Eideard

Ilene and Arnold Bangerter

He hit the mother lode, but not once did Josh Ferrin even think of laying claim on the more than $45,000 cash that he found in his garage. In fact, he gave it all back. “You can’t make plans for money like this that’s found in a situation like this,” Ferrin said. “It just doesn’t feel right to do anything but give it back.”

Within an hour of closing on his first home, Josh Ferrin, an artist for the Deseret News, used the keys to take his first official look inside.

While taking it all in, he noticed a tiny scrap of carpet peeking out of a small door in the ceiling of a workshop at the back of the garage. He got a ladder and climbed up to explore the unseen space. It was dark and musty, but Ferrin could see a black metal box sitting there.

It was a heavy metal box — the kind used to haul ammunition during World War II — and it was filled with cash, old stamps, bond certificates and other random memorabilia.

“I immediately closed it, locked it in my truck and called my wife. ‘You won’t believe what I just found,’” he said. Tara Ferrin immediately knew the couple had to return the money to its rightful owners.

However, Arnold Bangerter, the former homeowner, passed away in November 2010 and his youngest son, Dennis Bangerter, the executor of Bangerter’s estate, had just signed the 1950s red-brick rambler away…

“Going through those boxes, I felt like I had a peek into his life,” Josh Ferrin said about the man who left the surprising find. “This is a beautiful outcome and it feels good to be a part of it. It’s a rare opportunity to be able to do something extraordinarily honest.”

Arnold Bangerter, an fisheries biologist for the former Utah Department of Fish and Game, had purchased the home in 1966 and lived there with his wife, who died in 2005…

The money is being divided among Mr. Bengerter’s six children. From honest folks in Bountiful, Utah.

The Obama administration’s much-anticipated report on redesigning the government’s role in housing finance, published Friday, is not solely a proposal to dissolve the unpopular finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It is also a more audacious call for the federal government to cut back its broadly popular, long-running campaign to help Americans own homes. The three ideas that the report outlines for replacing Fannie and Freddie all would raise the cost of mortgage loans and push homeownership beyond the reach of some families.

That fact is already generating opposition in Congress and among groups like community banks and consumer advocates.

But administration officials said they had concluded the country could no longer afford to sustain its commitment to minting homeowners. Better to help some people rent…

Which was the conclusion Clinton should have considered IMHO instead of lowering the bar, diminishing due diligence in mortgage loan requirements. Couple that with Republican deregulation, removal of oversight in combination with their bubbas on Wall Street designing mythical investment instruments for private trades – and you’re looking at the roots of the Great Recession.

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Cadbury, which [looks as if it] has been sold to US firm Kraft, is one of several great British firms founded by Quakers. But how did they gain such a stranglehold on the chocolate industry and why were they so successful in business?

For a religious sect more interested in championing social reform than industry, the Quakers have established an impressive roll call of household business names.

Barclays and Lloyds banks, Clarks shoes, Bryant & May matches and the biscuit firms Huntley & Palmers and Carrs are just a few of the companies founded by members of the pacifist group.

But when it comes to confectionery, there has been a virtual monopoly for more than a century, led by Cadbury of Birmingham, Fry’s of Bristol and Rowntree’s and Terrys of York…

This achievement is all the more remarkable given the tiny numbers of Quakers. In 1851 they only accounted for about one in 1,400 of the population of 21 million in England, Scotland and Wales – less than 0.1%.

The move into chocolate began with cocoa drinks in the 19th Century as a reaction against the perceived misery and deprivation caused by alcohol, says Quaker historian Helen Rowlands.

“Quakers and other non-conformists at the time were concerned about levels of alcohol misuse in the population at large, they were part of the temperance movement.

“Cocoa was a way of providing cheap and available drink. It was healthy because you had to boil the water to make it when they didn’t have good water supplies…”

Another advantage was their reputation for honesty and reliability running parallel with their quest for justice, equality and social reform.

“They were amongst the first to set a firm price for goods. There was a lot of bartering before, but the Quakers said ‘no, we’ll state the price for goods and a fair price’,” says Ms Rowlands.

“People appreciated that, they knew where they stood with Quaker businessmen – they were in it to make a livelihood but not at the expense of customers or employees…”

RTFA. Lots of interesting history. There are parallels in many nations, many lands.

People are unconsciously fairer and more generous when they are in clean-smelling environments, according to a soon-to-be published study led by a Brigham Young University professor. The research found a dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex.

Katie Liljenquist…is the lead author on the piece in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science…

“Companies often employ heavy-handed interventions to regulate conduct, but they can be costly or oppressive,” said Liljenquist, whose office smells quite average. “This is a very simple, unobtrusive way to promote ethical behavior.”

He’s very clean…!

The study titled “The Smell of Virtue” was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex.

The first experiment evaluated fairness. As a test of whether clean scents would enhance reciprocity, participants played a classic “trust game.” Subjects received $12 of real money (allegedly sent by an anonymous partner in another room). They had to decide how much of it to either keep or return to their partners who had trusted them to divide it fairly…

The second experiment evaluated whether clean scents would encourage charitable behavior. Subjects indicated their interest in volunteering with a campus organization for a Habitat for Humanity service project and their interest in donating funds to the cause…

“Basically, our study shows that morality and cleanliness can go hand-in-hand,” said Galinsky of the Kellogg School. “Researchers have known for years that scents play an active role in reviving positive or negative experiences. Now, our research can offer more insight into the links between people’s charitable actions and their surroundings…”

Har! I could relate some of my adventures on the BYU campus back in the day – right about here. But, our site would probably be relegated to the “Adult” bin.

What would you do if, when you visit the ATM to withdraw $100, it dispenses $200 because it has been incorrectly stacked with $20 notes and not $10 notes. Would you keep the cash or return it to the bank? If you return the money would it be because: (a) It is wrong not to return someone else’s property; (b) It wouldn’t be fair to the bank’s shareholders; or (c) I might get found out and prosecuted for theft.

Each of the answers a, b or c is correct, with each representing one of the three main moral philosophies that guide our sense of what is right, according to Roger Steare..the author of ethicability.

Answer a represents our principled conscience – we do what’s right because it is the courageous, fair or kind thing to do. We often use this conscience in our close relationships. The problem is that principles often conflict and doing the right thing can be difficult, Professor Steare says.

Answer b represents our social conscience – we decide what is right by considering the consequences of our actions on others. We use this most often at work and in communities. The problems associated with this might include marginalisation of minorities, that pleasure can be preferred over what’s good and that the ends can be used to justify the means.

Finally, answer c represents rule compliance – we don’t need to think because the rules tell us what is right and wrong. This is the most common moral philosophy used in business and remote transactions. The problem with rules is that they can cause us to stop thinking for ourselves and too many can promote rule breaking or stifle creativity.
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