Honesty is NOT the best policy?
We're always told Honesty is the best policy.
Consider these situations:
Bank Loans
You take a loan from the bank and repay it promptly with interest on time. By doing so you've saved bank the trouble of having to use recovery agents/auctioning your property or eventually having to write off your loan as bad debt. From the same bank, few other customers who loaned money never bothered to repay. After some recovery efforts, banks will write off the loan and take a loss. Banks still make profit overall because this loss is paid for by honest customers like you. When deciding interest rates banks would have kept a provision for a small % of loans going bad and charge everyone else marginally high.
For example, if you've taken a loan from a bank that has lent money to Kingfisher, you're paying on behalf of Mallya.
Effectively you pay more, for not being able to smart enough.
Illegal property constructions
While building a home, you'll give enough off set and obey all rules set by municipality, while your neighbor floats most of them. He gets more carpet area and a bigger house, while you adjust in a smaller one. Once in few years, government runs a regularization program (Akrama-Sakrama) and all illegal constructions will be legalized. Your neighbor laughs at you for being honest.
Toll Road/Railway gates
You're waiting in line patiently at a toll road or a railway crossing. A rogue vehicle comes from behind, breaks the line and tries to squeeze in at front. 3 other vehicles line up behind it. In theory, police or staff guarding the gate should send these vehicles back to the end of the line. But 100% of the cases that won't happen-either staff don't dare question these drivers, or there's no space to go back. Hence these rogue vehicles will be allowed to go first, so that blockade is cleared. So much for being honest.
Being honest is good, but being street smart is important
Consider these situations:
Bank Loans
You take a loan from the bank and repay it promptly with interest on time. By doing so you've saved bank the trouble of having to use recovery agents/auctioning your property or eventually having to write off your loan as bad debt. From the same bank, few other customers who loaned money never bothered to repay. After some recovery efforts, banks will write off the loan and take a loss. Banks still make profit overall because this loss is paid for by honest customers like you. When deciding interest rates banks would have kept a provision for a small % of loans going bad and charge everyone else marginally high.
For example, if you've taken a loan from a bank that has lent money to Kingfisher, you're paying on behalf of Mallya.
Effectively you pay more, for not being able to smart enough.
Illegal property constructions
While building a home, you'll give enough off set and obey all rules set by municipality, while your neighbor floats most of them. He gets more carpet area and a bigger house, while you adjust in a smaller one. Once in few years, government runs a regularization program (Akrama-Sakrama) and all illegal constructions will be legalized. Your neighbor laughs at you for being honest.
Toll Road/Railway gates
You're waiting in line patiently at a toll road or a railway crossing. A rogue vehicle comes from behind, breaks the line and tries to squeeze in at front. 3 other vehicles line up behind it. In theory, police or staff guarding the gate should send these vehicles back to the end of the line. But 100% of the cases that won't happen-either staff don't dare question these drivers, or there's no space to go back. Hence these rogue vehicles will be allowed to go first, so that blockade is cleared. So much for being honest.
Being honest is good, but being street smart is important
This doesn't highlight a flaw with honesty, it highlights faults in the mentioned institutions. Banks should be able to take legal action against those that do not pay their loans that will cause the non-paying parties significant distress. Municipalities should be demanding the tearing down of illegally build structures and/or imposing a very heavy fee, and the police should be doing their job better by fining those people for what they're doing.
ReplyDeleteThis is how the honest citizen feels today. Is being street smart something that you can learn is my question?
ReplyDeleteReally accept with your view. But what you said is some exceptions. We cannot generalise the above things. Nowadays we can see instances where illegal buildings are demolished. at that we can laugh at our neighbour or be proud for our honesty. Whatever the case I feel Honesty is the best policy. Being street smart can always possible!!!!
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ReplyDeleteThanks Anon, Anuradha, Raghavendra for your views
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon, Anuradha, Raghavendra for your views
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