review.

“Members of Congress have recently suggested, variously, either that social sciences are not really science and should not be supported by the tax-payers at all; or that research in political science, at least, should only be supported if the NSF will certify to Congress, for each grant, that the research will advance either the economy or national security (a provision now actually embodied in law in the most recent Continuing Resolution governing spending for the remained of FY13); or that all tax-payer funded research should have to pass the test of offering a predictable benefit for some national interest,” Dr. Holdren noted.

Emphasizing that the social and behavioral sciences are sciences and that much of this work “is aimed at having or ends up having … practical applications to society’s direct benefit,” he continued, “it makes no sense at all to confine taxpayer support to those projects for which a likely direct contribution to the national interest can be identified in advance.”

Saying that the competitive, peer-reviewed grant process used by NSF, the National Institutes of Health, and much of the rest of the government’s research and development funding has made it “the gold standard, recognized around the world,” Dr. Holdren continued, “Of course, this does not mean that the way this peer-review process is implemented in different agencies shouldn’t itself be reviewed from time to time to make sure it is as good as it can be. But fiddling in any fundamental way with the model of judging research proposals via review by scientific experts in relevant fields would place at risk the world-leading quality of this Nation’s scientific and engineering enterprises.”

Lindsey Graham will write a three paragraph scientific report proving that only the wealthy have ethics. The report will be passed into law by a unanimous peer vote of both the house and the senate. With a certainty of veto override, the President will sign it. Done.

[Live and Learn]

8. Wow, this deserves a thread of its own.

Greedy bastards don't want to share with the poor, they want it all for themselves.

[Raine]

9. This what I've always figured to be the case. nt

[pinboy3niner]

10. I'll K&R for the subject line alone

[hifiguy]

11. Water is wet. Pro wrestling is scripted.

The rich are shrieking assholes and shameless thieves.

Twas ever thus.

Reopen the lunatic asylums and imprison the rich within them.

[geckosfeet]

12. I'd settle for a fairer tax system that is actually enforced,,,,

Huge corporate megaliths and the wealthy elite pay less (as a percentage) than the poorest in our society. This alone is illustrates their position regarding fair and equitable taxation. Given the power and privilege of their money, they chose to cheat the poorest and least politically influential people in our society.

[thesquanderer]

13. Maybe unethical people are more likely to get wealthy?

re: "does money really make people more likely to lie, cheat and steal?"

Which is the cause and which is the effect?

[geckosfeet]

14. Did you watch the video?