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 Greed is BAD - Now we suffer!
By: mentawaisurf
6/04/2009
5:48 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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During 2008, 45% of our ASX top 100 CEO's took home bonuses in excess of 100% of their base pay - all while share prices fell by over 30%. Is it any wonder the public is outraged!
The average CEO of a top 100 Australian company receives $1.8m in base pay - just for turning up to work - plus an average $2.1m in bonuses and another $1.4m worth of share option remuneration. Reform is long overdue, but it's taken the GFC to provoke a serious response from government. Now the treasurer wants laws that would require shareholder approval of executive payouts to reflect community values. The winds of change are blowing... |
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By: ang101000
6/04/2009
3:58 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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Tigereye,
Perhaps Gordon Gecko is correct - "GREED is a good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind."
If greed is good we should want more of it!
The only question is: how we can sustain an economic system based on greed? More importantly, do we want to? |
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By: tigereye670
6/04/2009
2:03 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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Legitimately rich people are rich because they invest their money rather than spending it on non-productive things. Its as simple as that. Rorting is not required unless u are short-sighted. The long-term poor (people who do not strive to better themselves) are poor because they did not consider it worth while to study at school, then spend all their social security on useless pursuits, and then expect society to fund their life long retirement. The rest of us make daily sacrifices to advance our lives. It would therefore class people deliberately getting social security as greedy as well as any rich people rorting the system.
Also social do gooders pandering to the poor do much harm in propagating the poor’s belief that society owes them a free living. And that hard working members of society have an obligation to feed, clothe, and entertain them for free for their whole useless lives. In short these people are rewarding laziness, avoidance of personal responsibility and overall simple greed. Society degenerates when individuals do not advance or at least maintain current standards in all areas of life. Look at the negative events happening in the news or around you and the common root cause will almost always be lax personal standards and responsibility of the individuals involved and those directly or indirectly aiding and abetting them. |
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By: tigereye670
6/04/2009
2:02 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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yes indeed Jay.
To keep the topic going , i prefer to say that short sightedness is much worse than greed. Doing anything that hurts people or nature in the LONG term is far more dangerous than simply wanting more than is required for survival, ie greed, without hurting others.
I suggest slightly changing our perception and focus away from unpleasant attributes such as greed or gluttony toward the REAL culprits of stupidity and or short sightedness.
Greed in itself does not hurt anything or anyone. I work hard and legally and to my mind morally to achieve my wealth. I have more than I need, therefore some people consider that greed. But I care for the environment having recycled water, paper, etc for over 25 yrs since I was 15 and b4 it was trendy. I did that not because of unprovable morals but because logic suggests that working with nature not only is more efficient and productive and profitable than hurting nature, but is also a MUST if I want future generations to inherit a safe ie non-toxic and war free world. Hence I can have as much as I want as long as it is achieved PROPERLY. Hence greed is not a problem at all in my case. If u recycle and use clean energy u can have as much as u want without fear of running out of resources or hurting the environment.
Short sighted, lazy, and stupid people however are very dangerous to all our futures.
In the short sighted category I include people who only focus on what they can get now and do not think or care about the future (generally the poorest or unemployed people in western countries), and people who deliberately break the law or common moral principles to achieve financial gain (and this applies to rich and poor people). |
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By: jaymarcel
6/04/2009
1:25 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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| Greed is in all of us as life is a process of improving ones comfort, the queen of england needs a palace does that make her greedy? |
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By: ang101000
6/04/2009
1:05 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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Jaymarcel, to answer your question yes, even a cave-man has needs. According to Maslow all human beings have basic physiological needs such as food, water, oxigen, and to be able to maintain a fairly constant body temperature (clothes). We also need shelter (or home) for safety and security. And Yes, people have a need to overcome loneliness, a need to both give and receive love and affection.
As for the computer - there are higher needs such as esteem and self actualization, Maslow writes person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do." "A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write." |
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By: jaymarcel
6/04/2009
9:59 am Yahoo! Profile:
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You don't need to live in a house, plenty of americans are proving that, so where do you live?
Do you really need those clothes? or could you survive without them.
Oh and that computer your on do you REALLY NEED IT? |
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By: tigereye670
6/04/2009
8:39 am Yahoo! Profile:
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HAVING MORE THAN YOU NEED, AND NOT SHARING IT, IS GREED.
