6 ms·

>Goldman wasn't obligated to put up a shingle reading "We are losing our appetite for CDOs, and so can't take your money if you think they're still a great inve

>Goldman wasn't obligated to put up a shingle reading "We are losing our appetite for CDOs, and so can't take your money if you think they're still a great investment." This is the problem. They should be obligated. Being a professional carries ethical constraints. If your clients aren't getting your best advice you aren't a professional, you are a salesman. It's not okay for salesmen to pose as professionals.

lsc 14y ago
>This is the problem. They should be obligated. Being a professional carries ethical constraints. If your clients aren't getting your best advice you aren't a professional, you are a salesman. It's not okay for salesmen to pose as professionals. Now, modern usage of 'professional' aside,(I killed a long screed about how the only people putting effort into being seen as professionals anymore are salespeople, thus the word is losing it's previously positive connotations.) This idea that "professionals are trustworthy" comes from the outmoded idea that the upper classes are somehow more honest and trustworthy than the 'working man' - that because the lawyer has more education than the plumber, and probably comes from a higher-class background, he has a feeling of "Noblesse oblige" - and you can therefore trust the lawyer while you can not trust the plumber.
- msabalau 14y ago
  Professional ethics are based on the obligations that come with specialized knowledge and responsibility. Even professions that are solidly middle class are seen as having duties and obligations. Librarians are expected, for example, to resist censorship, and to protect the privacy of their patrons. If professionalism seems less meaningful in modern society, it is because a distressingly large number of professionals in occupations like finance are acting dishonorably and unethically.
  - lsc 14y ago
    Fine, fine, I'll post the screed. My point is that the word "professional" is now all but synonymous with "slick salesman" Personally, I doubt that "professionals" were any more trustworthy before I was old enough to notice, too... thus me poking fun at the very ideas underpinning it. (as an aside, I don't know all that much about finance... but as far as I can tell, it's nothing but sales, so there really isn't any room for professionalism in the way you mean the word. They aren't doing anything but selling.) My experience with people that claim to be 'professional' or who attempt to dress professionally - nearly all of those people I know are salespeople. If you want someone to show up on time and look good? sure, go with one of them. If you want the correct answers to your questions? if you want someone to give you truthful answers even when those truthful answers mean you go with a competitor? find someone who is actually into what you are trying to do. That's the thing, at least in the part of Engineering where I work? sure, some good Engineers claim to be professionals, but almost none of them put any effort into the appearances of professionalism. Few put any effort into dressing or grooming, and many are habitually late. The only people I know that put a lot of effort into appearing professional are the sales people. I mean, sure, you and I can argue back and forth all day... "Words have meaning!" and, of course, a 'professional' is someone that does a job that requires a lot of training, and probably comes from an upper middle class background. But the thing is, that meaning changes over time, as how the word is used. Personally, I associate the word 'professional' along with the western style business suit, with fraud, mostly because the Engineers I know don't put much effort into claiming to be professional, while most sales people do. I think that more and more people have that opinion of the suit; even salespeople I meet rarely wear suits, (though, of course, they still loudly declare they are 'professionals' even though they have little knowledge of the product and are more than happy to make up ridiculous lies about their own product and the competition.)
    - yuhong 14y ago
      Yea, I will refer you to this post that describes the fundamental flaws: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201
    - billswift 14y ago
      "Professional always means power." Frank Herbert Most specifically, the power to exclude competition, that is the sole real purpose of "professional licensing", whether medical, legal, engineering, or other. The "protecting the public" is fraudulent window dressing to impress the suckers.
