[Vnbiz] Intel Vietnam refuses to pay bribes

[AD Marshall]

Oops.  Forgot the link to "Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller", In These Times:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1999/

And, more importantly, i forgot to insert "Supply" into "Dương | Yang |
Active Affirmation(?) | Good(?)" to construct:

   - Âm | Yin | Passive Negation(?) | Demand | Bad(?)
   - Dương | Yang | Active Affirmation(?) | Supply | Good(?)
   - Đạo | Tao | A Way | A *Dynamic* Instance of a "General Equilibrium"
   | Better(?) -- for the moment or circumstances at hand.

Just in case anyone noticed... :D


On 8/16/07, AD Marshall <admarshall at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Whew!  I'm obviously having trouble keeping up with this thread.  It seems
> several nerves have been touched.  Good sign...  ;)
>
> Anh Hoanh, i'd like to note that i tried to choose my words quite
> carefully and talked of what we might practically expect, of tendencies and
> relative human responses of majorities to economic stimuli, like (holistic)
> relative prices, costs and net benefits (ie, "economic profits"), rather
> than specific examples of the isolated actions or motivations of individuals
> or fringe groups, good and bad.
>
> With that background set, i'd like to respond that i think that, in
> principal, neither ethics nor economics absolutely precedes or rules over
> the other.  They go hand in hand together, both influencing and responding
> to the other, simultaneously, in real-time, so to speak.
>
> And (as i think it is more accurate to portray chi Lien's post mentioning
> ethics) even highly ethical people can all too often be seen being coerced
> into submitting to survival tactics they do not particularly approve of, by
> their economic situations.  Just as reasonably, the more economically lucky
> and ethical among us can be expected to primarily sympathize or empathize
> with them yet not follow their ways as models for our own.
>
> One relative wealth or power, versus either others or one's past, doesn't
> seem to change common behaviors much, as super-rich exist in both more
> ethical and unethical circles and most actors in both still generally seem
> to keep seeking even more power or wealth.
>
> Of course, ethics are essential and have primacy.  But they, quite
> naturally and necessarily, share those qualities with other influences upon
> us, not the least of which are our economic circumstances.  Trade-offs,
> compromises should, must and will be rationally or "practically" almost
> always be made, almost everywhere.
>
> But i wholeheartedly agree that, where feasible, an ethical solution
> almost always provide greater *holistic* net benefits (ie, " economic
> profit<http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/eco/chap9/e0909301.asp>"
> accounting for even "opportunity costs<http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/eco/chap9/e0909301.asp>")
> than an unethical solution will provide.
>
> That said, i'd again like to shift focus back to the context of all this.
>
> Before he went to Heaven early this year ( ;)), Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (who i
> know i fall back on too much ;)) wrote, "Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller, In
> These Times.  Of Sontag, he said:
> News > March 3, 2005By Kurt Vonnegut<http://www.inthesetimes.com/about/author/86>
>  **
>
> <http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1999/susan_sontag_and_arthur_miller/&h=Susan%20Sontag%20and%20Arthur%20Miller>
>
> She did get off one sound bite in an interview on television, which was to
> me a stunning sermon in and of itself. She was asked what she had learned
> from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel,
> no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that
> the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.
> That, in a nutshell, seems to me to be one of the most compelling reasons
> why "leaders" exist, are used and are wanted or needed by the vast majority
> of peoples, anywhere, anytime.  (But, watch out, that also seems to be both
> an observation of and argument for inevitable elitism. ;))
>
> But please note a similarity of those proportions, 10:80:10, to a basic
> observation and assumption, and a consequent application of mathematics as
> statistics regarding populations in general: ie, the Normal Distribution and
> Bell Curve, respectively.
>
> It's seems it might well be quite normal (even rational) that some "80
> percent could be moved in either direction" and the good and bad elites(?)
> -- the "natural" leaders on average? -- should expect and include that fact
> in their strategic designs if they want to attain their social goals, good
> or bad.
>
> It even seems, to me, that, yet again, it is much more than coincidental
> that these relationships seem to fit together so well:
>
>    - Âm | Yin | Passive Negation(?) | Demand | Bad(?)
