Executives without morals are counterproductive

Last week a handful of major business stories demonstrated that capitalism requires morality and responsibility.

In one case, three executives from a peanut butter company were sentenced to serious jailtime, after the business knowingly shipped out food that was tainted with salmonella, a decision that ultimately took the lives of nine people and sickened 714 others in several states. A federal judge handed Stewart Parnell a 28-year prison sentence, the toughest penalty ever for a corporate executive in a poisoning outbreak. Two other executives were given jail time as well.

In another news story last week, Volkswagen was outed as having cheated, when regulators found the company had secretly installed devices in about 500,000 vehicles, allowing the cars to emit lower levels of harmful emissions during tests than they do on the roads. VW was caught cheating, with its cars emitting pollutants up to 40 times above what is allowed in the U.S. The company will pay a hefty price. Volkswagen has set aside more than $7 billion to cover the cost of recalls, and some have estimated the company may face fines of up to $18 billion. Shares plunged, and a company faces a bleak financial future. Let the lawsuits begin.

In Missouri, Attorney General Chris Koster announced that he filed a motion to hold Walgreens drugstore chain in contempt for committing more than 1,000 violations of its 2014 settlement. This move came a year after the chain reached a deal with Koster to close the state's investigation into allegations of overcharging and deceptive advertising. Koster said the filing comes after a one-week investigation in July that revealed 49 stores continued to display expired sales tags, misrepresenting the cost charged to customers.

While the three stories vary in severity, they all gave the business community a bad name. Business executives and management teams are counterproductive if they have no moral or ethical compass.