8 posts tagged “ethics”

[Cross-posted] If you follow my ramblings, even when they don’t make sense, you know I had my knives out for the ANZ National Bank here in New Zealand for what I think is questionable practice. So it was interesting to meet a few people tonight who are employees of the bank, one of whom was very staunch about defending her workplace against my charges about, well, bank charges.
   Humble pie time first: Sir John Anderson left the bank as a director 18 months ago, so the criticisms I put at him were unfair. I apologize to Sir John.
   Tonight, I don’t know whether I should be applauding the ANZ for brainwashing its younger staff so effectively or whether I should be congratulating myself for closing the overwhelming majority of accounts held there, given that there are people who do not give a damn about the customer.
   While people should defend their positions, they should also be open to hearing others’ viewpoints. Respectfully. The customer is right. Not so, it seems, at the ANZ.
   ‘The bank must make a profit, so it should make it from the mass customer base,’ I was told. ‘How would you do it?’
   I answered, ‘Through investing, as you did years ago before charging us.’
   She argued the usual points of the bank providing a service, before I confronted her with some basic logic that I have stated here before.
   A deposit to the bank is, after all, my loan to the bank. When the bank loans to me, can I charge it a “Jack privilege fee”?
   Around this point I was asked if we could change the subject.
   There are several conclusions we can draw. First, an executive at the ANZ bank, a fairly high-up one, is not open to hearing from her customers. She has her own world, where she has been conveniently conned into thinking the monetarist solution is the only one, when history tell us it isn’t—and that the bank’s cutting of costs over the last 20 years should actually make it more efficient.
   Another member of the staff, a little older but I understand a little more junior, put forward her theory which made a bit more sense, about how mortgages no longer funded the bank’s costs as effectively. She did not know for sure.
   But this shows just how bad the ANZ brand is. Different answers from different people—but the higher up you go, the less they care.
   Front-line staff, as I discussed earlier, cannot offer a credible explanation about bank fees that any customer who has been there for 20 or more years can fathom. Fact: people do have memories.
   And it seems that it is accepted as gospel that customers are to be taken from even at a higher level, no questions asked.
   How well ANZ has managed to blind its staff.
   A good brand is one that listens to consumers about their concerns—and actually levels with internal and external audiences about its policies.
   This experience confirms that the ANZ cannot level to either executives or front-line branch personnel, which means consumers are too far down the food chain for it to reach.
   This Australian-owned bank has been profiting very well from everyday New Zealanders over the last few years, too.
   But I cannot see that continue.
   Any brand expert will tell you that for all the financial analyses that a client shrouds itself in, the minute the brand falters, the effects on the bottom line will be felt.
   One of the symptoms is what I describe above: one based around the hope that people simply do not remember how they behaved before they began cutting their services and putting up charges.
   It is a failure to be transparent and to tell the truth to those consumers—and it only takes one who is aged over 30 to be able to remember the good ol’ days versus what I consider to be the unethical treatment that is metered out today.
   Just as I said a few months ago, the TSB Bank seems to be the only choice New Zealanders have, and at least the profits don’t make their way over to Sydney.
   It was my ‘prerogative’, said the executive, for me to do as I wished with my money, if I had gone to the TSB.
   No attempt to get it back—no promises to look into things. Even others have offered that to keep me on as a customer. Higher up, I guess, no one really cares. A lost customer isn’t important.
   Even if the lost customer is a stubborn bastard with a big mouth.
   If the ANZ wishes, I am happy to run a seminar for them to inform them of the niceties of listening to their customers. Unsurprisingly, I understand tonight that its profits are heading south this year.
   This problem won’t be fixed with advertising, rebranding or PR.
   It might be fixed by giving customers what they want and pursuing something other than short-term profit, which is exactly the message the ANZ has been sending me year after year.
   Because if banks aren’t looking at the long term, then what heck are we entrusting a penny to them?

