That’s a question posed by the publisher of U.S. News & World Report in its current issue. Mort Zuckerman writes:

Is this a nation of cheaters? We seem to be awash with them. Corporate executives cheat; athletes cheat; students cheat, beginning in middle school and extending into high school and college; and even teachers cheat. Are the seeds of adult corruption–for that’s what it is–sown in the early years of schooling? Beginning in the ’80s, there seems to have been a marriage of the me generation with Gordon Gekko’s notion in the movie Wall Street that “greed is good.” Did our admiration of wealth lead us to overlook, even forgive, the means of its attainment?

He reasons that people like beating the system when they think it’s rigged against them: Nearly everyone feels that he or she pays too much in taxes and that others don’t pay enough. The result is cheating on taxes to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Similarly, people watch illegal DVDs because they feel legitimate prices are “a rip-off,” they fudge insurance claims because insurance rates “are sky high . . .”

And it certainly doesn’t help when people hear outrageous stories like the Merrill CEO who spent $1 million on re-decorating his office or Citigroup planning to buy a $50 million jet while taking bailout money or that Wall Street has awarded itself $18 billion in bonuses for 2008.

Zuckerman says there may be an opportunity to improve our culture of cheating if people respond to President Obama’s call for a “new era of responsibility”:

We must find a way to explain to kids how necessary it is to do the right thing and avoid what the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called “defining deviancy down”–that is, lowering the bar on bad behavior to make it acceptable. Young people admire President Obama. Let them heed what he said in such a timely manner.

Let’s hope Zuckerman is on to something here.

In these economic times, at-risk consumers need more reasons than ever to stay honest. They need to be reminded that cheating on insurance is a crime, that there’s a good chance of getting caught and that punishment is swift and sure. It’s disappointing that only a handful of states — namely Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia — sponsor any consistent advertising to consumers to do just that.

Most insurers and insurance associations do little in the way of engaging consumers on the issue of fraud. And fraud bureaus dedicate few funds to fraud deterrence. Most don’t even publicize their arrests and convictions as a way to deterring insurance crime. So, it was nice good to hear the news this week that billboards are cropping up in Southern California aimed at deterring workers compensation fraud.

Sponsored by the DA’s office in San Diego, the billboard campaign hopes to put a dent in one of the worst workers comp problems in the nation. The messages are dead serious and target workers, employers and medical providers. I especially like the tagline adopted for the campaign: “Don’t do it. Don’t tolerate it.” The billboards should strike a chord with the ethically challenged as well as honest citizens. Each prominently displays the fraud unit’s hotline phone number, which in and of itself serves as a deterrent. Knowing that a neighbor, a coworker or a disgruntled ex-lover can easily blow the whistle helps some people think twice about committing fraud.

The 16 billboards placed across the county target both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking drivers along San Diego’s busy highways. The program is being funded jointly by the California Workers’ Compensation Fraud Assessment Commission and the state insurance department.

There’s hope that if the outdoor advertising campaign is deemed successful — either by increasing hotline calls or reducing fraudulent claiming activity — that it will be expanded to other areas of the state.

Our hats off to San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis and her staff for initiating this worthwhile outreach campaign.