Toxic & Destructive Culture Motivated by Greed.

[syrenn]

good... then no more welfare is needed.

If you suddenly loose your job due to factors that are beyond your control, have 2 kids and a home, accepting a $300 unemployment check for a few months while you look for new work is now considered "greed"?

Welfare can be abused, most certainly, but welfare doesn't always = bad, as some folks like to portray it.

according to liesmatters.... more welfare is not needed.... its greedy.

 

[KevinWestern]

Greed will NEVER be the American way

Agree. I think there's a big difference between someone trying to make a company profitable, and someone who's greedy and trying to milk a company for all it's worth.

Good American companies are filled with people who generally are striving to make the company profitable. If they have the skills to do this exceptionally well, they will become very rich.

Bad American companies are filled with people who are thinking only about making themselves a lot of money, even if it's at the cost of the company itself, which they can care less about.

 

[MikeK]

coveting is not greed.

The two words are not wholly synonymous but there is a distinct harmony in their respective definitions.

 

[syrenn]

coveting is not greed.

The two words are not wholly synonymous but there is a distinct harmony in their respective definitions.

That is to complicated a concept for her.....stop confusing liesmatters.

 

[itfitzme]

Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?

I have.

No, I've noticed that to not be the case. I've noticed many hard working family oriented people that condemn greed. Most honest and hard working people abhorred the Enron exec that bragged about steeling money from "Grandma Millie".

Nor was there anything in the OP's post to suggest he was asking for free stuff.

 

[itfitzme]

Didn't you hear? They already declared the Worker's Revolution.

Eight guys showed up. Then they went back to the unemployment office.

I believe you made that up. Or can you produce a news story?

There is a great, and real, story about a petition to legalize marijuana. A group in Humboldt County collected all signatures to get it on the ballot. Then they forgot to turn it in. See, that's funny because it's true.

When you fill your own head with made up stories, you become out of touch with reality.

 

[daveman]

Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?

I have.

No, I've noticed that to not be the case. I've noticed many hard working family oriented people that condemn greed. Most honest and hard working people abhorred the Enron exec that bragged about steeling money from "Grandma Millie".

Nor was there anything in the OP's post to suggest he was asking for free stuff.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

 

[daveman]

Didn't you hear? They already declared the Worker's Revolution.

Eight guys showed up. Then they went back to the unemployment office.

I believe you made that up. Or can you produce a news story?

There is a great, and real, story about a petition to legalize marijuana. A group in Humboldt County collected all signatures to get it on the ballot. Then they forgot to turn it in. See, that's funny because it's true.

When you fill your own head with made up stories, you become out of touch with reality.

Ooooh, somebody doesn't like it when you make fun of Communists.

Sucks to be you.

 

[itfitzme]

When that Goldman Sachs Executive quit the company and said he was quitting because they had created a "Toxic & Destructive Culture Motivated by Greed." he was not just talking for the sake of talking.

The fact remains that our Major Banks have been engaged in Destructive Practices in investments because they know that the US and the world will bail them out if their insane derivative BETS to ensure their foolish investments FAIL.

We did it before in the Savings and Loan Crisis when I was a young man and we did it in the last year of the Dubya Administration (Bush Jr.) in 2008. The Big Bankers do not give a damn because no matter what they do, they get their multi Million Dollar Bonuses for turning instant profits with grossly immoral schemes.

I have pointed out the Mortgage Crisis. Most of the Republiscams in that idiotic Rape of the Country (They Scamed our Republic) try to make people think that the bad loans were pushed upon them by the Government in order to get more Blacks and Hispanics (Minorities) into home ownership. That was a blatant lie. The overwhelming Tidal Wave of mortgages that had to be foreclosed on were for Whites (People of European Ethnic Descent).

Why? Simple! In 2003 the banks realized that as long as they could offload the mortgage on somebody else, they could "pretend that the home buyer was a good risk." They would "pretend" because they would not even check to see if the home buyer had a job. They did not do background checks on millions of home buyers. The Banks would write the mortgage and take their INSTANT PROFITS (Points and fees that amounted to thousands of Dollars up front to the bank) and then sell the loan to Fanny and Freddy and have nothing to worry about. They made their instant profit and then additional profit when they sold the loan to Fanny and Freddy and they were free of risk. If they did not do that, they bundled the mortgages and sold them as investments to unsuspecting retirement funds (State Funds, County Funds, City Funds, Corporate Funds) and other investment institutions.

They made certain they had All the profit but None of the risk. Meanwhile their executives were paid Millions in bonuses (Billions in the aggregate!)

