IS GREED GOOD OR BAD?

Please let me define economic greed as "excessively or inordinately desirous of wealth, profit, etc," and also consider the normal definitions of greed that refer to desiring excessive amounts of food or drink. I believe that the desires for sexual pleasure and narcotics should be added to the dictionaries that I consulted. I only checked a couple of on-line dictionaries and did not find those included in the definitions.

I have heard some people say that one of the problems with the USA today is that people are greedy. Were people always greedy in the past? When were people not greedy? What is the definition of greed?

I do not consider working hard and producing things of value and selling them to others in order to enrich your family as being greedy?

I do believe that if someone creates and sells freshly printed paper securities that the seller knows to be worthless, perjured, falsely sworn to misrepresent the stated facts, and that the seller presents, swears by his god, and certifies to the SEC that his freshly printed paper securities have some monetary value in order to take a persons money is theft, greed, and also evil, ala Enron/Arthur Anderson, Madoff, Sanford, etc. These people are also greedy, but they are primarily evil thieves and criminals.

I believe most all people are economically greedy, and not primarily evil. I believe that greed without evil is a wonderful motivator for individuals to produce wealth for themselves and their family. When greed is combined with evil it is not acceptable, and should be punished.

Economic greed without evil is acceptable and should be encouraged in my opinion. I believe that most all of the technical advances in the lifestyles of human beings throughout history have been caused mostly by the greed of the creators of these scientific and economic advances that benefitted most all human beings.

I believe that the Ancient Egyptians were greedy and hoarded their Grain in Storage as wealth and security for use in times of famine. The Egyptians kept the Israelites as slaves to build and increase their infrastructure and that increased their agricultural production capacity in return for food. They probably also used Israelites to construct pyramids, but this action did not benefit their civilization economically. This effort was as economically beneficial to their society as digging holes and then filling the same holes back with the same earth that was removed to make the original hole. There is probably a financial benefit to Egypt of today from the tourist dollars spent to see the pyramids.

I believe that Henry Ford started mass manufacturing because he was greedy for more money that would enable his family to enjoy a better life. I believe that Henry Ford probably worked 16-hour days to start that industry because it would reward him financially. I do not think that Henry Ford enjoyed it or that he did it to improve his health. I believe that Henry Ford started that industry for the money because he wanted to enrich himself financially for the benefit of his family. Henry Ford did not start his industry to serve or to improve the welfare of other people, even though this was a side benefit to the US citizens. The US citizens benefitted from his greed.

I believe that the same is true for Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, George Westinghouse, Lee Iacocca, and all of the other smart and industrious individuals that produced the weapons and industries that won WWII and then employed so many Americans for a couple of decades after WWII.

I started to include Albert Einstein, but I believe that he was greedy for recognition as a Nobel Prize Winner plus the associated monetary award. The History Channel stated that he conceded his divorced wife a share in the future Nobel Prize money as a part of their divorce settlement.

George Washington Carver, Thomas Davenport, George Eastman, Philo Taylor Farnsworth, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Hutchings Goddard, Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, Edwin Herbert Land, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Elijah McCoy, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Elisha Graves Otis, Jonas Salk, Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright were also more than likely motivated by greed for financial rewards, but they also created new technoogy, benefits and employment for many US citizens.

I started to include Dr. Oppenheimer, but according to most of what I have seen on the History Channel about him, Gin Martinis and Lucky Strike cigarettes motivated him when he was in charge of developing the Atomic Bombs that won WWII. Some historical data indicates that those two items were his main source of sustenance. (It apparently worked)

I believe that the men that started Texas Instruments with their invention of the semi-conductor acted to satisfy their curiosity and to satisfy their greed and desire for money.

I guess that I can call some people greedy if they do not give me part of the fruits of their labor while I sit idle and not work. Why should anyone work hard for the benefit of others that are not members of their family? Are the workers greedy for not sharing their products with me? Am I greedy for some of what the worker produced while I sat idle? Am I greedy to tax the worker and threaten him with prison if he does not give me some of the products that he produced? Am I evil to demand that he work while I consume what he produces?

There are some people in this world that I would describe as evil, rather in addition to being greedy.

I consider those individuals that take advantage of their wealth and/or position to ruin the lives of others for their own personal pleasure and gratification to be evil when they show no compassion or concern for people that they cause injury or death. This could also be defined as greed for sex, but I believe that evil more aptly describes these people.

I believe that Homosexual Pedophile Priests and their Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes that knew of these activities but did not drum these priests out of the church and also did not have the police arrest hose priests for their crimes are evil. They call these individuals "troubled priests". Those gay priests ruined the lives of countless numbers of children that the parents entrusted the care of their children to these priests. These priests were totally evil. Why were they allowed to continue private contact with other children at other parishes when transferred by the Catholic Church? How and why did these priests escape punishment by the law? (I am a Catholic).

People that create and/or sell new worthless toxic financial products and create junk bond type paper securities out of the thin air and then certify and swear that these paper products have some value are primarily evil. These people are also greedy for money without producing anything useful, but they are primarily very evil for lying, cheating and stealing money from people that listened to them lie.