>    - Dương | Yang | Active Affirmation(?) | Good(?)
>    - Đạo | Tao | A Way | A *Dynamical* Instance of a "General
>    Equilibrium" | Better(?) -- for the moment or circumstances at hand.
>
> So how do ethics fit into these dynamics?  Seems to me they'd be a part
> with a higher priority and primacy, a part that would ride on our inherent
> and ingrained emotions or inner feelings and impulses about things we meet,
> and that they'll largely result in diverse autonomic or reasoned responses
> both over time and across peoples.  The autonomic responses likely can be
> continually retrained and the reasoned responses will best adapt over time
> to the actor's environment and feedback on the ongoing retraining of each
> actors' emotional responses.
>
> Can i reasonably agree with your core proposition that, "The entire issue
> has to do with ethics"?  Yes.  But it almost equally has to do with economic
> circumstances and responses, too.
>
> A population's responses, however, seem to "normally" be distributed quite
> consistently over the long run, "by the end of which we're all dead", to
> paraphrase Keynes.
>
> In the shorter, more practical term of here and now (of "disequilibria"
> being regularly corrected and recurring) some 80 percent of folks must
> accept and respond rationally to their socio-economic circumstances,
> including their moral mindset (in the broader Buddhist sense of mind being
> both emotions and thoughts) -- "socio-economics" being, notably, a sub-set
> of the broader "economics".  Sometimes ethics can or will and should
> prevail.  Too often, that just isn't be feasible.
>
> To me at least, economic conditions, primarily "skewed" distributions of
> income, seem to be the most predominant factor impeding most folks wishes to
> act according to their ethics.
>
>
> In parting, in case anyone wonders, here a some quotes i'd choose for this
> post from the many more at " Value Quotes - Quotations on value, values,
> virtues and ethics - from Socrates to Hsi-Tang, from Genesis 1:1 to The
> Dalai Lama, from Warren Buffett to George W. Bush<http://www.valuequotes.net/>
> ":
>
> Treating people with respect will gain one wide acceptance and improve the
> business. -- Tao Zhu Gong 500 B.C., Assistant to the Emperor of Yue, 2nd
> Business Principle
>
> In making judgments, the Early Kings were perfect, because they made moral
> principles the starting point of all their undertakings and the root of
> everything that was beneficial. This principle, however, is something that
> persons of mediocre intellect never grasp. Not grasping it, they lack
> awareness, and lacking awareness, they pursue profit. But while they pursue
> profit, it is absolutely impossible for them to be certain of attaining it.
> -- Lü Bu-wei 246 B.C., Chinese Prime Minister under Emperor Ying Zheng,
> The Annals of Lü Bu-wei, Lu Shi Chun Qiu
>
> Out of 5.8 billion people in the world, the majority of them are certainly
> not believers in Buddhism. We can't argue with them, tell them they should
> be believers. No! Impossible! And, realistically speaking, if the majority
> of humanity remain nonbelievers, it doesn't matter. No problem! The problem
> is that the majority have lost, or ignore, the deeper human values -
> compassion, a sense of responsibility. That is our big concern. -- The Dalai
> Lama in Time, December 1997
>
> [Personally, i usually think i'm lost in the that majority, maybe 80
> percent of my time.  ;)  C'est la vie.  "What, me worry?" ;) -- ADM]
>
> And just for you, Anh Hoanh:
>
> Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values
> before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them. -- Stephen
> Covey, American leadership consultant and writer
>
> For the newer generations, a predictions i hope have time to come true
> while we're still freely Internetworked worldwide -- and before our older
> generations finish off our feasible Environment for acting "normally" ;) --
> a quote that reminds of a book excerpt recently read about the leadership of
> Virgin's Richard Branson, at India's Express Computer Weekly, "Don't lead
> sheep, herd cats"<http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070813/technologylife02.shtml>:
>
>
> Executives will have to invest more and more on issues such as culture,
> values, ethos and intangibles. Instead of managers, they need to be
> cultivators and storytellers to capture minds. -- Leif Edvinsson, pioneer on
> Intellectual Capital in Corporate Longitude 2002
>
> And for this post's author's own amusement:
>
> In God we trust, all others bring data. -- Dr. W. Edwards Deming
> 1900-1993, American Statistician
>
> Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
> -- Epicurus 341  B.C.-270  B.C., ancient Greek philosopher, father of
> hedonism
>
> Cheers, y'all,
> AD
>
>
> On 8/16/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> > Dear brother Phong & CACC,
> >
> > I don't know if there is statistics about FCPA exists.  You can do the
