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Ethical Standards In Business In The United States

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Ethical standards in business can be divided up into three levels. These levels are law, policies, and individuals. In the United States, we are bound by laws. With these laws, we distinguish right and wrong, and what is accepted by the majority of citizens in terms of behavior. Businesses have to abide to these laws at all time. There are laws on wages and hours to protect employees, but there are laws on environmental responsibility too. For a business to be considered ethical, at first, they should always follow the law. The law however, does not always guarantee ethical conduct as there is a thin line between legal and ethical. A business might act legally but unethical at the same time. In this case, the business must see to that themselves if this is ethical or not. The second level is policies. Internal policies and procedures of companies play a part in whether a business can be considered ethical. Having a sound company policy enables employees and managers of the company to make decisions while ensuring they are not improper actions. The policies of a business should include the termination procedures, hiring practices, vendor …show more content…

Subprime lending means that people that have a lesser ability to pay the loan back at a higher than normal prime rate. On itself, this is not unethical. However, the companies that started implementing abusive tactics changed that. They started targeting people of low income, elderly, individuals with limited understanding of financial transactions, and minorities. The subprime mortgage lenders did not keep true to their fiduciary duty and the system was based on giving the broker a reward for closing a loan. Countrywide Financial is one of these businesses that had unethical practices. They used misleading marketing practices to sell mortgages with risky terms and hidden fees and basically steered borrowers into loans that were going to

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