So today I talk about greed. Why am I even talking about it? Well, it stems from a conversation I had with a member of the Occupy New Haven movement on Facebook earlier this week. After going back and forth, a question was posed to me as to what was the root cause of the problems that we are experiencing and the cause of all the protests and unrest we have been experiencing. After pondering the question, the only suitable answer that I could come up with that encompassed almost all grievances that people have is greed. Regardless of the label you attach to it, whether it be corporate greed, political greed, monetary greed, etcetera; the root cause as I see it is greed. Not to say that greed alone is the cause, but rather unchecked greed. In our current economic and political system, the more you make or the more you get, the more it seems you are able to keep for yourself. The higher your income is, the less you pay in taxes. The more power you get in Washington, the more you are able to keep and the more you are able to swindle away. Now, please don't misunderstand me here, I am not opposed to people making as much money as they possibly can. I am opposed however, to letting those who make more money give less back in the way of taxes or any other means. I am not suggesting that we turn our society into a socialist one, rather, I am suggesting that we institute a modicum of fairness into our tax system and corporate structure. That is at least a start.
We live in a day and age when the average CEO of a corporation makes 350 times what the average worker makes. This is the highest income disparity we have seen since the 1920's. Taking into account inflation, the average worker actually makes less money now than they did even 20 years ago. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It is no longer a myth, but reality. Part of the problem in the corporate arena is the bonuses that top level executives receive. How can a company justify giving a bonus of over a million dollars or more regardless of what that person receiving it does? It is not like any of the executives are running the country. (Correction, you could say they are with all the money they spend in Washington turning politicians to their cause.) And there in lies another part of the greed equation. If these corporations are literally able to buy legislation to suit their needs by giving millions of dollars to politicians and lobbyists, why wouldn't the politicians and lobbyists continue doing what they are doing. It seems that at this point the circulation of money amongst people in power has gotten so extravagant that they have forgotten who pays their bills. It is the rest of us taxpayers, paying higher rates than millionaires, who are funding these people. And while I am grouping almost all the wealthy into these previous statements, there are those among them, few and far between, who actually give money back to society and seek to improve the welfare of the citizens around them. For those philanthropists, which we are seeing fewer and fewer of, maybe they should be the ones getting the tax breaks, not the whole group of wealthy, most of which hoard their money away never to be seen by anyone but their family.
So why am I talking so passionately about greed when I have a week and half old beautiful boy? It is because I don't want him to grow up seeing what greed can do, seeing the how the greed of a handful can impact the lives of millions. What I do want my son to grow up and see is that while you can make as much money as you want, if you have more than you need, you should help those who are less fortunate. I want my son to be able to see a new age of philanthropists, an age of wealthy individuals who do not have to be coerced into helping out those in need. I want him to be able to read about the likes of Jon Huntsman Sr., a billionaire from Utah who is one of only 19 billionaires to give away over a billion dollars. There are over 1200 billionaires in the world and only 19 have given away over a billion dollars. Why, because of greed. Mr. Huntsman, even with giving away a billion dollars, still isn't hurting for money, so why can't others see the need of the less fortunate and help them out. Has their world become so insulated that the rest of the population doesn't matter? I want my son to be able to read about 1100 out of 1200 billionaires giving away a billion dollars. I've said it before and I will say it again, social justice and social programs can not be instituted by the government. I guarantee however that if there was incentive for the wealthy to give more of their money away to people in their own country, than they would do so. However, there currently is no incentive.
Overall, I want to see the effects of greed diminished. After all, no matter how much money a person accumulates over their lifetime, it makes no difference when they pass away (except what type of coffin they are buried in). We will all end up in a rectangular box buried six feet under and no matter how much money we might have made in our lifetime, nothing can be taken with us. We can't shove all those millions of dollars inside a coffin and hope to change the course of death. Greed, I would say, might even hasten death along. When people are so caught up in making more, getting more, taking more; they are always focused on the future and forget about their current lives. By constantly looking to the future, time moves quicker and we lose track of whats really important. I want my son to not know about the future, to not know it even exists, because it doesn't exist except as fantasy. No matter how much we might contemplate the future, we can never know for certain what it might bring or if we will even make it there. Who reading this has planned their future out? I find no fault in planning for the future, but to plan the future is a different story. Planning for the future means we are putting things in place in the present to ensure that, should we make it to tomorrow and the next day, we will be OK. To determine ahead of time how our future will look is ludicrous. Today, inspect yourself for greed. It creeps into everyone's consciousness, even my own. No one is immune to the effect of greed or its temptations, its how we react to it and hold off against it that matters. Lets seek to create a world in which rampant greed can be kept in check and we can all live a little better life regardless of how much money we have.
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