Greed in our land of plenty!
Earl J. Prignitz
September 29, 2005
There was once a television show that always concluded its program with the stand up comic stating just as seriously as he possibly could, “Just remember folks ... there’s one thing that money can’t buy ... and that’s poverty.” It always brought a roar of laughter.
But it’s not funny anymore because in our country money does indeed buy poverty. Not for those who have it, but for all those who are less fortunate. Just take a look at what is happening right under our noses if you will. Money...massive quantities of it have bought our government, which is in an ongoing process of dismantling every social program that was instituted during the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt way back during the great depression in the ’30’s. Just mark my words; George W. Bush is intent on undermining every benefit that the less fortunate have had under the New Deal – like health insurance, retirement supplements with Social Security, and sending meaningful employment overseas. It is sad to witness the vested interests succeeding, but it is happening. Mr. Bush is putting our government so far in debt that it will be utterly impossible to get out. Our grand children and great grandchildren will be forced to pay the debt. And all the while the gullible public goes merrily on its way — totally ignorant of what is happening.
The underlying motive of the perpetrators of all of this taking place needs only one word to define it, and that word is “GREED.” Greed that has been so out of constraint that it has become an undemocratic force in our society — creating alarming inequalities, divisions if you will, in this great country of ours. Although ours is an immensely wealthy society, it is not a humane society. Wealth and poverty are indeed connected. And GREED is behind it all as the result of what people do to people.
The superrich live within close proximity to the rest of us but we seldom see them because they live in walled estates, travel in their limousines, and use different airports than we do. And there are lots of them. In fact, there are more than 200 billionaires in America. Five percent of American households have assets of over $1 million dollars. We are back to the levels of more extravagant use of goods than we have seen in over 100 years. Ours has been a nation of persistent and resilient people with one mission in life — the pursuit of happiness. There should be enough prosperity in this great land of ours for everyone. No one should ever go hungry or suffer.
And yet people are going hungry in America. In a recent survey in Los Angeles it was noted that more than a quarter of low-income residents, many of them working, are not getting enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. Would you believe that at least 10% of them are even experiencing hunger? It is estimated that 3 out of 10 Americans will face poverty sometime in their lives.
All of our major cities have neighborhoods where people live in squalor and degradation. America has once again become a nation of extremes. And greed is behind all of it.
The fall of Enron, and its subsequent bankruptcy, may well be the largest scandal in the history of American business and politics. If we ask, “What went wrong with Enron?” — The answer would be, “Everything.”
A major corporation went bankrupt, in the process laying off a large percentage of its workers. Workers' pensions were under assault — while executives bailed out of company stock at a huge profit. Executives hid losses and inflated profit reports with the full blessing of the firm’s outside auditors. Can you imagine Lawyers ‘investigating’ these reports of wrongdoing — and founding nothing wrong?
The moral of this sad story is greed. Everything that happened took place because someone — executives, accountants, investment bankers, lawyers — wanted to make as much money as possible and as fast as possible.
But it’s not funny anymore because in our country money does indeed buy poverty. Not for those who have it, but for all those who are less fortunate. Just take a look at what is happening right under our noses if you will. Money...massive quantities of it have bought our government, which is in an ongoing process of dismantling every social program that was instituted during the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt way back during the great depression in the ’30’s. Just mark my words; George W. Bush is intent on undermining every benefit that the less fortunate have had under the New Deal – like health insurance, retirement supplements with Social Security, and sending meaningful employment overseas. It is sad to witness the vested interests succeeding, but it is happening. Mr. Bush is putting our government so far in debt that it will be utterly impossible to get out. Our grand children and great grandchildren will be forced to pay the debt. And all the while the gullible public goes merrily on its way — totally ignorant of what is happening.
The underlying motive of the perpetrators of all of this taking place needs only one word to define it, and that word is “GREED.” Greed that has been so out of constraint that it has become an undemocratic force in our society — creating alarming inequalities, divisions if you will, in this great country of ours. Although ours is an immensely wealthy society, it is not a humane society. Wealth and poverty are indeed connected. And GREED is behind it all as the result of what people do to people.
The superrich live within close proximity to the rest of us but we seldom see them because they live in walled estates, travel in their limousines, and use different airports than we do. And there are lots of them. In fact, there are more than 200 billionaires in America. Five percent of American households have assets of over $1 million dollars. We are back to the levels of more extravagant use of goods than we have seen in over 100 years. Ours has been a nation of persistent and resilient people with one mission in life — the pursuit of happiness. There should be enough prosperity in this great land of ours for everyone. No one should ever go hungry or suffer.
And yet people are going hungry in America. In a recent survey in Los Angeles it was noted that more than a quarter of low-income residents, many of them working, are not getting enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. Would you believe that at least 10% of them are even experiencing hunger? It is estimated that 3 out of 10 Americans will face poverty sometime in their lives.
All of our major cities have neighborhoods where people live in squalor and degradation. America has once again become a nation of extremes. And greed is behind all of it.
The fall of Enron, and its subsequent bankruptcy, may well be the largest scandal in the history of American business and politics. If we ask, “What went wrong with Enron?” — The answer would be, “Everything.”
A major corporation went bankrupt, in the process laying off a large percentage of its workers. Workers' pensions were under assault — while executives bailed out of company stock at a huge profit. Executives hid losses and inflated profit reports with the full blessing of the firm’s outside auditors. Can you imagine Lawyers ‘investigating’ these reports of wrongdoing — and founding nothing wrong?
The moral of this sad story is greed. Everything that happened took place because someone — executives, accountants, investment bankers, lawyers — wanted to make as much money as possible and as fast as possible.
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