Knowing that "All that BAD Paper" in the economy would cause an economic collapse, many of the banks took out derivative bets that the economy was going to collapse, which it did in 2007 - 2008 (The last year and a half of the horribly corrupt Dubya Administration.)

The economic collapse was planned by the Corrupt Big Bankers, many of whom own whole islands in the Caribbean other hide-away locations that they can run away to. They believe that the Corrupt Government Judicial System (CGJS) will not prosecute them for their criminal behavior and multi Trillion Dollar Rape of this country. After all, the system has always had the Rich Bankers and Rich Industrialists and Rich Judges all scratching each others' backs.

A group of economists at the Federal Reserve published a research paper, "Real Estate Investors, the Leverage Cycle,and the Housing Market Crisis.pdf" It is available if you search for the title. They used a unique data set that included credit reporting data and were able to determine that nearly 50% of the home purchases made at the peak of the bubble were second, third and fourth investment properties for flipping. Additionally, it was these flippers that were the first to walk away from mortgages when the housing market peaked. Looking towards short term equity returns, they were were not concerned with interest rates and these loans comprised the larger part of the sub-prime market.

John T Harvey, economist, suggests that the fundamental cause of the business cycles in efficiency that allows us to supply all of our needs with less then full employment. When business opportunities become available, this excess labor is utilized as an over abundance of investors flood the market. With technology bubbles, eventually the market is wrung out with only the top competitors remaining to supply the consumer demand.

In the case of the housing bubble, tens of thousands of individuals entered the vertical market of property investing, including the flippers, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, mortgage providers, mortgage backed security repackages, and finally the providers of security default swaps. The only individuals that had immediate risk were the owners of property at the time of the collapse. These individuals were at the very bottom of the vertical market. At the top of the market was Goldman Sacs, the company guaranteeing the default swaps. Straddles, puts, and a host of financial derivatives have been common. Security default swaps are just an extension of very common financial instruments. The executives that sold the securities were, of course, no longer tied to the sales, having collected their sales bonuses years before the collapse. There were also the mortgage default insurers that were at risk as well.

By the very nature of it's existence and structure, this vertical chain removed the risk from the majority of individuals and most companies. The flippers themselves, having defaulted, simply dropped of their keys and walked away. All other individuals were insulated from the defaults by either no longer being connected, as with mortgage brokers, or being simply an employee of a company, like Goldman Sacks. Mortgage providers were protected by the mortgage default insurance.

What we had was a ballooning of systematic risk that developed, like the systematic risk that providers of flood insurance face. Interconnected by the forces of supply and demand as well as the general health of the economy, when the housing bubble peaked, the defaults began a cascade that propagated through the economic system.

More fundamental to this is the very nature of our monetary system which relies on the credit markets to expand the money supply and the economy. The system cannot differentiate between expansion due to the purchase of capital equipment, the general inflation of prices, or the over inflation of investments whether real or paper. Nor can it differentiate between systematic (systemic) risk or random risk. Every day, tens of thousands of companies invest in expansion, entering into a risky venture. And many fail. But their failures are not connected in any way and are completely random.

Long-Term Capital Management based on the Black-Sholes model, a single company, is an excellent example of systematic risk causing a near collapse of the financial markets. It was not as publicized as the recent bank bailouts because it was the private banks that were convinced to bail out Long-Term Capital Management, rather then the public.

It isn't so much nefarious in nature though there may be an interpretation of negligence and, perhaps, this is what this Goldman Sacs exec took issue too. Still, there is a scale of sociopathy that is part of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI).

A certain degree of sociopathy is a successful characteristic. Certain careers draw caregiver personalities and certain personalities do not. "Sociopathic" is just the psychology technical term for highly competitive. And in business, "highly competitive" is relative to what is locally normal. What is competitive in one business setting may be cooperative in another.

Even without this factor, we learn, measure, and act based on our immediate surroundings. The middle class and the upper class individual compare their car to the car that their neighbor drives. And each is making the comparison relative to a different level of vehicle. "Better then my neighbors Ford Focus" is relatively the same as "better then my neighbors Prius." Yet, in absolute terms, a Prius is a lot different then a Ford Focus.

And in terms of behavior and learning, "I am only a little more competitive then my colleague" is a relative measure that, in absolute terms is quite different between the Enron exec that is happy to steal from "Grandma Millie" and the food bank volunteer that puts a few of the better goods away to take home.

Are they "grossly immoral schemes"? "insane derivative"? I don't see it as that nefarious. It's just ordinary, vanilla financial business with no reason for consideration of the systematic risk. It may very well be interpreted as a certain level of denial.