Yesterday, I became a customer of the Taranaki Savings Bank. I got my accounts open with the manager herself, Lynne Russell. Today, one of her staff opened my US currency account, on which I get interest—rather than be stung the $17 or whatever it was at the ANZ just for having the account.
   No fees on EFT-POS and ATM (not that I ever use these), no fees on my account since I have a healthy balance, and, basically, banking as it should be.
   Remember when you deposit money into a bank you are technically making a loan to the bank. There is no logical reason you should be charged for that—unless when you take out a loan, you can charge the bank a discretionary fee. (I dare you to ask.)
   The TSB gets it. It gets that the customer is ‘paramount’, as I was told by one of its team today. Sir John Anderson and his fellow directors do not. I was with the ANZ since 1995 (leaving after Sir John took over from Sir Spencer Russell at the National Bank and began instigating some ridiculous charges there). I told Lynne she should expect I will stay with the Taranaki bank for 20-plus years.

I am morally against bank fees, and the ANZ Bank has usually been very good at making sure that I am not charged them.
   However, since late last year, despite protests, they haven’t been able to rid me of a $5 per month charge on an account I have held with the bank since the 1990s.
   So, it’s time to leave.
   I understand that the Taranaki Savings Bank has a no-fee policy for balances over $5,000, and it may be time to go patriotic and support a non-foreign-owned place.
   The problem is: there is a single branch out on Lambton Quay here in Wellington. I have enquired before about how deposits are made but if there are Voxers in New Zealand out there banking with TSB, I’d like to learn how you’ve found the process in practice.
   I also have a US dollar-only account, which TSB told me I could have. It’s also fee-free, which beats the $20 per month charge ANZ makes. So how is TSB when it comes to crediting US dollar cheques for a US dollar account?
   ANZ needs to realize it needs to keep a promise. It said it would fix things. It said that with the demise of the old type of account I had, there would be no difference. On both occasions the bank lied.
   I can afford the $5 but it’s the principle. They are making money off my money. In essence, they are borrowing money from me.
   If I borrow from them, they charge me interest.
   If they borrow from me, I should expect at least that I am not penalized for my generosity.
   This is how banks work.
   Of course, with even banking lawyers fuzzy on their understanding of such fundamental laws as the Bills of Exchange Act 1908, I am not surprised that banks themselves operate on questionable advice.
   They have suckered New Zealanders into expecting that fees are normal. Kiwis, they are not normal. They are actually immoral.
   I don’t think you will find any banker who went through the traditional training who will agree that bank charges make sense.
   Why do you think there are seniors’ packages that are fee-free? Because the seniors remember what banking is really like. Treat them like someone not old enough to have a bus pass and a pension, then you can watch Grey Power revolt.
   TSB customers, give me a shout if you have some advice on how your bank is in real life.
   I want my bank to treat me like an OAP.

N.B.: This does not affect Lucire LLC, only Jack Yan & Associates. It will take me a few weeks to sort this out due to busy-ness, so if clients are reading this, don’t change your payment method just yet!—JY

I only got this today but it’s still Sunday in the US. So please join in this day of prayer for Lauren Richardson, the disabled young lady in Delaware. There are certain parties that want her feeding tube removed and for her to starve to death, even though she is breathing on her own and responsive.
   Lauren’s mother, who has guardianship over her one-year-old daughter, has refused to let the two see each other.
   Even if you do not see this blog post in time, your prayers would still be welcome.

Life for Lauren Richardson has dedicated itself to organize a 24-Hour Prayer Vigil for Lauren beginning Sunday, 2/10. We are asking people to sign-up to pray for Lauren’s situation at the same time every day. Any amount of time is appreciated in anyway you wish. This way, we will storm heaven to get Lauren safe at home where her family waits to love and take care of her. Please respond to this email, letting us know the approximate time you can commit to prayer. A schedule will soon be posted on the website below.
 
Please forward this on to anyone around the world who you know would be interested in helping Lauren. 
 
God bless you all for your generous support!
 
