Supposing this recession lasts 2 to 3 years. Will the nation then return to greed?

7 Comments

  • Chris - 14 years ago

    Of course greed will prevail, which is why we need to tax those who use our public resources to become wealthy so they don't leave the rest of us holding the bag.

  • Republitarian - 15 years ago

    Just today I was writing about this subject for future publication. The problem with this survey is there are two different kinds of greed.

    The greed to make money that you EARNED is good, because you are working for reward. I call this "eugrede"

    The greed to take what is not yours is the evil kind of greed we scorn. I call this disgred.

    Once the market improves (presumable once Obama leaves office), a market of eugrede will ensue. This will be a good thing, because pay will be linked to the amount of effort put into your job. That's what we all want, isn't it?

    The reason the economy is bad is because people were irresponsible, from a combination of ignorance and disgred. This is a problem. Greed in general isn't.

  • Cuchulainn Y - 15 years ago

    It's a stupid question to begin with. Placing the blame for this current financial crisis on greed is like placing blame for plane crashes on gravity.

  • cajuncocoa - 15 years ago

    That would be better than the alternative.

    I get where you're coming from. People have a tendency to be tempted by greed. When they are free to do so, they give in to this temptation. While we've never had complete and unfettered capitalism in my lifetime, we have been free (enough) to choose to take more than we need (begging the question: who gets to decide what we really need? But I digress).

    The alternative is to make sure people cannot give in to this temptation. Someone arbitrarily decides what all of us need and how much all of us will contribute. We used to call this socialism (I still do). When we no longer have the choice to take what we want, even if it's more than someone else thinks we NEED, that's tyranny.

    I'll choose greed over tyranny any and every day.

  • Brian - 15 years ago

    Greed is the wrong question to ask. The problem is NOT greed, but a lack of personal responsility. For the past 25 years or so, responsibilty went out the window with money. people have been overspending like water over Niagra falls. For example, my depression era grandparents while alive would buy 1 car, with cash. drive it till the wheels fell off while saving car payment money in the bank for the next car when the old one finally gave out. Today people lease or buy a car, make payments for years then trade it off and do it agan. So always in debt. Toss on credit cards, home equity lines of credit on top of home loans and no one can build wealth. Then one day an emergancy happens, something breaks down, or the kids need braces or something and then they are in real finiancial trouble and more debt. This cant go on forever. People then scream for the government to fix problems and they use the fear to create more power. Business are more then willing to make money off of the overspending people so it all snowballs and we are here today. yes we will get through this recession like the Carter years, the tech bubble recession of 2000-02 before. But in 2-3 years we will have forgoten the lessons learned and be out throwing money around like before until the next "bubble" bursts again. Until people take a mature, long term approach to money--staying out of debt, saving as much as possible for emergencies and retirement and not being so materialistic, things will NEVER change and we will have these boom & bust cycles in the economy and the busts will be worse b/c people dont save money during the boom times to ride out the bad times. That is something NO politician of EITHER major party can cure no matter how much big government thinks it can. Like it or not things depend on the consumer and THIER personal responsibility to get through this. Have a good day.

  • Jeremy Janson - 15 years ago

    Greed is a universal constant. Really, we never left it to begin with.

  • PattiKay - 15 years ago

    the "return to greed" part of the question is similar to asking "so when did you stop beating your wife?" Very slanted question.

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