Is it that they did not do background checks on millions of home buyers? Indeed, as millions of mortgage brokers and real estate agents put buyers together with financing, indeed they may not have. Even so, it is apparent that even doing so didn't matter, they were all sub-prime, high interest loans with customers that had demonstrated the capacity to renovate and resell the property in a market that had a measurable history of stability.

Is it a "Toxic & Destructive Culture Motivated by Greed"? Or is it simply competitiveness in a competitive business, in a competative labor market with an oversupply of labor?

The shame of it that it was caused by a systematic risk built up by millions if ordinary, vanilla transactions. This is the most nefarious part of it, that in the individual details, there is no real evil to point to, not when examined up close and personal. It's like the collapse of the markets in the Great Depression when tens of thousands of hard working farmers all did the right thing, increasing productivity and lowering prices in the face of a market that had falling prices. All to often, it is the unidentifiable development of systematic risk as millions of ordinary human beings do exactly what we expect ordinary human beings to do.

There is a saying about the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps this is a good analogy.

 

[itfitzme]

Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?

I have.

No, I've noticed that to not be the case. I've noticed many hard working family oriented people that condemn greed. Most honest and hard working people abhorred the Enron exec that bragged about steeling money from "Grandma Millie".

Nor was there anything in the OP's post to suggest he was asking for free stuff.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

See, the difference between paying attention and not is this;

You phrased the question expecting the answer to be "I didn't notice" which then you can reply "Then you weren't paying attention."

I replied, "I noticed this to not be the case." I chose the words specifically because I was paying attention to how you phrased your question.

The word "noticed" explicitly includes "paying attention".

You're response was predicted. It was predicted because, you're not paying attention. I am.

I pointed out that the OP's never suggested that he was asking for free stuff.

Reality doesn't match your response. Which is why you can't come up with where he suggested he was asking for free stuff. He didn't, you're not paying attention.

In another post, you presented this made up fantasy of some "Worker's revolution that happened and only four people showed up. Then they went to unemployment to collect their check." See, "paying attention" doesn't mean paying attention to the fantasies in your head, it means paying attention to what is in front of your face.

And replying with your autonomic response, "you're not paying attention" means, you're not paying attention. It's all in the details. Parrots can talk, it doesn't make them smart.

You'll never understand this though, you lack the external feedback. See, that is what "paying attention" means, getting external feedback.

"Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?" is about as far from paying attention as one can get. There are people that want free stuff. I know some. Condemning greed isn't the common element. People express wanting "free stuff that others earned and he didn't" all the time without condemning greed. And people express condemnation of greed without ever wanting free stuff that others earned and they didn't. There is no correlation. In fact, if you've been paying attention to everything, not just what you want to see, you would have noticed that people condemn greed without wanting free stuff more often then while wanting free stuff.

What you should do is to take notes.

You're full of made up examples and learned responses. It's called confirmation bias. You only pay attention to what will trigger your internal response that make you feel good. You're living in a fantasy land in your head where you mentally masturbate.

This is one of those rare moments when you get an opportunity to really pay attention and learn something. This is your moment. One human being to another, you should pay attention.

I expect, though, you will find some response that further demonstrates you're well learned ability to reject reality, to not pay attention.

Prove me wrong. Quote the words that the OP wrote that are him wanting free stuff. Present a real example of someone condemning greed while wanting free stuff that others worked for. Provide the real facts surrounding the four people that showed up for the workers revolution.

 

[itfitzme]

Didn't you hear? They already declared the Worker's Revolution.

Eight guys showed up. Then they went back to the unemployment office.

I believe you made that up. Or can you produce a news story?

There is a great, and real, story about a petition to legalize marijuana. A group in Humboldt County collected all signatures to get it on the ballot. Then they forgot to turn it in. See, that's funny because it's true.

When you fill your own head with made up stories, you become out of touch with reality.

Ooooh, somebody doesn't like it when you make fun of Communists.

Sucks to be you.

See how out of touch you are. I said, "made up stories". My subject is the made up stories. That is clearly what I said, first thing, "I believe you made that up." I repeated this same subject numerous times. You're not paying attention to what is in front of your face. I bet you have never even once said to yourself, "All I really see are words on a computer screen."

Nowhere did I mention communists. I didn't repeat the word communist in my reply. If you were paying attention, you'd have understood that most obvious thing.

I've never met a communist. Where I live, all there are is US citizens. Some are Republicans. Some are Democrats. I know a couple of Libertarians. And many don't vote at all.