Randy and Melissa Richardson
For more information about our fight to save Lauren’s life, go to: www.lifeforlauren.org

At least the British don’t pull out feeding tubes.
   In November 2007, it was reported that a 23-year-old woman, Amy Pickard, who had gone into a coma after a drug overdose (sounds familiar?) woke up thanks to the use of a sleeping pill. The pill, Zolpidem, has various side effects for comatose patients. Ms Pickard has even managed to stand.
   This link comes from the Life for Lauren website and I hope that the courts recognize this, along with the testimony of Kate Adamson, who was once diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Today, Ms Adamson goes around the US as a motivational speaker.
   Ms Adamson, whom some of you may remember appearing on the news around the time of the Terri Schiavo case, was paralysed from the forehead down. She was operated on with insufficient anæsthetic and surgeons did not care, because they deemed her a vegetable and unable to feel. She felt everything they did.
   She was also starved for eight days after her feeding tube was taken out and recalls it was one of the most painful and inhumane experiences a person can have.
   It was only put back in because her husband, a lawyer who had given up his practice to care for her, threatened to sue everyone’s pants off.
   Her left side is not fully able but Ms Adamson is arguably more productive than many of us with what society deems healthy bodies.
   Lauren Richardson is in a better state than Kate Adamson was, able to respond to her father and her dog, according to a video that has since been removed from YouTube. Yet the courts are so far supporting her mother, who believes her daughter’s feeding tube should be removed.
   Edith Towers, Richardson’s mother, says her daughter told her and another relative that she would not want to live this way, after watching the Terri Schiavo case on television.
   Although this evidence is hearsay—and weak at that—the court in Delaware is giving Towers considerable authority over Richardson’s rights. Her father is fighting that judgement.
   This blog also revealed in comments, which I repeat to save readers from searching, additional facts:

You can go to Lauren’s MySpace page and look to see where she states herself that she got along better with her father then with her mother. However, the verdict was based solely on her mother and her mother’s uncle stating that she had said she did not want to live “like that”.
   Not to mention, if Lauren did say those things in 2005 as told in court, she was on drugs and drinking when [she] made them, and she was not a mother. At the same time she allegedly made these statements one of the two witnesses had just gotten out of a mental institution and one was on drugs himself. These do not seem like they should be admissible to me.
   The week that Lauren “accidentally” overdosed, she had been hiding from her mother who was trying to force her to have an abortion. She had been clean for ten months! Her stuff was packed because that weekend she was going to move in with her dad, because she had asked him to help her with the baby.
   Several doctors have requested to see Lauren and try different treatments. Her mother has refused all of them. Her doctor, who is not a neurologist, told the family that she would not wake up, she would not move her body, that she would not respond to pain, that she would not breathe on her own again, that would not respond to people, that she would not show emotion. She does all of these things. She also can swallow and doctors have said with enough therapy she could eat on her own again. If she had gotten that therapy and could feed herself would we then hold her arms down so she cannot eat?

   Towers has even prevented Richardson from seeing her own daughter, to whom she gave birth last year. What sort of mother is that?
   I would have thought news like Amy Pickard’s would be celebrated. There is so much out there that says that Lauren Richardson is less “vegetative” than these other folks—who got out of far worse states than she finds herself in now.
   The courts do listen to “experts” but they also need to look at the strength of the testimony and subject it to the same rules as they might in criminal cases. We are talking about a human life here, and we can’t kill someone based on hearsay.

A very profound quotation appeared in Lifenews today on the Lauren Richardson case:

“The fight in this case is over whether she lives as a profoundly disabled woman or is made to die slowly over two weeks by dehydration—as Terri Schiavo did,” [attorney and author Wesley J.] Smith explained. “If we did that to a dog, we would go to jail. Do it to a disabled woman who needs a feeding tube and it is called medical ethics.”

   I should post the Life for Lauren URL as I have written two posts already on this subject: www.lifeforlauren.org. Please show your support if you can.
   And folks, this is about what the US should stand for, as a country that prides itself on helping the less fortunate. Cases like Lauren’s and Terri Schiavo’s open up the country to humiliating attacks by places like Red China. Next time the US criticizes Red China over its treatment of Falun Gong members or al-Qaeda for killing non-Muslims, they’ll just turn around and cite these cases. ‘See?’ they’ll say. ‘We’re not so different. We also believe in a Master Race.’

I thought there were some fishy things with the Lauren Richardson case and was interested to read the below, from VWarrior, in the comments. I have put in paragraphing and corrected some spellings and punctuation errors for clarity reasons.

