I like my new job and I intend to keep it. Indeed, I hope to continue my climb up the corporate ladder from where I began several years and a few jobs ago as a glorified office boy.

In terms of morality, I have succeeded in pleasing bosses and stockholders alike by following the admonishment of Henry B. Adams, “Morality is a private and costly luxury”. (Welcome To The Quote Garden)

I’m told that my new job, in consultation with appropriate legal beagles, is to advise the company on how to” reduce or minimize risk and liability in its ongoing activities”. In other words, how to make as much money as possible and don’t get caught doing it.

The famed economist, the late Milton Friedman, has put it best,” the social responsibility of business is to increase profits.” (Questions About Morality, Welcome To The Quote Garden)

This company, like so many other huge United States firms, is incorporated in Delaware although its headquarters are elsewhere. Texas laws, while certainly not unfriendly to business, are not nearly as hospitable as Delaware, which receives one fifth of all of its revenue from the franchise tax on businesses that incorporate there. (State of Delaware)

One example of how permissive is Delaware is that one person, not necessarily a U.S. citizen, may be the sole stockholder and officer, and may be anonymous.

The interest rates, which Delaware permits borrowers to be charged, are of the variety that would be celebrated by Billy Shakespeare’s Shylock and Charlie Dickens’ Fagan, Scrooge and Fledgeby. So I shall advise that our retail outlets shall lenders be to take advantage of this legal usury wherever practical.

Is this advice moral? Would my company’s non-participation in this practice put an end to these interest rates, there might be a good case made that its participation is immoral. However, the practice, and profits, would merely revert to Visa, MasterCard, et al with no relief to the borrower.

The next bit of advice I would give is for my company’s oil and energy entities, and all of its others, to direct its political contributions to those members of congress who support more oil drilling in Alaska and on the coastal shores.  It should be “subtly suggested” to its employees shortly before evaluation time that it would be an appropriate exercise in good citizenship to direct their personal contribution in similar fashion.

I would defend the morality of this in terms of John Stuart Mills’ “greater welfare for the greater number. (The quote garden) Is the health and welfare of a handful of penguins more important than lower gas prices, lower heating oil costs and the company’s profits, which mean higher wages for those who make such contributions?

Then there is the company’s financial arm that does brokerage for capital market investments in Russia and China. Should it do so despite the widespread reports of corruption and horrid human rights violations?