Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough?

[Joanne98]

by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship

Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be, how many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed into a life?

After all, as billionaire movie director Steven Spielberg is reported to have said, when all is said and done, "How much better can lunch get?"

But since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, "That's it. Enough's enough! How do we prevent it from sweeping up everything in its path, including us?"

Look at the health care industry saying to hell with consumers and then hiking premiums -- by as much as 39% in the case of Anthem Blue Cross in California. According to congressional investigators, over a two-year period Anthem's parent company WellPoint spent more than $27 million dollars for executive retreats at luxury resorts. And in 2008, WellPoint paid 39 of its executives more than a million dollars each. Profit before patients.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/12-0

[The Genealogist]

1. Seems like with money, there is never enough

The more money a person has, the more that person needs. Is it some sort of an ingrained throwback to hunter gatherer days? A sort of survival "instict" that people have? I don't know. But if you are making 10,000 a year, an extra grand coming your way is going to seem like a goldmine. If you are making 100K a year, an extra grand is not going to mean so much.

Thinking about this reminds me of being an undergrad and the way some of my profs spoke in matters financial. Most of my profs lived in comfortable homes, in pleasant neighborhoods, drove decent cars, and lived what seemed to me to be idyllic lives. I always resented when they spoke as if they just didn't have much money at all. At the same time, I lived in a small apartment just off campus, I had no car. I spent as many hours as I could in the library and used the utilities as little as I possibly could. I watched every cent at the grocery store, I kept entertainment simple and rare. Despite how I resented my profs acting like paupers, I realize now that even the simple life I lived then would have seemed to someone homeless and jobless to be a possible source of resentment. I guess, the whole thing is relative.