Adam Smith would be appalled
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GORDON MARINO hit the nail squarely on the head with his op-ed "The business of business ethics." But he did not hammer the nail hard enough. Adam Smith, considered the father of capitalism, wrote, "In the race for wealth, and honors, and preferments, [one] may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors." But Smith added that one should not harm another in the process.
Surely Marino's critique of investors "taking unconscionable but legal risks with other people's pensions and life savings" means that hundreds of thousands of people have been harmed. And isn't the opacity of the instruments used to essentially defraud people of their pensions an impediment to the transparency needed for a truly free market?
The greedy Wall Street manipulators have violated not only ethical principles but also the free-market principles of Adam Smith.
John E. Hill
Quincy 
