General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOn wealth addiction by a former wealth addict. New York Times
What makes Wall Street run?
IN my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million and I was angry because it wasnt big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted.
. . . .
Ever see what a drug addict is like when hes used up his junk? Hell do anything walk 20 miles in the snow, rob a grandma to get a fix. Wall Street was like that. In the months before bonuses were handed out, the trading floor started to feel like a neighborhood in The Wire when the heroin runs out.
. . . .
Philip Slater in a 1980 book, but addiction researchers have paid the concept little attention. Like alcoholics driving drunk, wealth addiction imperils everyone. Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country. Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation including an $8.5 million bonus as the McDonalds C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.
. . . .
Philip Slater in a 1980 book, but addiction researchers have paid the concept little attention. Like alcoholics driving drunk, wealth addiction imperils everyone. Wealth addicts are, more than anybody, specifically responsible for the ever widening rift that is tearing apart our once great country. Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation including an $8.5 million bonus as the McDonalds C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-of-money.html?_r=0
3catwoman3
(23,947 posts)... as a form of hoarding disorder. For those of us not so afflicted, it is very hard to understand why having more money than you could possible ever spend isn't enough.
How does one recover from this addiction?
jwirr
(39,215 posts)is never a limit to what you do. Even when it hurts others.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I may need some help.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4356193
malthaussen
(17,175 posts)-- Mal