Assignment: Business Ethics Paper
• Subprime mortgages targeted lower-income Americans, new immigrants, and people who had poor credit history. The customers were told that because house process had been rising, the borrower would be able to refinance the loan at a later date with the increased equity in the house. Was this an ethically correct sales pitch? Were the lenders taking advantage of financially naïve customers?
• O'Neal transformed Merrill Lynch from a conservative bank into an aggressive risk-taking institution. Risk-taking means that there is the potential for high rewards as well as large losses. From 2002, when O'Neal became CEO, Merrill's share rose 35%. Should the investors now be upset that, as a result of the subprime mortgage meltdown, Merrill's stock price fell by about 30% in 2007?
• As a result of the subprime mortgage debacle, the CEOs at Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Sterans, and Morgan Stanley all resigned or were fired. Their departure packages were $161 million, $68 million, $40 million, and $18 million respectively. Are these settlements unreasonably high, given the huge financial losses and write-downs that their companies recorded?
Format your assignment according to the give formatting requirements:
• The answer must be using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced, typed, with one-inch margins on all sides.
• The response also includes a cover page containing the student's name, the title of the assignment, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
• Also include a reference page. The references and Citations should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.