      - forensic 14y ago
        Overly cynical. If doctors did not have a professional association their conduct would likely get worse, so there is a public interest being served when professions self-regulate for quality. There is also an anti-competitive factor, but corporate oligopolies do the exact same thing. Libertarians criticize professional bodies and unions while giving monopolies, oligopolies, and regulatory capture a free pass. This is plain stupid because it is those corporate monopolies that are stifling human progress, not the relatively powerless unions whether they're the white collar "association" variety or the blue collar "union" variety.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        You're presupposing that the costs of decreased competition outweigh the benefits of regulation. I have yet to see convincing evidence in support of this proposition.
    - forensic 14y ago
      Your point, in short: non-professionals work really hard to present themselves as professionals, to the extent that actual professionals now shun the word. The word has a strict technical definition, however, and that definition is all about trust. What makes a professional unique is that they are ethically and legally bound to do their best for the client. If they fail, they can be held responsible. Stricter regulation over the word is obviously needed, because non-professionals have appropriated it.
- rayiner 14y ago
  No, it's based on the very real fact that a lawyer can get in serious trouble for violating a raft of nit-picky self-regulatory provisions. Law firms have entire departments dedicated to avoiding conflicts of interest, and lawyers can get in trouble even for failing to disclose unethical activity they know about. Not to mention the constant threat of malpractice suits, in which violation of the ethical rules are strongly probative of malpractice liability.
  - lsc 14y ago
    well, if the line between 'professional' and not is a legally defined one, you have a good point. I don't know how deep it goes, but I do believe that you need some kind of government-issued licence to be a stockbroker, in which case, sure, maybe then you should be able to expect that they follow a certain set of rules. (I do note that even with tightly defined rules, it's /very hard/ for people that are essentially salespeople to act in someone else's best interest. Hell, it's hard for a honest person to at in another person's best interest.)
    - wootie 14y ago
      Financial licenses are issued by FINRA (Financial Regulatory Authority). A main focus of the general exam and the supervisory exam (the Series 7 and 24) is 'dealing with the public.' The industry relies on the idea that you can trust your financial advisor. You still can't regulate ethics. Some people are just slimy; they will be slimy no matter what industry they are in.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        > You still can't regulate ethics. Some people are just slimy; they will be slimy no matter what industry they are in. I think this is a bit defeatist. Professions can and do regulate their own culture. It's a question of having the will to do so. I'm going through the process of being admitted to the bar right now, and I have to say it's instilled in me at least a healthy fear. It's incredibly invasive. The character & fitness committee not only digs into your public data (speeding tickets, etc), but reaches back into things like expunged juvenile convictions. And it starts from Day 1. I had professors who were on the C&F committee who told me horror stories of people with $200k of debt failing to be admitted. There is a honor code culture. If there was cheating going on at my law school, it was below my radar, while it was fairly common at my engineering school. I feel medicine is the same way. I have family members who are surgeons who feel incredibly uncomfortable just when drug reps bring in lunch. Even in engineering, at least in the traditional disciplines like mechanicals, etc, (I was an aerospace major), there is a strong understanding that when you go into work, peoples' lives are on the line. I'm sure there are a lot of slimly people in these professions, but the difference is that the strong cultural condemnation forces such behavior under the radar. Meanwhile, the financial sector seems to reject the idea of professional codes of conduct as outmoded.

