Are We Ruled by Greed?

I have heard the quote "Greed is Good" on occasions for many years.  Apparently now it is somewhat attributed to Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street way back in 1987 according to Wikipedia.  I am pretty sure I had heard it before but my senior brain does play tricks on me.



I am not sure that greed is really good - and I am sure that folks will argue with me on this.   Greed I guess is good for you if you are doing well with your greed - you have plenty of money, you have a good life, and so forth, but I look around me and see that the greed of some (or many) is resulting in the poverty of others.

I look at the big banks in Australia and see that they are making huge profits - massive insane profits, much of which of course is shared with shareholders, however I am gobsmacked at the insane amounts of money paid to the corporate leaders of these companies.  I see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Waste is everywhere - not just the rubbish I seen strewn around our wonderful country, but the waste in people's homes.  Do children need so many toys or clothes?  I am appalled at the number of young people who have rows and rows of shoes, of wardrobes full of clothes that are seldom, or ever worn.  (I know that my friends in China buy so much stuff in clothing stores and admit a short time later that they never wore and never will and cast it aside - hopefully to the poor.)

I recall a few years ago at a grandchild's birthday party commenting to my offspring that I found it difficult to comprehend why so many parents (read "mother's") would spend so much on gifts at parties and it was clear to me that the gifts whilst being appreciated on the day of celebration would be cast aside quickly as the children already had room overflowing with stuff.

How many stuffed toys does a child need?  How many gizmos?  It is insane.  How many children get gifts that they never wanted, never use and eventually are discarded.

Even adults are playing the game.  Despite my wish not to get gifts I get them - often things that don't physically fit me, or they don't fit into my wish list.  I thank the gift giver for their kind thought, wishes, and the gift - because I am polite, but deep down I wish I was given something that I would value or use.

I know that the more we buy the more the huge retailers profit, as do the banks, especially if the purchases are bought with credit cards and the folk and the other benefits are higher employment, and it looks like everyone is happy.

Where I live there are many people moving in and out of the area - I see the huge piles of things that do not fit into their houses - when the garage door is open you can see in and even just driving by you see why they can't fit the car/s in the garage.

As they prepare to move, or after they move there are huge bins - many of them filled with items that appear to be in good repair but are no longer wanted.  Recently some people moved out of a unit and left behind so much stuff - probably a lot of it rubbish, but there was a huge bed and some furniture that they could not afford to take with them or perhaps in the case of this family get more donated from one of the many stores or organisations that either sell or donate to "needy" folk.  They are needy because they have a greed for some things and neither save nor consider their future.

We have an increasingly unhappy society - there seems to be more lawbreakers - and I must say that if I hear governments telling us the opposite, I would suggest that it is much abaout the way they keep their statistics.  The police are busy with big issues mostly, which is fair, but so much petty crime or social disobedience is ignored.  People don't bother reporting some petty crimes - the police are not interested (and I have had first hand experience with that!) 

Older people are increasingly concerned about their safety.  Our televisions bombard us with the news of the latest gruesome crime further adding to the concerns, and people keep on doing what they want - many feeling that they have a RIGHT to do whatever they want.

For all the money, the greed, the things we can buy - we don't have a happier, safer, content community.  I wonder what the future holds.

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