Senator Edward Kennedy was known as the hero at Chappaquiddick in 1969 when he caused the death of the pregnant passenger in his car, Mary Jo Kopechne. I remember his own refusal to explain what had happened. I remember the special treatment that he received from the local police. His family had the body of Mary Jo Kopechne quickly interned without an autopsy. I remember that a later autopsy after her body was exhumed determined that she was pregnant. Ted Kennedy might have been drunk while he was driving, but that was no excuse for him to let that girl drown in his car after he drove it off of that bridge. He called the authorities many hours after he first made multiple calls to his various political advisors. Senator Kennedy was primarily evil. He was also greedy for protection of his political future at the expense of the life of Mary Jo Kopechne. He had plenty of money from his inheritance trust fund, so maybe he thought that he was special and entitled more consideration than common US citizens.

Most of the members of the Kennedy Family also inherited great wealth, never held a low paying beginning job, became big shot politicians, and/or just fooled around with women and consumed large quantities of alcohol. They were greedy for sex, drugs, food and drink, not necessarily for money. They basically caused no harm, except for the people that died when they happened to be in a motorized vehicle operated by a Kennedy. Some member of the second generation apparently raped and killed a local neighborhood girl with his golf clubs, used a lot of narcotics, etc. I would define these actions as greedy for sexual gratification and narcotics consumption.

Mr. Phillip Garrido of Antioch, CA forced an 11-year-old child into slavery as his sex object. This action is very close to murder as far as the harm caused to the victim in my opinion. Mr. Garrido was previously convicted once before for kidnapping, served a few years, got out, and then kidnapped this young girl soon after he was released from prison.

I read in yesterday's paper (02 or 03SEP09 Houston Chronicle) that he escaped conviction in yet another kidnapping/rape of another 14 year old in Antioch, CA when that 14-girl year old refused to testify. Mr. Garrido probably murdered many other women un-detected.

Mr. Garrido's punishment in prison was not sufficient deterrent to prohibit Mr. Garrido from performing these activities on these occasions and probably several other occasions that escaped detection.

There needs to be some appropriate legal deterrent to prevent this horrible type of criminal activity. These people need to suffer horrible executions to end their lives, even if they did not take a life.

We need special legislation to prevent future similar crimes. Mr. Phillip Garrido was greedy and evil when he forced children to have sex with him.

I consider the financially astute and highly successful Arthur Anderson/Enron groups here in Houston, with Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay, and Fastow as their leaders along with Bernard Madoff, Allen Stanford, and the other lesser financial wizards to be considered to be evil, because they produced nothing of actual value to increase the common wealth of the USA. These individuals were also greedy, but they are primarily evil, because they did lie, cheat and steal to get money from others.

These financial wizards produced false and fictional financial statements that they swore or certified to be true and accurate, and the SEC accepted these false statements. These financial products were actually close to worthless.

I believe that almost all of the remaining Wall Street financial wizards are studying these master criminals to learn how they got caught. I believe that the remaining Wall Street wizards will learn how to avoid themselves from getting caught while creating their own financial empires.

I consider most US citizens to be evil because we are living off of the efforts of previous generations of Americans that worked and created the wealth that US citizens are selling to foreigners to pay for imported products in order to keep US citizens from working. The US population has also elected to borrow money that they expect future generations to repay in lieu of current US citizens working to support them selves. This is evil to make our children work and pay for our idle, consuming and non-employed lifestyle. Most of the US citizens are very greedy, and want to live off of the efforts of others.

The US population does not want to work in some dirty factory making the things that the US citizen consumes. The US citizens have elected to pay industrious people in foreign countries with US dollars from Home Depot, Wal-Mart, NTB, etc. that the foreigners can use to buy title to privately owned US located property assets, instead of redeeming these dollars for gold from the US treasury.

Those industrial people in foreign countries can use these US dollars to purchase title to any and all of our privately owned real estate, farms, agri-businesses, food supplies, dairies, forests, industries, breweries, hotels, factories, casinos, financial institutions, retail businesses, and all of the other privately owned assets located in the USA that were created by previous generations that worked to create that wealth.

This process can continue until we will have nothing else of value left to sell to the foreign industrialized nations and their citizens.

With the approval of the US citizen voters, and at the direction of US citizen elected representatives, the US government also sells freshly printed US paper T-Bills, US paper bonds, and other paper US securities at Federal Reserve public auctions in return for the foreigner's US dollars that they earned by making things for US citizens to consume. The US citizens are spending this borrowed money with the expectations that their children and grand children will pay off the bonds when they become due. US citizens are greedy.

Bill Gates might be an exception now, but was he greedy when he started Microsoft? Probably, or he would not have been successful. He was not evil. He did not lie, cheat or steal as the current generation of Wall Street executives do.

Is Greed the main motivator for people to work hard? This is why I worked hard to start a business and accumulate wealth so that my children and grandchildren could have an easier life than myself.