As I said earlier we need to be very specific as to what constitutes greed or tall or fat or whatever, otherwise the statement is groundless and not testable. Unfortunately, taking this statement literally means you, I, and 99.9999% of the world has more than they need to just survive, eg, by having enough food to just survive, but no clothes, shelter, job, etc. That means we are ALL greedy. How much money is EXACTLY enough to push us into the greedy category? As I suspect, people will usually pontificate because they will believe their own situation is below their perceived greed level even though they will have much more than is required to simply survive. Compared to an starving African even the unemployed here on social security is GREEDY. They have enough money to buy luxuries like drugs, and are paid thousands to have babies and are given free housing,etc. So…. What is greed exactly. Cheers :) |
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By: tigereye670
6/04/2009
8:39 am Yahoo! Profile:
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New4, thanks, yes I was patient, deep down I had the desire to succeed but also to be help not hindrance to society, which is after all our extended family. I felt shame claiming social security. BTW meanns by the way..
Communication is one of most critical and error prone issues on this planet, causing much unintended grief. Hence much of what we write can and will be misinterpreted because of the limited space and the need to be brief. Hence I didn’t mean that you said God is overloarding etc etc but rather that it is a common belief. Also, I never mean to have a go at anyone, I dont dislike people, just their actions.
You referred to people who uphold the "concepts" of love, etc, as people who haven't thought outside the square & just accept what they are told. the hypocracy of this insult is you saying "with ALL DUE RESPECT"!
No I don’t mean that at all. I mean people understandably tend to accept authority or their peers opinions as they grow up but rarely do they take the time to really think about concepts, and to explore science and philosophy, or nature, etc, etc. Most people simply go about they daily lives paying their mortgages, working, having fun, etc. I meant that people accept whatever religion or political party their parents had or later their friends have. I did not say or mean that love etc is wrong, but rather people haven’t really thought about how they love and why and what love is. Also I say with all due respect because even if I disagree with someone or some situation I still respect it. I do not like or dislike people based on whether they please me or not. I respect every aspect of existence because to my mind everything is connected. Hence I may think druggies are stupid but I also understand that they got to that place because of unique set of circumstances that was always going to happen. Yes, I think that the future is unalterable. Yes we do have free will, but our decisions inevitably leads to a set future. |
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By: new4mejem
5/04/2009
10:38 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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tigereye670, Tks for pickg up i was talkg to you. firstly i'd like to say i admire your patience & tenacity. It obviously has paid off. What does "BTW" mean?
When you replied "God did not put a roof over my ead, my parents did", that's exactly what i was pointing out; but with the concepts of the free will of man, and God, with regards allowance and provision.
I don't have to "imagine" the "concept" of LOVE. I feel and CHOOSE to both give it, and accept it; (and acknowledge it, too!) Same goes with the opposite of love, fear.
Back to your "rewards"- no one said you didn't "deserve" them! and how on earth did you get the idea from me that God is just an "over-Lording" supreme being? If you don't believe in God's, or "the World's" provision, independant of your own personal intentions/actions/morali ty, than you must beleive soley in your own (personal) actions to give you "good results". Question, what motivated your parents to provide / pander even, to your own personal needs? Was it Love? (they chose to do what they did, to a large extent i'm sure). Did society, AND DOES SOCIETY chose to show love to it's members by issueing them social security payments, free medical, legal assistance, etc? LAWs and RULES based on LOVE exist to man, as a whole chosing them & upholding them.
You referred to people who uphold the "concepts" of love, etc, as people who haven't thought outside the square & just accept what they are told. the hypocracy of this insult is you saying "with ALL DUE RESPECT"!
HAVING MORE THAN YOU NEED, AND NOT SHARING IT, IS GREED.
dizzz96 - refers to currencies other than money. Maybe we should return to the old barter system. Then we really know what we are giving up, and expecting in return off another. Will we value people more than, perhaps? Personally, the currency of LOVE has many vehicles, money being only one of them. As I value my TIME with my spouse, I'm choosing to sign off now. |
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By: dizzz96
5/04/2009
8:03 am Yahoo! Profile:
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| :-) Even though philosophy has no fiscal reward it is a tool that is needed in order to further other areas of our lives, including a return for the currency we choose to spend. Money is simply one of many currencies that can be used to enrich our lives. When other currencies are ignored the lack of balance is reflected in quality of existence. i.e you can have all the cash in the world but if there is no food to be found how will this money help you? Perhaps by exploring other currencies on an individual basis we may find a way around the one way highway that we have put the planet and its denizens on. |
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By: ang101000
5/04/2009
1:20 am Yahoo! Profile:
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| «There is enough on earth for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed.» Ghandi |
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By: nzgirl4life
4/04/2009
10:22 pm |
Message deleted. Reason: Breach of terms of service |
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By: jaymarcel
4/04/2009
6:20 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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| Interesting forum title, I am greedy with overtime but the work has to be done & nobody else wants to do it gives me a great chance to get me financially secure, where is the suffering there? it means now I can sit back & pay my mortgage during the crisis while the hours get cut back. |
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By: tigereye670
30/03/2009
7:55 am Yahoo! Profile:
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akdoc1, I agree about your title & what u say. I would simply have replaced greed with short-sightedness, as well as added lack of fgovernment oversight & regulation. Communication or should i say miscommunication is in my opinion one of the most critical reasons for disharmony, conflict and general problems between individuals & groups in the world. It is impossible to accurately or exactly convey our thoughts or to understand what others thoughts are except via maths.. Everything is understandably generalised for brevity sake, but the result is loss of truth, accuracy.
