"Greed is going to do us in — stupid, selfish greed. We have essentially squandered the wealth of this country and forgotten the whole idea of the common good."
This comes from the country's poet laureate, Charles Simic.
He did one of those Q and A's with Deborah Solomon of the Times, and the context was the Presidential election. His candidate was John Edwards, who since the interview has dropped out.
Here's the thing about greed: People, including myself, generally don't think themselves greedy. Because where is the line? It's not written down somewhere. Somebody with five houses might say, "I'm not greedy because the Joneses have more than we do." So greed is relative. Or maybe the person with five houses gives away more than he makes; we don't know that.
But basically, Simic is right--this "I've-got-mine-you-get-yours" mentality is ruinous.
Photo by Michael Prince.
No comments:
Post a Comment