Greed: avarice, unyielding desire for material wealth
Forgive me for waiting until October 1st to post the sixth installment of The Heathen's Guide, but unfortunately I had an unquenchable desire to get lots of points for posting it. I realize some can not live without my blogs, but you should just work on that greediness, now shouldn't you?
Of course, we are not the only ones in this wonderful world who suffer terribly from this, the most modern of deadly sins. Our entire American culture is based upon wealth and material goods. If you have neither you are ranked as "lower" than the average American while only if you have excess and no wants of which to speak are you considered "upper" class. In fact, there is an entire district in almost every city dedicated to greed and buildings in New York that cater to those who practice this sin the most.
And I'm not the only one who has noticed how the Financial district has been out of control on the desire category for a while. Now the entire country can not help but stand up and notice. Not only the Financial district is involved, now we can add the failure of a bailout bill to the mix of greed. But more on that later.
First off, not everyone considers greed to be a sin. If you would have asked Adam Smith, the father of economics, he fully believes greed is good, no even better, necessary for capitalism to survive. By man being greedy he will do more for his fellow man unintentionally than the men who devote themselves to philanthropy. Of course since Smith's time things have changed and we are proud of those ultra billionaires who dedicated funds to charity while those who collect and save and return nothing are heartless robber barons.
Yet we must also consider into the equation a more recent historical element of greed and the economy. Everyone has heard the term Reaganomics thrown around. A time of prosperity where the government, as it had done many times before, stepped back and told industry to "go for the greed!" Naturally, as it had before, this resulted in an inevitable crash. Unhindered growth will hit the glass ceiling eventually. Not that this dampened our spirits or spending too much. Soon Americans shook off like a wet dog and greed took back its crown once more.
Now we reach today. Or more like Monday. As John Stewart said on The Daily Show that fateful night "1928 was for pussies". A 778 point drop in the DOW. Not even the 1987 drop mentioned earlier reached this proportion. According to the NY Times that was 1.2 TRILLION dollars just poof! So much for my tuition payment next semester.
How many people lost their savings? college fund? retirement? A financial adviser on the Today Show warned a woman who was concerned for her parents to have her parents get out now and live with their money now rather than living off of interest which is probably not there anymore or soon won't be. Is the stock market down as far as it can get? Possibly. Who knows really. The joy of capitalism is the more greed added to the soup the less you can be sure of the results. Wait for another 20 years and you should get back to square one hopefully.
But what about the second group I mentioned in this greed equation? Congress. Surprised to see them on the same level as brokers and billionaires? Of course not, but let me explain anyways. There was a bill in Congress that same day to bailout these failed financial institutions. Everyone seems to be going under except Bank of America. Now other banking institutions are having to take over the accounts of members and the magic of the FDIC (the only good program from the Great Depression) is taking roots to get everyone their money back. The only reason we seem not to have fallen into another Great Depression more depressing than the original (because our generation must always one up the past) is because we learned from our great grand parents mistakes and left the money in the bank and market.
Not to say that I fully understand this bailout bill. I'll be honest I haven't read the whole thing and I am sure there are some very good reasons to not vote for it. That is a lot of tax payer money and I have no doubt there are some piggybacked clauses involved. It was really just unfortunate timing, although the media loved it. What gets me are some of the reasons coming out of why some members shot down the bill. The greediest has to "Peloski's speech was to partisan to vote with her". Again, have not had the pleasure of watching the full speech. The clip everyone refers to with this excuse shows Ms. Peloski making a comment about the crisis and Bush Economic policy being connected.
Alright, on three....1....2....3.....DUH! Sorry, but seems pretty self evident to me that something these past 8 years hasn't been working too well. Economy not Bush's strong point. Sure she didn't need to be so condescending, but hard truth is still truth and that is a ridiculous reason to turn down a bill. Again, probably some good reasons out there, but that ain't one of them men!
What is funny is that this is Bush's big plan and his own party brought it down...
I find the bill to be a big Bush band aid myself. Throw money at the problem and make it go away. He sure wasn't throwing this much money to those who got themselves into bad mortgage deals. Banks were too easy on terms and people were too greedy for the houses to assess if they could really afford the payments. Two greedy sides, no money to help out. But when investors tank, well that effects those who make a living with greed and we can't have that can we.
But what can I say? "In Greed We Trust"
A Cure for Greed
Timeline
Why Bill Was Defeated
*WARNING: The Heathen's Guide is a humorous presentation of one side of the argument. These views do not always fully represent the author's views or her total understanding of the subject at hand. Information provided may not be complete from all angles. All comments presenting other sides of the argument are welcome and encouraged, but no hating. Devil's advocates get enough of that with out hearing from you.
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