The "communists" is in your head. That is your image and your feeling. Oh, and you do get that the difference between the feeling and the object, right? The object is outside you. The feeling is inside you. The feeling isn't part of the object except in your head.

You do get the difference between what is in your head, other people's head, the objective world, and how to tell the difference? There is a good discussion. How do you tell the difference between what is in your head and what is in the head of the other person? I bet you can't explain it.

"They already declared the Worker's Revolution. Eight guys showed up. Then they went back to the unemployment office." You're story has no objectivity to it. It's not a story that is real. The feeling, for sure, is intrinsic to you, it always is. But then you present an object that is also intrinsic to you. Your feeling is supported by a fantasy. I could give it some leeway if it was a "for example". Sometimes we experience some specific thing so may time that we can make something up that represents the reality of those experiences. The closest that reality can come to this one might be the OWS "rallies". But that was a few more people than eight.

A response that would prove it wasn't a made up story would be to present the real example that backs it up. I thought maybe you might. I gave you the benefit of the doubt that there actually was a "Worker's Revolution" where four people showed up. I gave you an example of a real news story. The oddest things do happen, like a bunch of pot smokers forgetting to turn in the petition. I thought maybe that might give you a clue.

Rather, you now go further into your fantasy world full of conservatives and communists. I bet you have never met anyone that was a card carrying communist. But sure as shit, anyone that disagrees with you must like communists. In fact, I bet you have a habit of using the word "liberal".

My complaint is the bullshit, the lack of intelligence, the head up the ass, not paying attention to the details of the world and making up stories that are not representative of reality. It's the stupidity that I don't like.

It reminds me of the African-American that I once saw in an argument, complaining about racism. He didn't get, it wasn't because he was black, it was because he was being an asshole. Surely he has run into problems before, but at that moment, it wasn't about racism.

I bet you don't even get how that story applies.

There are many things, so obvious and apparent that they defy explanation except to just point at them. How obvious is the subject of a post except it is in the words that are written. I state the subject, "I believe you made that up". I present an example, "A group in Humboldt County". Then I explain the meaning of presenting the example with "See, that's funny because it's true" is what I wrote.

I honestly don't get why anyone would choose to be ignorant. See that word is like the word "ignore". Being a moron is excusable. It's not a moron's faults, it's something genetic. But choosing to be ignorant? It just astonishes me.

Perhaps you're an air traffic controller, it's all over your head.

 

[itfitzme]

Greed will NEVER be the American way

Agree. I think there's a big difference between someone trying to make a company profitable, and someone who's greedy and trying to milk a company for all it's worth.

Good American companies are filled with people who generally are striving to make the company profitable. If they have the skills to do this exceptionally well, they will become very rich.

Bad American companies are filled with people who are thinking only about making themselves a lot of money, even if it's at the cost of the company itself, which they can care less about.

It's learned behavior. And in most companies, honor and integrity do mean something because they depend on repeat customers.

It's much easier to be short term oriented when you're getting million dollar bonuses, though I don't think that is the single factor.

 

[itfitzme]

Greed - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

greed
noun \ˈgrēd\

Definition of GREED

: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed

It's like pornography, you know it when you see it. Damned if it isn't tough to draw the line in the sand though.

Is the Oscar winning actor making $5 mil a picture greedy? I'm not so sure. The market is such that all those sales add up to a lot of money, even in a recession. And if she didn't accept the $5 mil, it would just go to the producer. She might as well. The same with the high paid professional sports player. The market balance of equilibrium pricing affords that much. Would we be better off if they took less? Would the producers and directors be able make more movies? Probably not. And when your famous, it costs a lot to live in a community where you aren't accosted in front of you're house. Cost of living can be local and prices rise to match incomes.

I knew one business owner would said, "I'm not out to get rich, I just want to make sure I'm not poor." He and his wife were greedy. They were both overweight by about three or four times healthy. He had a toaster on his desk. They had bicycles that they "intended" to use, but would have had to move the toaster to get to them. They were very hedonistic. They had eight kids. If you knew them, you knew that their having eight kids was an expression of greediness. They literally had eight so they would have more then everyone else. That's what he said. Having overextended, they left themselves with no wiggle room when the recession hit. It would never occur to them that maybe the problem was that they hadn't really lived within their means. They got successful early and expected it.

But, you know, of all the examples that I have personally seen that might be considered "greed", that expression ""I'm not out to get rich, I just want to make sure I'm not poor" seems to be the best description.

If you were making a million a year, what would you do? It's easy to run off to Darfur to care about the hungry after you've made a billion dollars. But where does it cross the line when the future is uncertain?