hmm, gambling, well everything in life is nothing but a gamble. Being involved in undertaking risk assessments for work i know this very well. Putting money in a bank is a gamble, the risk depends on the bank, country & other known & unknown circumstances as to how much risk there is of not only loosing it, but of inflation wiping out its value. Risk is 3 dimentional, not linear or simplistic. Value is not a set fact or figure, but a matter of perception. What the high risk lenders did was wrong if they broke the law which i hear they did by fudging figures. I heard the govt wanted these laons to occur to allow poor people to get their own homes. it seems to have backfired. Having been thru the last recession I had an uneasy feeling about how long the good times would last. The world & nature operates on cycles so the good times will return ... eventually... Many of the legally rich become so by taking risks & using their brains, working their butts off & not giving up after failures. The poor in our wonderful country generally do the opposite hence why rich get richer & poor stay in limbo since social security is so good. The great divide will always exist until the lower levels of society truly want to do better off their own backsides... cheers |
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By: forrestwicks
29/03/2009
9:02 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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| GET A JOB ! |
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By: akdoc1
28/03/2009
4:48 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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Tigereye, as exploitation, advantage and greed are only arbitary social concepts, seeing that you understand what I mean, means the arbitary point has been reached and further defining is not neccesary. The original title Re:Greed is Bad - Now we suffer! was summed up by "They have brought us here as result of their own greed and by encouraging our own ..." so using your logic how would you redefine the Title.
I hold that I had no part in causing the "suffering" no one encouraged my greed. Any blame must lie with those stupid enough to gamble in an over inflated market and those stupid enough to give and take high risk loans, along with government advisors who were too stupid not see the crash coming 5 years ago. I feel the title should have been: Due to stupidity - Now others suffer. |
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By: tigereye670
27/03/2009
9:02 am Yahoo! Profile:
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“Taking advantage of people” whats wrong with that? They got themselves onto that situation so they must expect and accept the consequences, we all do. It is not my or your duty to make up for peoples stupidity or short-sightedness. I don’t mean people should be cold hearted so I try to help people who are momentarily down, but we should not be encouraging people to be weak, short-sighted, lazy, incompetent, etc, etc. That drags society lower, eg mass drinking, multigeneration unemployed, etc and also restricts peoples ability to get themselves out of their bad habits by pandering to their bad habits with free money or pity and excuses to continue being a liability to society. No one owes anyone else a free ticket to life. Society should however provide equal “opportunities” for all people to excel at whatever they choose. But people must make the effort. I received unemployment but I tried hard to find work, it wasn’t a “lifestyle” choice from laziness. People get what they deserve in a technical sense. If I stand in the middle of the road what can I expect other than to be run over. Moralising that its not “fair” that I get hit is stupid to the nth degree, and dangerous. Its promotes shedding your own responsibility onto others or society by playing the victim of the rich or poor background, etc. My parents were immigrants and worked long hours so that our family could not only prosper but contribute to Australia’s advancement.
The benefit was a generally comfortable life, the cost was less time with parents. People must understand there is a cost or price to everything, nothing is free. |
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By: tigereye670
27/03/2009
9:01 am Yahoo! Profile:
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akdoc1, I don’t mean to play on semantics but what is the definition of "exploitation” or “advantage”? We need to be much more specific. I know what u mean, but until u specify exactly, by example if u wish, then u cannot claim what is or isn’t exploitation.
For example, what is wrong with taking advantage of a situation? Animals will often scavenge “take advantage” on carcasses. That is good because it cleans up the environment preventing disease. Lions usually kill the weakest members of the herd thus keeping the herd more viable and reducing the herd’s impact on their food source preventing mass starvation or disease. People will often moralise about this and say its not “fair” or “right”. People can let their emotions overrule their logic. They have no real definition as to why technically its not fair, they simply have a vague notion and an uneasy feeling about a situation. Its all too easy to take the moral high ground especially when they don’t have all the details. I observe much hypocrisy in people who moralise or judge others. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say…
I know the law isn’t perfect, never can be specific or all encompassing enough, hence people can get around any law. But that’s not what I meant or what I do. I follow the intent of the law not the letter.
