Letters to the Editor 12/5/24

A case that haunted: Crime pays

In the mid-1970’s when I attended Harvard Business School, there were no books for the entire two-year MBA program. Instead, students read three cases a day about real-life business situations typically gone wrong and needing solutions that we as students had to come up with. I never forgot one case when, at the end of class, it was clear that the CEO got away with doing some highly unethical and unlawful things. The professor stared the students in the face, and his parting words just before the bell rang were “crime pays.” I was very rattled since I wasn’t brought up to think this. I and my colleagues took it for granted that we should behave ethically and lawfully.

The case haunted me throughout my business career whenever I observed corporate crime, and the perpetrators often getting away with it or receiving only a slap on the wrist. Some folks did not even get charged due to their clever maneuvering or somebody further down the organization taking the fall.

I am now retired, but during my entire corporate life, most of which was as CEO of a company I founded, I played by the rules. I had believed that a basic tenet of the United States was the rule of law. I always admired the U.S. for being a lawful society, and even bragging about it to my foreign friends.

Twelve years ago, I met my future wife while on a visit to Lebanon. She had never been to the U.S. I impressed upon her that unlike Lebanon, which I observed to be corrupt at almost every level, the U.S. was a superior place to be partially thanks to the rule of law. She has been asking me lately how I can still support this contention when we have a president-elect who is not only a criminal, but for whom numerous charges against him for serious alleged crimes have been dropped because of his high position and power. And how is it right that the current president has pardoned his son for gun law violations and tax evasion, crimes that most anyone else would be punished for? And what about the fact that nobody at the banks were punished during the 2007-2008 financial crisis? I am embarrassed and ashamed when trying to respond to her.

I am afraid that if the same case I had almost 50 years ago at Harvard Business School were taught today, some students would consider the prospect of not following the rules since it has become more and more obvious that white collar crime clearly pays given the low risk of getting in trouble and the high potential rewards. Thankfully, I don’t need to explain this lesson to my kids, as they are already grown up and have conducted their lives honestly and ethically as far as I can tell.

The unethical behaviors of Trump, Biden and others are out there for all of the impressionable young generation to observe, and I fear that they are learning that it is worth it to be crooked. Let us hope that this does not portend greater corruption in our society. What are we gonna do about it?

Lloyd Baroody

Lakeville

Thanks for local papers

Last week’s Lakeville Journal had a large ad carrying testimonies about our two local newspapers and their importance to our area. I am writing again to laud The Lakeville Journal because it is able and willing to bring in-depth knowledge of local problems to the fore. It keeps its readers up to date on such important issues as the plans for the expansion of the Wake Robin that affect the very heart of the community at large as well as immediate neighbors.

In the same issue there was also a long interview by Jennifer Almquist with a homeless woman living in a tent outside Waterbury with her family. Creating sufficient affordable housing is a challenge with which most of us are familiar. However, this article brought to the forefront the immediacy of need, along with the complexity of providing enough housing and additional resources to help people like Christina.

Without such reporting, the immensity of the problem — in fact its very existence locally — would pass most of us by. Awareness is the first step toward trying to create solutions. Obviously, there

are few ready and easy answers to such complex dilemmas as this woman and her family embody, but at the very least, this article evokes compassion and some understanding.

Thank you to The Journal and its wonderful staff for your important work!

PS: Since invasives are the immediate and ongoing bane of my existence, an additional thanks for the article on Tom Zetterstrom and his great work.

Barbara Maltby

Lakeville

Skeptical about Trump’s policy choices

As a Democrat, I am skeptical about President-elect Trump’s policy choices. I don’t think they’re good for the country or will achieve the results he promises. But that’s ok. I’m used to being on the outs when a Republican takes the White House. Wait till next year.

On the other hand, I take strong exception to Trump’s methods, especially those he is using or has indicated he will use in running his second administration: appointing inexperienced loyalists to key government positions, using the military to deport immigrants, directing the judiciary to harass his political opponents and by-passing the constitutionally mandated review of his cabinet picks by the Senate. He has even started lobbying Congress to find a workaround for the 22nd Amendment limiting U.S. Presidents to two terms in office. While the jury may be out on whether Trump’s policy choices are good or bad, these strongman tactics do unequivocal damage to American democracy.

It was Trump who introduced intimidation into national politics. A Republican lawmaker who chooses his conscience over loyalty to Donald Trump can expect a stream of denigration and name calling from Mar a Lago, doxing and threats from Trump’s online supporters, and a well-funded primary challenger at the next election. There’s an impressive political machine at work, but it’s unlikely to lead to good decisions.

And it was Trump again who introduced lying on an un precedented scale into the public sphere. Describing Germany in the 1930s, Hannah Arendt uses the term “organized lying,” Trump’s practice of uttering lies, repeating them long after they’ve been shown to be false, getting others, whether in the media, in cyberspace, or on Capitol Hill to repeat them, and retaliating when he can against those who call out his lies for what they are. This is also unlikely to lead America to a new golden age.

What disheartens Democrats most is not that their Republican counterparts support policies on the economy, immigration, foreign policy, and the environment that they dislike but that so many Republicans either participate in or go along with Trump’s ugly and un-American methods.

Yet Republicans have almost as much cause to object to Trump’s strongman tactics as Democrats. If Trump proves not quite as good at fixing things as his campaign promised, if the prices at the supermarket and the fuel pump rise after a few years of his tenure, Republicans as well as Democrats will want to hand the reins of government to a different candidate. And that will be hard to do if the mechanism of American democracy has been irretrievably trashed.

Willard Wood

Norfolk

Tribute to Salisbury’s Rod Lankler

It is rare for someone to arrive here loving everything about the town and its people, and then begin a years-long volunteer effort that touches so many people and organizations — that was Rod Lankler. With his brain power, curiosity, life experience, and a happy disposition, he helped many of our vital nonprofits: Salisbury Volunteer Nurses, Conservation Commission, Affordable Housing, Rotary, and so many more. He gave his great legal intellect to complex management issues, but equally enjoyed serving ice cream on Memorial Day. Whatever tasks he did were done with winks and his infectious smile. His most recent accomplishment was skillfully navigating the issues of our solid waste and guiding our effort to locate and build the new Transfer Station.

Rod was strong and a person whose word was most important and you always knew where you stood with him. He pushed back on those who he thought were trying to put one over on anyone, and his best lesson was that you can go farther anywhere with humility, humor and a good sense of irony.

Besides all of this, he loved his family and friends and he was playful. He always wore his GRUMPY hat but once he left it at a meeting and his colleagues made him pay at an auction to get it back. We remember him driving his red truck with a load of grandchildren in the back, heading off for a new adventure on his beloved Twin Lakes, a smile on his face. Thank you, Barbara, and the rest of your family, for lending us Rod and everything you all have done for us.

Curtis Rand

Salisbury

First Selectman