lsc 14y ago

>This is the problem. They should be obligated. Being a professional carries ethical constraints. If your clients aren't getting your best advice you aren't a professional, you are a salesman. It's not okay for salesmen to pose as professionals. Now, modern usage of 'professional' aside,(I killed a long screed about how the only people putting effort into being seen as professionals anymore are salespeople, thus the word is losing it's previously positive connotations.) This idea that "professionals are trustworthy" comes from the outmoded idea that the upper classes are somehow more honest and trustworthy than the 'working man' - that because the lawyer has more education than the plumber, and probably comes from a higher-class background, he has a feeling of "Noblesse oblige" - and you can therefore trust the lawyer while you can not trust the plumber.

msabalau 14y ago
Professional ethics are based on the obligations that come with specialized knowledge and responsibility. Even professions that are solidly middle class are seen as having duties and obligations. Librarians are expected, for example, to resist censorship, and to protect the privacy of their patrons. If professionalism seems less meaningful in modern society, it is because a distressingly large number of professionals in occupations like finance are acting dishonorably and unethically.
- lsc 14y ago
  Fine, fine, I'll post the screed. My point is that the word "professional" is now all but synonymous with "slick salesman" Personally, I doubt that "professionals" were any more trustworthy before I was old enough to notice, too... thus me poking fun at the very ideas underpinning it. (as an aside, I don't know all that much about finance... but as far as I can tell, it's nothing but sales, so there really isn't any room for professionalism in the way you mean the word. They aren't doing anything but selling.) My experience with people that claim to be 'professional' or who attempt to dress professionally - nearly all of those people I know are salespeople. If you want someone to show up on time and look good? sure, go with one of them. If you want the correct answers to your questions? if you want someone to give you truthful answers even when those truthful answers mean you go with a competitor? find someone who is actually into what you are trying to do. That's the thing, at least in the part of Engineering where I work? sure, some good Engineers claim to be professionals, but almost none of them put any effort into the appearances of professionalism. Few put any effort into dressing or grooming, and many are habitually late. The only people I know that put a lot of effort into appearing professional are the sales people. I mean, sure, you and I can argue back and forth all day... "Words have meaning!" and, of course, a 'professional' is someone that does a job that requires a lot of training, and probably comes from an upper middle class background. But the thing is, that meaning changes over time, as how the word is used. Personally, I associate the word 'professional' along with the western style business suit, with fraud, mostly because the Engineers I know don't put much effort into claiming to be professional, while most sales people do. I think that more and more people have that opinion of the suit; even salespeople I meet rarely wear suits, (though, of course, they still loudly declare they are 'professionals' even though they have little knowledge of the product and are more than happy to make up ridiculous lies about their own product and the competition.)
  - yuhong 14y ago
    Yea, I will refer you to this post that describes the fundamental flaws: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3426201
  - billswift 14y ago
    "Professional always means power." Frank Herbert Most specifically, the power to exclude competition, that is the sole real purpose of "professional licensing", whether medical, legal, engineering, or other. The "protecting the public" is fraudulent window dressing to impress the suckers.
    - forensic 14y ago
      Overly cynical. If doctors did not have a professional association their conduct would likely get worse, so there is a public interest being served when professions self-regulate for quality. There is also an anti-competitive factor, but corporate oligopolies do the exact same thing. Libertarians criticize professional bodies and unions while giving monopolies, oligopolies, and regulatory capture a free pass. This is plain stupid because it is those corporate monopolies that are stifling human progress, not the relatively powerless unions whether they're the white collar "association" variety or the blue collar "union" variety.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      You're presupposing that the costs of decreased competition outweigh the benefits of regulation. I have yet to see convincing evidence in support of this proposition.
  - forensic 14y ago
    Your point, in short: non-professionals work really hard to present themselves as professionals, to the extent that actual professionals now shun the word. The word has a strict technical definition, however, and that definition is all about trust. What makes a professional unique is that they are ethically and legally bound to do their best for the client. If they fail, they can be held responsible. Stricter regulation over the word is obviously needed, because non-professionals have appropriated it.
rayiner 14y ago
No, it's based on the very real fact that a lawyer can get in serious trouble for violating a raft of nit-picky self-regulatory provisions. Law firms have entire departments dedicated to avoiding conflicts of interest, and lawyers can get in trouble even for failing to disclose unethical activity they know about. Not to mention the constant threat of malpractice suits, in which violation of the ethical rules are strongly probative of malpractice liability.
- lsc 14y ago
  well, if the line between 'professional' and not is a legally defined one, you have a good point. I don't know how deep it goes, but I do believe that you need some kind of government-issued licence to be a stockbroker, in which case, sure, maybe then you should be able to expect that they follow a certain set of rules. (I do note that even with tightly defined rules, it's /very hard/ for people that are essentially salespeople to act in someone else's best interest. Hell, it's hard for a honest person to at in another person's best interest.)
  - wootie 14y ago
    Financial licenses are issued by FINRA (Financial Regulatory Authority). A main focus of the general exam and the supervisory exam (the Series 7 and 24) is 'dealing with the public.' The industry relies on the idea that you can trust your financial advisor. You still can't regulate ethics. Some people are just slimy; they will be slimy no matter what industry they are in.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > You still can't regulate ethics. Some people are just slimy; they will be slimy no matter what industry they are in. I think this is a bit defeatist. Professions can and do regulate their own culture. It's a question of having the will to do so. I'm going through the process of being admitted to the bar right now, and I have to say it's instilled in me at least a healthy fear. It's incredibly invasive. The character & fitness committee not only digs into your public data (speeding tickets, etc), but reaches back into things like expunged juvenile convictions. And it starts from Day 1. I had professors who were on the C&F committee who told me horror stories of people with $200k of debt failing to be admitted. There is a honor code culture. If there was cheating going on at my law school, it was below my radar, while it was fairly common at my engineering school. I feel medicine is the same way. I have family members who are surgeons who feel incredibly uncomfortable just when drug reps bring in lunch. Even in engineering, at least in the traditional disciplines like mechanicals, etc, (I was an aerospace major), there is a strong understanding that when you go into work, peoples' lives are on the line. I'm sure there are a lot of slimly people in these professions, but the difference is that the strong cultural condemnation forces such behavior under the radar. Meanwhile, the financial sector seems to reject the idea of professional codes of conduct as outmoded.