You'd think the guy laughing about stealing from "Grandma Millie" would look at himself in the mirror. And Mr. "Winning" just strikes one as an @$$hole. But I don't know that they represent the whole.

You know it when you see it, but would we know it when we be it?

 

[itfitzme]

good... then no more welfare is needed.

If you suddenly loose your job due to factors that are beyond your control, have 2 kids and a home, accepting a $300 unemployment check for a few months while you look for new work is now considered "greed"?

Welfare can be abused, most certainly, but welfare doesn't always = bad, as some folks like to portray it.

It's not. The comment makes absolutely no sense. It is hard to even consider it a hyperbole, it is so much of a non-sequiter. Receipt of SSI, SDI, welfare, SNAP, or unemployment is so far at the opposite spectrum from a $1 mil bonus that it is impossible to even conceive of the connection that is suppose to make them analogous.

It is such nonsense that it brings sanity into question.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?

I have.

Have you ever noticed that when daveman says something stupid, an angel loses it's wings?

 

[editec]

Our banksters are a cancer on the body politic.

We ought to excise them but instead we continue to keep them in charge of our economy.

And BOTH PARTIES are coconspirators of this ongoing crime against our nation, folks.

BOTH PARTIES.

 

[daveman]

No, I've noticed that to not be the case. I've noticed many hard working family oriented people that condemn greed. Most honest and hard working people abhorred the Enron exec that bragged about steeling money from "Grandma Millie".

Nor was there anything in the OP's post to suggest he was asking for free stuff.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

See, the difference between paying attention and not is this;

You phrased the question expecting the answer to be "I didn't notice" which then you can reply "Then you weren't paying attention."

I replied, "I noticed this to not be the case." I chose the words specifically because I was paying attention to how you phrased your question.

The word "noticed" explicitly includes "paying attention".

You're response was predicted. It was predicted because, you're not paying attention. I am.

I pointed out that the OP's never suggested that he was asking for free stuff.

Reality doesn't match your response. Which is why you can't come up with where he suggested he was asking for free stuff. He didn't, you're not paying attention.

In another post, you presented this made up fantasy of some "Worker's revolution that happened and only four people showed up. Then they went to unemployment to collect their check." See, "paying attention" doesn't mean paying attention to the fantasies in your head, it means paying attention to what is in front of your face.

And replying with your autonomic response, "you're not paying attention" means, you're not paying attention. It's all in the details. Parrots can talk, it doesn't make them smart.

You'll never understand this though, you lack the external feedback. See, that is what "paying attention" means, getting external feedback.

"Have you ever noticed that when someone condemns greed, he wants free stuff that others earned and he didn't?" is about as far from paying attention as one can get. There are people that want free stuff. I know some. Condemning greed isn't the common element. People express wanting "free stuff that others earned and he didn't" all the time without condemning greed. And people express condemnation of greed without ever wanting free stuff that others earned and they didn't. There is no correlation. In fact, if you've been paying attention to everything, not just what you want to see, you would have noticed that people condemn greed without wanting free stuff more often then while wanting free stuff.

What you should do is to take notes.

You're full of made up examples and learned responses. It's called confirmation bias. You only pay attention to what will trigger your internal response that make you feel good. You're living in a fantasy land in your head where you mentally masturbate.

This is one of those rare moments when you get an opportunity to really pay attention and learn something. This is your moment. One human being to another, you should pay attention.

I expect, though, you will find some response that further demonstrates you're well learned ability to reject reality, to not pay attention.

Prove me wrong. Quote the words that the OP wrote that are him wanting free stuff.

He's lamenting greed. Where do you think he wants the gains from greed to go? Do you really think he wants the bankers to keep it?

Not likely.

Present a real example of someone condemning greed while wanting free stuff that others worked for.

That's easy. Anyone who screeches "Tax the rich!!" wants what they haven't earned. The OWS is full of idiots like that.

So is the Democratic Party, for that matter.

Provide the real facts surrounding the four people that showed up for the workers revolution.

Oh, Gaea's achin' pancreas.

What an utter humorless, unimaginative dolt you are.

That was a joke, you retard. I was mocking Mike's pinko leanings.

Leftists just don't get humor.

Now you will type a thousand words on why that wasn't funny. Surprise me -- don't.

 

[Truthmatters]

Greed is not going to be an American value no matter how much you try to make it so

 

[Liability]

coveting is not greed.

But it's "good?"

 

[Liability]

Greed is not going to be an American value * * * *

Of course it is. It's the hallmark of modern American liberalism.