[JohnFen]

Sure they can. People lose their jobs without notice every day and while it's often a horrible situation, it's one that people can and do recover from.

But I'm not even really arguing that people who do bad things because they want to avoid harmful repercussions must choose differently. I'm arguing that people who do that are choosing to do something unethical, and we are what we do.

Perhaps the ethical tradeoff makes some practical sense for some -- but it's still an ethical tradeoff.