To qualify for a working capital loan, a bank requires loan applicants to satisfy a specified debt-to-equity ratio. After reviewing your employer's trial balance, you realize that the company had insufficient owners' equity to meet bank requirements. You consider the bank's ratio rules to be unnecessarily strict, so you intentionally increased company owners' equity by capitalizing maintenance costs that should have been expensed.
If the company fails to obtain the loan, you fear that a wonderful colleague will be laid off and become unable to afford his child support payments. Furthermore, if the company obtains the loan, you are "100% certain" that it will be able to make all required interest and principal payments. From the viewpoint of consequentialism, were your actions ethical?