This story is not what it seems. It may seem cut and dry to many, but there is a lot that the public does not know. Lauren Richardson’s mother is not mentally stable, she and her daughter did not get along. You can go to Lauren’s MySpace page and look to see where she states herself that she got along better with her father then with her mother. However, the verdict was based solely on her mother and her mother’s uncle stating that she had said she did not want to live “like that”.
   Not to mention, if Lauren did say those things in 2005 as told in court, she was on drugs and drinking when [she] made them, and she was not a mother. At the same time she allegedly made these statements one of the two witnesses had just gotten out of a mental institution and one was on drugs himself. These do not seem like they should be admissible to me.
   The week that Lauren “accidentally” overdosed, she had been hiding from her mother who was trying to force her to have an abortion. She had been clean for ten months! Her stuff was packed because that weekend she was going to move in with her dad, because she had asked him to help her with the baby.
   Several doctors have requested to see Lauren and try different treatments. Her mother has refused all of them. Her doctor, who is not a neurologist, told the family that she would not wake up, she would not move her body, that she would not respond to pain, that she would not breathe on her own again, that would not respond to people, that she would not show emotion. She does all of these things. She also can swallow and doctors have said with enough therapy she could eat on her own again. If she had gotten that therapy and could feed herself would we then hold her arms down so she cannot eat?
   Lauren’s mother waited seven months before stating that these were not “Lauren’s wishes.” And this was something that could have been said in the very beginning, before the fetus was viable. She had ample opportunity. It was only after Lauren seemed to be improving that she came forth with this information. How is that respecting Lauren's wishes? Lauren has never even seen her daughter, her mother will not bring her in drugs for Lauren.
   She went three months without visiting Lauren at all, and only because Randy was going to be granted custody and allowed to take her home, did she come in and see her so no one could claim abandonment. As it currently stands, someone from the Richardson side of the family is there 84 hours of the week at least, whereas someone from her mother’s side of the family is there for approximately 6 hours a week. This can be verified by visitors’ logs. She can come whenever she likes, she chooses not to because the Richardsons are there, evevn though she has been informed that they will leave whenever she wishes to visit.
   Now the Richardsons have been threatened with lawsuits if they continue to speak to the media and if they do not take down her website. If she has the freedom to starve her daughter (who is not a vegetable, not on a breathing machine, not in pain, not dying, and can swallow) he should have the freedom to talk about it with the public. In a country where we cannot legally help someone kill themselves when they are terminally ill and in massive pain, we are awfully quick to kill people who are not, and just based on hearsay.
   There was another group of people who used to kill disabled children and adults. Sometimes they used starving as a method as well. The Nazis.

Please call Governor Ruth Ann Minner and ask her to stop this from happening.

Wilmington Office: 302- 577-3210
Dover Office: 302-744-4101

We occasionally Google the term Lucire to check for trade mark infringements, and another Lucire always comes up: Australian forensic psychiatrist Dr Yolande Lucire.
   Yola and I exchanged emails many years ago because she was intrigued by the magazine’s name. I found her personable and genuine—and very smart.
   She is very famous in her field in Australia, and often testifies in court as an expert witness. Her thinking can, from what I understand, fall outside the square, because she is perceptive enough to see beyond establishment lies and the commercialization of her profession by Big Pharma.
   Now there is a case where she testified, and the judge agreed with her, but her own professional committee, the NSW Medical Board Professional Standards Committee, is smearing her and ordering her to get psychiatric help.
   In other words, she’s being reprimanded because she tells the truth, and that truth isn’t something corporate interests and the establishment want to hear.
   Philip Barton writes on his blog, ‘Dr. Lucire testified in court about the direct relationship between SSRI antidepressants and violent crime and suicide amongst young people.’
   The establishment didn’t like that.
   Now, Yola wouldn’t have testified this if she didn’t find this in her own research and unlike so many others, she simply refused to cover it up.
   Maybe the Committee would like to teach her how to fake the results of her own scientific tests.
   ‘Whilst the judge found in favour of Dr. Lucire’s testimony her own organization reprimanded her and ordered her to get psychiatric help.’
   In short: say something Big Pharma disagrees with, and it will say you need help.
   Maybe Ritalin and other drugs help some people, but even as a layman I can’t discount the possibility that Yola’s own research is right.
   Galileo had the same run-in with the Church over that whole “the earth is round” gag, and, in time, Big Pharma might be seen to be backward and pathetic.
   I may know zilch about psychiatry, but I know a malicious smear campaign when I see it. Stay the course, Yola.