Top Preforming CEO fired for lying on his Expense Report

Why is hawkeye defending a wrong doer?

I am trying to think of a single corporation that has been able to parley being a paragon of virtue into success. How about all of those investment groups which were going to invest only in companies that meet the ethical standard of using sustainable practices and practicing the highest level of human rights...where are these people now??

I am not. one of my major beefs with the corporate class is how they treat people, but zero tolerance for mistakes is not an improvement. Nobody wins, not the company, not the people who work for them, not the stockholders, not the customers.

The military tried that from about 95-05, it is one of the major reasons our officer corps sucks so bad.

hawk, Your ethics needs an oil change. And replace that damn filter; it's not healthy.

This guy didn't make a "mistake". He committed fraud. Mistakes are forgiven all the time - crimes are punished. The BP example is a good one. BP didn't just make a small mistake in the Gulf, they had a corporate culture of taking shortcuts. Safety inspectors who were "overzealous" found themselves out of a job. Corners were routinely cut. For years nothing happened and then one day something did. BP will not cease to exist over the Gulf spill, but their reputation has been completely hammered and I'll bet all those shortcuts did not make up for the 20 billion they are out so far. You say companies have not made being a paragon of virtue into success, but think of Toyota and Honda vs. GM. How about Apple with their fanatical dedication to quality? (Funny that both Apple and Toyota have stumbled recently and how many headlines that has generated. GM recalls barely get a mention in the news.) But the real success companies that focus on ethics achieve is that you never hear of them in news stories like this. They go for decades without scandals in the front office hammering down the stock price or creating uncertainty. That kind of culture is what provides long term stock holder value.

I note with interest that the blogs and stories tend to fall into one of two camps, 1) that Hurd was stupid like Spitzer and all the rest, this was about human foibles and 2) that HP board WANTED to get rid of Hurd and latched on to this excuse to do what it would have done anyways.

It wasn't an excuse. It was real. He created the situation and whether they wanted him gone or not is of no consequence. Unless you are suggesting that they set him up.

the argument goes that the board wanted to move on to a different type of CEO, the HURD was toast even before the Board knew anything about this scandal. The idea is that the cost cutting and streamlining that Hurd does so well is finished, and the process of doing what he did had so lowered moral and so embittered the employees towards Hurd that a new guy needs to do the next stage. In this view all the morale righteousness of the board is frosting on the cake, it is not the main deal.

If true. That is their perogative. What is your argument now?

Sounds like HAwkeye doesnt understand ethics policies of companies.

YOu are a citizen of America, home to Wall Street and a federal government fully corrupted by corporate lobbyists, and you SERIOUSLY want to claim that corporate ethics are sacrosanct?

Please pass me what ever you are smoking...

Hawkeye doesn't understand ethics.

Also, it is hard to take him seriously when he blames corporations, government, feminists, women and everybody else for everything that happens in his life. It must be nice when everybody else has to take all the responsibility.

While Hawk and I rarely agree (although it has been known to happen) he is hardly unique in his views and I appreciate his willingness to take us all on if only because it clarifies my thinking to debate issues. It's just the ends-justify-the-means argument applied to powerful people. If someone can make me a lot of money or bring people to God or get a government program for my district, do I care if he breaks a few laws or harms a few people I don't know? When Enron was hammering California people were shaking their heads, but they really got up in arms when their stock became worthless. Just think where they'd be if Enron had decided to followed commonly accepted accounting practices instead of faking the books, but there are lots of people who look to the short term gain and ignore the long term potential cost. You can hardly slam Hawk for stating an opinion that so many clearly held for a long time.

I don't blame Hawkeye for stating an opinion. I just happen to disagree with that opinion.

engineer, It goes without saying that hawk's beliefs are not uncommon. However, hawk is on a2k trying to justify one man's fraud based on what he perceives (wrongly) that Hurd increased stock values. That's a one-sided argument without understanding the destructive nature of how Hurd accomplished this volatile goal that's questionable at best.

I completely agree and I've argued that point, but I wouldn't go so far as to say Hawk is especially morally challenged as compared to having a mind set where petty fraud and immoral behavior are normal for those in positions of power. On another thread just started, someone is suggesting that Charlie Rangel's misdeeds should be ignored because he is better than other congressmen and they are all corrupt. Seems like the same argument Hawk is pushing, but no one has yet called that poster ethically challenged.

HPQ down another 1.5% today, triple the Dow loss and about double Nasdaq's.

hawk, The majority of the stock market is down. HP's stock moves in tandem with the tech market the majority of time. It has little or nothing to do with Hurd's performance; he's gone.

Pleease..compairing a particular stock price movement to the movement of the overall average is a common financial analysis technique. HPQ losing multiples of the averages is significant, though we dont know the exact reasons the market is hitting HPQ harder.

However, we have now gone three days since the original hit the HPQ stock took that was clearly due to the forcing Hurd out, the original drop that you claim was out of line. Not only has the stock not recovered any, it continues to do worse than the averages. How long are we supposed to wait for everyone to figure out how overdone the Hurd premium was? Maybe you are wrong??

What's this world coming to, when a CEO is held to the same standard as every other working schmuck?