OCR Text |
Show Page 2 Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 CampusNews Conference livens up with debate BY EVAN MILLSAP staff writer A session of the Partners in Business seminar got off to an unexpected start, Thursday, when economist Mark Skousen and accountant Wayne Carnall got into a debate prior to the start of Skousen's speech. Carnall, the chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission, spoke earlier in the conference, but never mentioned the Bernie Madoff scheme. Skousen said he considers that to be the greatest scandal in the history of the SEC and Wall Street and should have been discussed. "The SEC has had egg all over their face since the scandal, yet not once does he mention the scandal," Skousen said. "He talked about Enron, the current recession, he even talked about Lady Gaga. Then when I called him out on it, he refused to apologize to the public." Carnall said, in his defense he did the best he could, and the SEC should be thanked. "That's the hubris of government officials," Skousen said. "If anything, the government should be humbled by their sin of omission, but instead Carnall thinks we should all thank him for it." Accountant Cliff Skousen, Mark Skousen's cousin, said the Madoff scandal was a direct result of the criminal negligence of the SEC. "They were not drilling down far enough," Cliff Skousen said. Accounting major Joseph Pieper, who coordinated of the event, said the exchange between the two speakers was possibly the most exciting thing to happen in accounting conference history. In his speech, Mark Skousen said the government is guilty of many shortcomings, including the problems of the SEC. "The United States suffers from over-taxation, over-regulation and overextension," Skousen said. "We've over-promised on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. There are 43 million Americans on food stamps." The U.S. economy is in danger of becoming like the Bolivian economy, in which everything is either prohibited or mandated, he said. "This is the greatest economic stagnation and the slowest recovery yet," Skousen said. "This is worse than the Reagan recession and worse than the Bush recession of 2001." One estimate of the unemployment rate, which calculates discouraged workers who have stopped looking for work, lists unemployment at 23 percent, he said. Skousen pointed to a few factors contributing to the recent recession. "Cause No. 1 is unemployment insurance coverage," Skousen said. "The simple fact is people don't really start looking for a job until it runs out." Another cause, he said, is the higher minimum wage mandated by the government. Whenever minimum See ECONOMICS, Page ECONOMIST MARK SKOUSEN SPOKE at the Intermountain Accounting Conference, hosted by the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, as part of the year-long Partners in Business seminar series. EVAN MILLSAP photo From Page 1 Minority students at USU not sure if they agree with results of study Hispanic instructor but believes having one would help her feel more included. "Personally as a Mexican," Botello said, "if I had a Mexican teacher, then I wouldn't feel so left out because I am the minority in every one of my classes. There are some classes where I'm the only Mexican." She said she thinks most instructors have a hard time relating to Hispanic students. While the majority of USU students are white, Hispanics comprise the university's second-largest student ethnic group. According to fall enrollment numbers released by the Office of Analysis, Assessment and Accreditation, nearly one of every 20 students is Hispanic. In 2010, the office listed 33 of the total 880 USU faculty members as Hispanic — roughly one out of every 27. Sandra Menjivar, a SalvadoranAmerican, said it was a USU professor from Costa Rica who most inspired her as a student. "She's up there, and she's not from here. She doesn't care if she has an accent, she's still doing what she wants to do," Menjivar said. Another Hispanic student Jonathan Gonzalez said he doesn't think he would gain more by having a Hispanic instructor. "The race or background of a teacher doesn't matter to me as long as they can educate me properly," Gonzalez said. When USU hires an instructor, the individual's qualifications are the deciding factor and not race or gender, said David Ottley, university director for Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity. "We're always looking for the most qualified candidate," he said. To help USU comply with federal law, Ottley said his office examines whether the number of minorities employed by the university in a particular field reflects the number of minorities in that field who have graduated in recent years. Ottley said if the numbers are beyond a certain statistical measure, the university must make a good-faith effort to attract minorities to any open positions it has in the field. Diversity is important at USU because it prepares students for real-world experi- ences, Ottley said, and not so much because it provides minorities with role models. Fawn Groves said beside providing role models and experience for students, there are other reasons a college could have to hire minorities. Groves is a lecturer in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership. When minorities, women and those with disabilities aren't participating in a school's administration, Groves said, the whole community misses the benefit these types of individuals can provide. "I think the most important thing we need to do is look around at who is making the rules, and who is brainstorming the next idea," she said. "And what is the diversity of thought that went into that? If we don't have a lot of diversity of thought at that brainstorming