I have witnessed a few people that inherited great wealth (multi-millions) and then became big shot investment bankers (in every hair brained scheme that was proposed to them) until their inherited wealth was all gone. Some declared bankruptcy. They were greedy along with the people to whom they "invested" their inherited money. They wanted wealth without working.

I believe that the US government should borrow back some of the US dollars from the same foreigners that US citizens paid with US Dollars to make the things that US citizens consumed, and then throw these US dollars at these same incompetent wall street financial master geniuses that created this financial disaster? That should stimulate the economy! Are you telling me that this is what President Obama has been doing for the last few months? Why is this not working? Why are US industries accelerating the factory closings and speeding up the discharging their remaining US employees.

National Wealth

Economics, Trade Deficit, Government Spending Deficit, Jobs for Americans, and the Buying Power or value of the US Dollar are all interrelated and very important. These subjects need to be understood by the General Public. Economics is not that complicated. It is interlocked with understandable cause and affect principals of various economic action options that can be easily understood by almost any High School Graduate.
Real wealth and real monetary value is created only when the members of a family (or a tribe, nation, city-state, etc.) plant, grow and/or harvest something of commercial value from the earth, extract something of commercial value from the earth, provide professional services (medical, legal, dental, engineering, architecture, accounting, land surveying, technology, etc.), and/or manufactures or constructs something of commercial value that is consumable (or permanently useful for income or rent) and then sells, leases or rents these items and/or services to parties outside of their family in return for a net transfer of gold, currency or commodities from other parties outside of their family into their own family. The members of that family can reflect their real wealth with the accumulation of grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, buildings, commodities and/or other marketable products for reserve use in times of emergency and/or also to raise the standard of living for the members of that family.
Did the Biblical Abraham squander his assets unwisely and then became hungry and homeless when a famine occurred? Is the USA repeating this action? When the Biblical Abraham's family faced starvation, Abraham probably took his family to Egypt where there was grain stored and hoarded by the Egyptians to insure the survival of greedy Egyptians during times of drought and famine. Abraham and his descendants probably submitted themselves to be slaves of the Egyptians in return for food and shelter.
People working together in an organized fashion are generally more productive than individuals working alone. An extended family will live better than a nuclear family. A tribe will live better than an extended family. A nation will live better than a tribe, unless the tribe or nation's leaders decide to spend the resources unwisely. The US government has decided to spend the US located national wealth unwisely for the past few decades.
Without businesses and corporations providing jobs, everybody would have to live off of the land. Most of the jobs in the USA are created by corporations and businesses. You could study and then work hard and then start your own corporation (or business) as I did in 1968.
Any family, tribe, country, etc. and its individual members can prosper or become debt ridden in accordance with their industrial behavior, government spending behavior, and/or other economic actions of the leaders of that family.
If any family purchased imported things from outside of their family of less monetary value than the monetary (or otherwise useful value) of the items that they sold and exported to others outside of their family, then that family would have a net positive foreign trade balance. Only a net positive foreign trade balance would have increased the value of the real wealth privately owned assets of that family.
The USA government economic policies, environmental regulations, trade policies, free trade policies, labor costs and other recent factors have caused our wealth generating factories to close These factory closings have caused the lay off US workers for labor cost savings. Anticipated future environmental regulations have also caused US companies to close and leave the USA.

Transportation, distribution, warehousing, tax collection, sales, marketing, delivery, packaging and other similar services provided within that family (or an organization, tribe, country, etc.) are necessary to enable and support the original creation of wealth by the basic productive efforts within in that country. These costs are added to the cost of the product that was initially created by other basic productive efforts within in that country. These services are necessary for the export of locally made products to foreign countries in return for foreign exchange and to distribute goods within that family. Transportation, distribution, warehousing, tax collection, sales, marketing, delivery, assembly, packaging and other similar services provided for imported products just stir the economic pot and assist the importers that send US dollars to overseas manufacturers.
Consumer spending (consumer confidence) is a symptom of economic well-being, not the cause of any economic recovery. The population needs to be employed and able to support their families for economic and political stability.
US Government jobs generally do not produce any of the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life. The communist form of government where everybody works for the government because the government owns everything does produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life. Most of the individuals in communist countries want to work at something other than producing the produce the basic food, shelter, clothing and other necessities required to sustain life. They usually become a nation of non-producers wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the ruling class can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, etc., and let or require or force others work to produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain the life of the nation.
The businesses across this nation are creating jobs, but these new jobs are located in foreign nations because of the US government trade laws and the US environmental laws that were created by both major political parties make creating jobs in the USA un-economical. Labor and environmental costs are almost always much less expensive in foreign nations due to the US government trade and environmental laws. US citizens elected the congressmen and senators who voted for these laws that generally did not exist several decades ago when the USA was a successful industrial giant. Both major parties are in favor the free trade and environmental legislation which has destroyed US industries and the industrial employment opportunities for the average US working person. I do not know what the Prohibition Party's position is on this issue, or even if that party still exists.

We must somehow repeal existing free trade legislation and environmental laws in order to re-industrialize and reverse the balance of trade if we desire to employ US citizens instead of foreigners to manufacture the things that we consume.