John F. Kerry

im all for introspective hippy shit no 1.

but there are like, factual reasons and economic reasons why this is happening...and economic choices we should be making but arent, which could fix the problem....might even fix it so well that 5 years from now the economy would be booming again...

i hear ya, and try to subsume your views and everyone elses into mine. im looking for answers of how to improve our system and right our ship... its nice to think about hippy shit and henry david thoreau and stuff... i like to myself... but hippy shit isnt the problem now, nor is it the solution, to economic problems.

redistribution doesnt work very well, that we found out in the 20th century, facism doesnt work well, that we found out in the 20th century....capitalis m has some problems, but also has given more people more evenly distributed wealth than any other system in history.... so we have to fix it.

if being and bearsy had good jobs, and the economy was growing and wages were rising and home prices were looking good... then we could all think about being and doing hippy shit and forsaking wealth, but first, we need food on the table.

like the stuff your talking about is good, its just, not government stuff. the government needs to keep teh economy going strong, with as little intervention as possible.... leave it to you and me and the freedom we have, to figure out the lifestyle stuff.

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

how is "greed" the problem today?

i understand how greed is bad. hell, its one of the 7 deadly sins.


but how does greed become suddenly a macro problem today?

instead of just abstractly complaining about the small number of rich people and the large number of poor people.... like, i dont even want to go into a huge explanation of this, because i think you get it- society is what it is. if we wanted to not have companies that employ thousands of people to make products that are way to complicated for small businesses to make, and that people all over the world use and enjoy....then we could all live in a small tribe and be more equal. but some person who doesnt know how to manage a corporation, cant manage a corporation...it would go bankrupt or not produce anything.... do you want computers? do you want wireless internet? do you want cars? than you need large groups of people working together to make them.... and you need leaders to lead those companies... you know all this, and agree with most of it.

greed didnt ruin the 1970s, or 1980s, or 1990s, or 1950s...its always been there... it didnt ruin the 1750s.... Greed caused china to turn away from communism, it caused the collapse of the soviet union... greed, as gordon gecco said, is , for lack of a better word, good.

without incentive, without greed, there wouldnt be a fast paced consumer society.... now , maybe some hippy people like you and I would enjoy that somewhat... but there are 8 billion people on earth...hippie shit is not going to feed and cloathe all of them, no matter how much you and i in our hippy american ways want it.

the things your are complaining about are fundamental parts of human nature... and humans have spent centuries trying to figure out how to check the bad parts of those tendancies and to build a system that checked people's bad or greedy natures and directed them to the common good, or at least to good. humans arent perfect creatures... but weve known that for a long time, and society is built and was theorized, to be able to deal with those innate human shortcommings.

....meh.... dont feel like writing anymore now, hopefully u see where im commin from

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Nasa under Obama

stoneric

You don't have to be greedy to run a corporation. Your acceptance of that stupidity helps make it a reality.

farmergiles

But that's exactly the problem. The checks which you mention being built up over the centuries were removed. It's called deregulation.

Why were they removed even when the consequences were catastrophic for the economy and common good? The greed of a few and the gullibility of many.

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Cultivate a stoic calmness

Ego Tripping

Indeed.

While zerodown is right about 1913, "raygun" (thanks stoneric) was the source of all our financial woes today.

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~1~

The greed of many is actually a good thing but when it's in the hands of the very powerful few, it is not so much a good thing.

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stoneric

greed must be defined differently these days. everything else is. must be that "hippy shit" I'm stuck in.

kamikazi89

things don't happen in a vacuum, if reagan was somehow responsible for todays economic woes..so was tip O'Neil

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katie west is the best