I don’t believe greed exists, or any adjective like “tall, fat, up, red”. Adjectives can only exist as concepts and only “relative” to something else. Eg, a tall man is not tall compared to a building. Only mathematics is accurate or real. Most people generalise but cannot specify or define greed exactly. And that is my point. Generalising is ok for quick discussion, but not when it becomes serious. |
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By: tigereye670
27/03/2009
8:15 am Yahoo! Profile:
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voyer1, no one really knows what God is, if he/it exists at all.
My years of ruminations into science, religion, spirituality, and just plain logic, suggests that god can only be explained in a generic sense, not in a religious sense which is a human invention that reduces god to a convenient and “understandable” concept for the masses to easily conceptualise. Love? who knows. The most likely description is that God, unlike a demi-god, must BE everything, perfect, the “be all and end all”. Suggesting anything less means God is not 100% and therefore drops it down to demi-god level like Zeus or just a relatively powerful being. Standard religions suggest god gets angry and punishes people... that means god cannot control his temper which is a weakness. Logic suggests this is rubbish.
God is energy, call it love if you wish, but from a scientific perspective for God to exist then he must be EVERYTHING in existence, as pure energy. That energy is “assembled” like “bricks” by his laws of physics, quantum physics and nature into the universes, planets, air, people, trees…. We are all made out of the exact same energy.. There is nothing in existence that is not OF God. Some suggest we are created by god and therefore separate from god, but that cannot be true either. Its all or nothing.
Hence I do not see myself as being any better or more “worthy” than a rock or any less than God personified.. If people truly believed this rather than limited religious concepts then they would have no excuse for hurting others or anything. |
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By: nz4forest
27/03/2009
3:17 am |
Message deleted. Reason: Breach of terms of service |
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By: akdoc1
26/03/2009
6:31 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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tigereye670
What you gain by not exploiting others or nature is rightfully yours. Exploitation is taking taking advantage of others even if it is legal to do so.
You give a good example of exploitation in saying "I do not feel teh need to give money to the poor to maintain their chosen non-working lifestyle." Those choosing non- workering lifestyles while claiming unemployment benefits are exploiting tax payers, just the same as employers who take advantage of workers, exploit the workers it is greed.
It is not a matter of legal, greed in any form is exploitation. So if you believe exploiting others is right, then for you greed is good. If you believe exploitation is wrong, then for you greed is bad.
However, it is always those who exploit others that shout the hardest about exploitation being wrong, when some one exploits them. |
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By: mentawaisurf
26/03/2009
4:51 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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Allco's founder David Coe, who is largely to blame for the company's demise, recently sold his Sydney harbourside mansion for a reported $42m. He was last spotted skiing at Aspen.
When Commander Communications collapsed recently no entitlements were paid to employees yet the company's executives, who destroyed the company by loading it with debt, sold their shares and scooted off with bonuses before the inevitable collapse.
Storm Financial, backed by our largest and most reputable banks, loaned millions to low income earners, provided they mortgage their homes, so they could leverage these risky margin loans into our speculative share market. This just confirms how banks, anywhere in the world, are purely motivated by profit without regard for their customers (a modern definition of greed).
We'd better get used to such revelations. As the bear market unfolds over coming years this will prove to be only the beginning. |
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By: voyer1
26/03/2009
3:03 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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God is Love!
He made your Job, Money, Life. It is only a loan!
You come into the world with nothing & you leave with nothing!
Sorry |
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By: tigereye670
26/03/2009
1:15 pm Yahoo! Profile:
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new4mejem,
i was 23 when i finished uni & tried to find work, any work, often doing commission only sales. It wasnt until a lot of soul searching, & taking responsibility for my situation despite having what i thought was enough to expect a half decent job, that i realised that i was not sufficiently confident in myself & that i had to take the bull by the horns & be smarter & more focussed. After several low level jobs i finally made the breakthough in 1999 & have powered on ever since. In 2000 i bought my own house & spent the next 15 months renovating it after work. i now have another house with 4 years work on it. I deserve the rewards when i sell them because i earned them, not for any so called moral reasons, just logical practical ones. BTW, God did not put a roof over my head, my parents did, just like God is not respesible for the nasty things people do, neither is God responible for the good things people do. PS I believe in God, just not in a overlording one. There is no such thing as morilty, greed, hate, love, etc, etc. These r only adjectives describing "concepts" people have imagined. Hence God does not punish or rewrd people. these r human concepts, not universal ones used by peoplpe who with al due respect probably havent really thought outside the square & just accept what they are told. cheers frinds... oh yes, i very much appreciate now all teh hard earned lessons of life.. i treasure them all... |
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