OBL and the 3rd Deadly Sin

OBL and the 3rd Deadly Sin


Remember the movie Wall Street? Remember the famous scene that has Michael Douglas playing the role of Corporate raider Gordon Gekko and Gekko stands up before the hapless hard working people of Teldar Paper and delivers the famous line: “The point is, Ladies and Gentlemen, that greed --- for lack of a better word --- is good!”
I remember it well. I remember it because to me it was such a perfect example of how the glib and self-assured charlatans of this world get honest people to start believing that a vice, like greed, is in reality, a virtue. Once these Flimflammers can manage that trick, then it’s relatively easy for them to convince the gullible that they are being “cheated” by not being virtuous (greedy) enough and demand their fair share that Mr. Gekko alone knows how to obtain. Of course, all of this nonsense was in reality only a ruse because Mr. Gekko was not really interested in fairness or the welfare of the people. Gekko, in truth, only needed the people to believe in what he was saying so that they would do his bidding. All of this manipulation of good “honest” people was, of course, solely designed to eventually satisfy Mr. Gekko’s own virtuous greed. Never mind that a Company that had sustained the people for many years would most likely be destroyed in the process. Hard work and sacrifice is so old fashioned in the new economy because all you really have to do is listen to those like Mr. Gekko and wondrous riches can be yours, if you only believe. I listed greed as a vice, but we all know that greed was the third of the seven deadly sins. I know we don’t really like to talk about deadly sins all that much but to refresh our memories about these vices, I have listed them in order: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Greed has, without a doubt, replaced hard work and sacrifice as the engine that is now driving our unbridled Capitalism and let me say without reservation that unbridled Capitalism is just as poisonous to society as unbridled Socialism could ever be. Lets look at some of the dismal results that greed has fathered and unbridled Capitalism has fostered that will, unfortunately, be the legacy we stand to leave to our children and grandchildren to sort out. The national public debt now stands at $9,698,267,795,301 as of 9/11/2008. America’s total debt, pubic and private, now stands at $53,000,000,000,000 and is increasing at about $4.3 trillion per year. Hell, I can remember when the late Senator Dirksen of Illinois was reported to have said “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”, and now here we are talking about a trillion here, a trillion there. Are these trillions really money? You bet they are. They are our 401ks, our IRAs, our retirement funds, our insurance money, our equity funds and on and on. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not smart enough to know what is really going on here, but one thing I do know with perfect clarity and certainty, when people like Mr. Grekko (Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al) and Flimflammers (Politicians) tell us every thing is OK and just believe in what they say and we all can continue to “get something for nothing” (debt with no hope of repaying), I know we are in big trouble. However, I do know what real money is. It is the exchange for work and other things of value for a certificate we all agree has the same value as work or property and in so doing, facilitates the operation of an economy. Money relies exclusively upon the faith and trust of the people that money is as valuable as their hard work, property and sacrifice. When you think about it for a while it becomes obvious that money is in reality the basis of an authorized official Ponzi scheme that operates on faith and trust, and as long as things are in balance or value is always increasing, it works just fine. But when faith and trust begins to wane and money loses it’s value, the scheme begins to falter and if faith and trust isn’t restored in a timely manner, the whole scheme begins to cascades into an unstoppable demise. I believe we are now seeing the beginning of the cascade into ruin. Here is some evidence of the cascade and the impending ruin that it portents. Lehman Brothers, a 158 year-old investment bank, has lost 95% of it value due to greed and will no doubt fail and billion of dollars will disappear. Bear Stearns Companies, an 85 year-old investment company that was one of the world’s largest, has failed resulting in the loss of untold billions. Fannie May and Freddie Mac, a government sponsored and backed investment entity, has failed and precipitated a takeover by the Government with even more borrowed money (will someone tell our Government that you really can’t pay off a credit card with a credit card) resulting in untold loss of billions of dollars and property. Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual are next up on the failure docket with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler floundering as foreign companies complete their takeover of our last manufacturing capabilities. Need I go on? Unadulterated greed is the basis for all of this mess we find ourselves in, and that unbridled Capitalism has facilitated, be it individual greed or the collective greed of an electorate that buys into the notion that it can get “something for nothing” at the expense of others. So, if I were Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave somewhere planning our demise, I would not bother. Just wait a little while longer and the 3rd deadly sin, greed, will do the job just nicely.