>>>Which is exactly why I welcome this so-called erosion of trust. Trust needs to be earned, not imposed.
>
>Bill's not arguing against that. He's asking what institutions can step up and provide moral/civic leadership if everything else is habitually trash-talked.

Well, like I said, any of them, if they're able to at least uphold the moral standards related to their field of operations. IOW, can't trust banks as they didn't fire any of their own cheaters but rather provided gold for their parachutes, or promoted them. Can't trust governments, they only scream when one of their staff is caught red-handed, but unless the court has its say (and often can't, because those same governments are stonewalling, withholding evidence, classifying documents as top secret etc etc) they don't get more than a slap on the wrist before being promoted or moved into background. Ditto for churches (and don't think that Serbian Orthodox is any exception) where priests get rich while protecting pedophiles in their ranks. Ditto for most communist parties where they were either purging the wrongthinkers or protecting the cadre. Etc etc.

Lawyers, probably the worst among the various layers, at least have their bar, sorry, Bar, and have the status of "disbarred" to impose upon those who were too clumsy and got caught. Most of the rest don't have even that.

The private lives are not and should not be the matter. Marital infidelity, one night stands, paparazzi catching someone in a bad moment, bad taste, lack of religion, whatever doesn't influence their work - who cares. If it's not a crime, why hunt?

Wake me up when any of the above changes.