Fraud

With the Madoff Fraud and now the Satyam Fraud, I am reminded of the following passage from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they alledge, that care and vigilante, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves; but honesty hat no fence against superior cunning: and since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit; where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no Law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone and the knave gets the advantage.

So true.

Would Bernie and Ramalinga have committed their frauds if their lives were on the line?

 This is the second time I have quoted from Gulliver's Travels in this blog. I will have to read again to find some other wisdom.