phase, it's going to be really hard to get to an excellent outcome." Groves said providing a good place for all students to learn can be tricky because of the ways different people view diversity. "Any time that we think of adding something into our system in order to accommodate a group," she said, "we've already skipped maybe the most important first step, which is not to consider our university as a place that serves white individuals. And now we want to add some other people, too." If the people making the rules see themselves as a diverse group, accommodation won't be an afterthought, she added. Existing data show a disparity between white students and minority students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. According to the Bureau of Economic Research, while hiring more minorities might help to close that achievement gap, the solution may not be so simple. "Students appear to react positively when matched to instructors of a similar race or ethnicity but negatively when not," the report states. "Hiring more instructors of one type may also lead to greater student sorting and changes to classroom composition, which may also impact academic achievement." - steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu From Page 1 Former Time Magazine Person of the Year discusses personal ethics Vinson and Normand both wrote letters of resignation that night, she said, but neither ever turned a resignation in, and both eventually were convicted during the scandal's fallout. As manager of WorldCom's internal auditing, Cooper said she never considered turning a blind eye to the situation or even quietly leaving the company. "I didn't think about any other ways," she said. "The path was clear to me — leaving the company would not have solved the problem." "I can't tell you I was this pillar of strength in the process," she said, "I wasn't. There were times where I was scared to death." She said most people are never going to have to face a decision like uncovering a fraud like that of WorldCom, but she told the audience she never expected it, either. She said she could responsibly handle the situation, because she lived her life morally before she was ever faced with such a conflict. "We all face ethical dilemmas every day," she said. "Our character is very much built decision by decision. The foundation of our character is built brick by brick. We all have the power of choice, we need to live our lives in an intentional way. We need to think about our actions every day and recognize the consequences of our actions." Cooper said she was only able to make the right decision because of her religious faith and her family. "For most of us, our values are instilled very early in life," she said, from our faith, our parents and our teachers. While not everybody shares her same faith, she said, morality is well defined in the world today. She discussed the difference in her moral code with that of the executives at WorldCom. Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan were both highly successful in their respective roles at the time. However, they had what she said was "an appetite for risk." Taking risks isn't necessarily a bad thing, Cooper said, but greed made it so that these people couldn't handle seeing profits struggle. When WorldCom's stocks started falling, she said, Ebbers took out $400 million in loans, which was the largest corporate loan in history. While this was technically a legal loan, Cooper said, Ebbers likely had some idea that ... when we do things against our values, our lives implode." — Cynthia Cooper, former Time Person of the Year he was never going to pull the company out of debt. "Just because something is legal doesn't make it ethical," Cooper said. "WorldCom probably should have gone into bankruptcy long before it did. She said this loan, as well as the accounting cover up, was a misguided attempt to save the company. Cooper said Ebbers originally thought something must have been miscalculated when he heard the financial figures, so he had Vinson and Normand re-evaluate the spending and earnings of the company. However, she said, they found no errors, so Ebbers had them fabricate the numbers. No error was ever found, but the numbers continued to be fabricated. "A lot of these executives were used to seeing their companies praised on Wall Street, and they didn't want them to fall on their watch," she said. Even while Ebbers claimed the real miscalculation was being searched for, she said she felt confident the executives knew that what they were doing was wrong. Cooper said some of the executives experienced suicidal tendencies during the scandal. "Even when we're not found out," Cooper said, "when we do things against our values, our lives implode." In the end, Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Sullivan received five years after being a key witness against Ebbers, Vinson was given six months, and Normand was put on probation. Cooper said there were many measures taken to keep fraud like this from happening again. All public companies are now required to have a fraud hotline to which all employees can report potential misdeeds. Large corporations have also started incorporating training programs to teach employees ethics and how to face ethical dilemmas, she added. She also cited the strengthening of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an example of how scandals like this are less likely today. Douglas Anderson, dean of the business college, said Cooper's speech fit well with the Huntsman School of Business, because one of its four pillars is ethical leadership, which he said Cooper exemplifies. She qbeegole knows Dv/ love hem Now eveveome elsie 7Th 41 North Main (435) 753-4870 - bracken_allen@yahoo.com -f-001 • |