> > research yourself to find that out.  I know that we lawyers treat it very
> > seriously.  ALL American international trade lawyers I met, without ONE
> > single exception, mention FCPA every time we discuss the potential of doing
> > business with Vietnam.  Many lawyers I know have decided to stay away from
> > Vietnam and counseled their clients to hold off on Vietnam ventures, citing
> > corruption and FCPA.  Others, like me, decided to do work in Vietnam while
> > staying faithful to FCPA regardless whether we could make a deal or not (In
> > fact, I told ALL my clients before agreeing to represent them on Vietnam
> > business issues that I do not do corruption and if they don't agree with
> > that position, I can't represent them).
> >
> > If that is not serious treatment of the law, then what is?
> >
> > About brother Phong's recommendation:
> >
> > A set of anti-corruption laws must be in place.
> > A free and independent press plays the most important role in exposing
> > corruption.
> > A fair, competent, and independent court is necessary to prosecute
> > corruption
> >
> > This is a reasonable recommendation, except by itself it won't work.  If
> > the free and independnet press is corrupt and the independent court is
> > corrupt, anti-corruption law doesn't help.  And that is precisely the South
> > Vietnam's pre-1975 experience.  I grew up pondering over that sorry
> > experience every day of  my college life.  And this is what sis Bich Lien
> > said missing besides legislation.
> >
> > The law and the system, regardless of how well it is designed, won't
> > help much if the people in the system who runs the system is so corrupt.
> >
> > Brother Andi talks about economic issue, yes it may be correct in some
> > cases.  But corruption has little to do with not making enough money.  Most
> > corrupt people have more money than they ever need (in the relative sense,
> > compared with others around them).  Just look around.
> >
> > The entire issue has to do with ethics, the voluntary sense of right and
> > wrong in the people's heart.  A good law and good system doesn't hurt and
> > actually will help in many instances, but the foundation upon which the law
> > stands, the ethics, has to be strong.  As long as we don't realize that we
> > have to work on building a strong ethics foundation in the people, i.e.
> > making people believe in honesty, social responsibility, etc. then the law
> > can't do its job well.  (Unfortunately, many among us either disregard
> > ethics or even go so far as to say that ethics is not necessary in solving
> > governng issues.  Sad!)
> >
> > Ethics, while having its own system of reward and punishment, has a lot
> > to do with voluntary human conduct.  Are we going to recongnize the deep
> > problem of our conduct or we simply want to work at things on the surface
> > like law and econ and system?  I am an economic lawyers, specialized in
> > economic litigation, so I love the law and econ.  But I also know their
> > limit when it comes to human conduct.  Things that start deep in the human
> > heart, surface system won't solve.
> >
> > In that sense, Intel Vietnam's effort plays an incredibly big deal in
> > setting the ethical tone for Vietnam's business environment.  I predict that
> > many years from now, Intel Vietnam's memorandum on ethics today will be
> > mentioned as a milestone in Vietnam's business development in the mopdern
> > time.  Of course, this memorandum helps Intel do business easier, but that
> > self-interest doesn't take away its siginificant impact on Vietnam's
> > environment.
> >
> > Have a great day!
> >
> > Hoanh
> >
> >
> > On 8/15/07, Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov <Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear anh Hoanh,
> > > You can't have it both ways claiming to be a heavy-dosed corporate
> > > lawyer and saying that FCPA is not your expertise.
> > > When a lawyer doesn't know some part of the law, he does research (or
> > > get the paralegal to do it for him).
> > > How many cases were successfully prosecuted?  You may also want to
> > > find out  about FCPA's exceptions.
> > > I am saying that FCPA is not a good law, it is great.  But I think we
> > > need to be careful to match principle with action if we wish to avoid being
> > > perceived as hypocrites.
> > > "Our lawyer told me so or our accountant told me" so are not legal
> > > defense.
> > > Companies' main goal is to maximize profits.  Being careful not to run
> > > afoul of the law does not deviate from that goal if being caught and
> > > prosecuted hurt the bottom line.  Otherwise, if the penalty is light,
> > > companies will make the conscious decision to brake law and pay the fines.
> > >  Its ethical when defined as rules and standards, but not moral principles
> > > or values.
> > > HPP
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
> > > Washington DC
> >
> >
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