Later this week Fitch and Standard & Poor's will pronounce judgment on our credit rating. I do not believe we will be downgraded yet, but their review on the economy's outlook will be akin to being called into the principal's office mid-term to discuss your child's progress. While promising not to demote your young boy to a lower class, the principal grimly warns that the only chance of promotion to a higher grade is if the lad quits his delinquent ways and uses his time constructively to improve his maths and science.You're baffled. Not by the head's stern scolding, but rather why you were summoned to the school in the first place. Your young Galahad had so much promise. What went wrong?In a similar way, South Africa shouldn't have found itself in a position where its debt could no longer be classified investment grade. We were once a country whose avenues were paved in gold. We were the resource capital of the world. Every investor wanted a piece of us. But years of rolling crime, enduring corruption and administrative mismanagement have denigrated our economy to a point where our growth rate over the next three years is likely to remain substantially below the global average and considerably down on levels needed to reduce poverty and tackle our high unemployment rate.A large part of our fall from grace is directly linked to the country's deteriorating morality.The more our senior officials cook the books and bend the rules for their own enrichment, and the more licence hooligans have to disobey the rules of the road and criminals have to invade our homes, the more disinclined we will become to invest time and money in our future.Recently, my brother Harold, who lives in Sydney, Australia, while watching the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) tribute on TV, was reminded of stories my late uncle Simon Jackson used to tell of his adventures as a prisoner of war in Germany, following his capture at Tobruk, Libya. Harold managed to establish links with researchers on the subject that led him to a fellow captive, David Brokensha, an anthropologist who, a short time ago, had published his memoirs - Brokie's Way - and fondly remembered our uncle as "Jacko".I wish to end with an extract from Brokensha's story that left Harold and I proud and honoured, serving as a lesson to all that even in extreme circumstances you cannot compromise your ethical standards, illustrating, too, how misguided moral choices can have consequences even years after the event.Days after the war had ended, heading west from their prisoner of war camp in Dresden to join the Americans, and fleeing from the Russian troops, Brokensha writes: "We were impatient to join the Americans and decided to commandeer bicycles so that we could speed up our journey. Two of our party of six - Jake (a Seventh-Day Adventist) and Jacko (Jewish) - refused to steal. I remember my own weak indecision, until Paul (Brokensha's brother) said 'Come on Dave, we have to get out of here, no time for scruples', and I took a bicycle, leaving its civilian owner looking very sad, and pedalled away with Paul and the other two."This is one of those bad memories that most of us accumulate, having done a deed I wish I had not, with a realisation at the time - and growing ever stronger over the years - that Jake and Jacko had been right."..