Rupert Murdoch claimed in his July 19 British Parliament Committee appearance that people he "trusted" were responsible for the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Murdoch: This is the most humble day of my life... we have broken our trust with our readers...

Q: Do...

Here are the ratings (% who liked) from Flixster for some of the movies playing this weekend:

90% The Social Network

88% Inside Job

81% Unstoppable

78% MegaMind

78% Jackass 3-D

77% Red

75% Skyline

65% Due Date

65% Morning Glory

64% The Next Three Days

54%...

Joseph says:

"When I took this account over 10 months ago, I didn't understand why the client seemed so distant. We had been cut back 2 years ago and never really recovered; I figured I could turn it around.

"Come to find out, the reason was bad blood between my...

When an institution can't be trusted, yet cannot comprehend the message of distrust, then what you've got is a case of institutional denial. Case in point: the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or March to Keep Fear Alive. The brainchild of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and his co-comedian Steven Colbert...

Many of you remember Sherron Watkins, who shall forever be known as the Whistle Blower of Enron. She was named Person of the Week by Time Magazine back in early 2002.

But Sherron was no fly-by-night. I saw her speak, and she's smart, thoughtful, and clearly of...

In early July, the news industry and a number of politicians and government officials grossly over-reacted to an out of context news-bit in the case of Shirley Sherrod. The blowback was justified, and swift.

On July 28, it happened again. The news industry and a number of politicians...

This post was co-authored with Rich Sternhell

On July 22, the Gallup organization released their 2010 poll on US Confidence in Institutions. As Gallup headlined it, Congress scored an all-time low (for all 16 institutions ranked, not just for Congress).

Barely beating Congress for lowest confidence ratings...

The SEC's civil suit against Goldman Sachs charges the firm with not disclosing information. I won't bother with the detail, you can read that amply elsewhere -- the point is, the charge is non-disclosure.

Now, that's an interesting charge. It amounts to some form of misrepresentation. In the non-legal world,...

Let's keep it simple.

The first step toward dealing with a problem is admitting you have a problem.

I try to stay away from politics in this blog. But I know something about business, trust and society. And when issues of business trust arise, they need to be written about....

I'm no economist or banker, so I occasionally labor under the delusion that banks are supposed to lend money to credit-worthy people. Of course, they diluted the definition of "credit-worthy" a few years back. That ruined their liquidity. Then the Feds stepped in with the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Silly...

In case you haven't heard, the world's best and most famous golfer has got himself into a bit of a mess.

A sex scandal? To be sure. A public relations debacle? You betcha. But what does it tell us about trust?

The Longer You Wait...

Scenario 1.  After six years of work, Mike finally established his own retail business on Gotham Street in the Big City. His first week was a heady mix of first sales, getting to know neighbors, and realizing he’d accomplished his dream.

On Monday of Week 2, Mr. X came...

Charle's M. Blow's op-ed in Friday's New York Times, Imbalance of Trust, suggests that voters trust government less under Democrats than under Republicans.   You may feel there's a whiff of truth in that analysis.  Let me suggest the opposite may equally be true.

Says Mr....

I just returned from a vista-on-steroids trip from Vancouver to Calgary, with stunning views of rivers, deserts and mountains from train, helicopter and roadside. Fabulous memories and photos -- but from all of them, one image stands out.

It’s the view of several animal crossings being built across the trans-Canadian...

Supreme court nominee Sonia Sotomayor now famously said, in 2001, that she would hope a "wise Latina would make better decisions because of her life experiences than a white male."

As she noted, those have become her most-quoted words, overwhelmed by a firestorm of opinion characterizing her as racist...

I can't add much to the many eloquent obituaries for Walter Cronkite, other than to say I agree with them.

Cronkite taught all of us 'the way things were.' But the passing of the man known universally as The Most Trusted Man in America also offers us one last...

Like all good conspiracy theories, this one may have a few loose links. But work with me here -- it's a good story.

The 70s: When Strategy Became Competitive Strategy

Back in the 60s, Bruce Henderson, chafing at Arthur D. Little, re-conceived competitive strategy. He founded the...

It is tempting to dwell on the horror of Bernard Madoff. (Thanks to Robert Scheer for teeing up this issue). How could he have done it? What kind of a man does that? Is 150 years in prison enough? And so on.

Tempting--but largely wrong. If we lay all...

Dear Wall Street CEO:

You've been taking it on the chin lately. On the other hand, the only CEO Obama has fired recently came from my side of town--Main Street--so maybe you're not so bad off.

I have a proposition for you. For both of us, actually.

I, a Main...

R. Allen Stanford, head of Stanford International Bank, has been charged with fraud by the SEC.

Another day, another Ponzi scheme. Stanford's take: $8 Billion. Not chump change, of course, but neither does it put him in Madoff's league (up to $40 billion).

I think I shall call him mini-Madoff.