STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 6 December 2013

[Demeter]

12. 6 Signs Our Culture Is Sick With Greed By RJ Eskow

http://www.alternet.org/economy/6-signs-our-culture-sick-greed


The United States of the 1960s was a nation filled with optimism. For many (though definitely not all) Americans it was a time of opportunity. Education was affordable, families could live comfortably on a single adult income, and the country seem to be on an endless upward trajectory of prosperity. We were expanding in every way, so rapidly that only the depths of space seemed able to contain the people we were about to become. The fantasy of wealth seemed somehow different in that context. Today we’re a nation being preached to by “bipartisan” corporate politicians who lecture us on the impossibility of even the selfishness of expecting a livable Social Security income in our old age. Or a living wage in our working years. Or an affordable education, so our children can live a better life economically than we did. Yet we're more infatuated with the fruits of unproductive greed today, it seems, then we were back then. Here are six signs that our culture is sick with greed.

1. There’s still no public shame in profiting off Wall Street fraud.

2. Greedy CEOs still have credibility in the media.

3. Executives are now trained to rip people off.

4. And then there’s Kanye.

5. Insight and spirituality are being commercialized ….

6. … and so is kindness to our fellow human beings.


Soul Sickness

Today there are countless signs that our culture is sick with greed...Today’s national culture of greed is also an expression of pain and fear. It’s more terrifying than ever to try to survive on a middle-class income. Most people live one or two paychecks away from disaster. Very few of us feel that we have any real control over our own fate. The lives of reality show stars and rappers are merely the most obvious of our escapist fantasies.

But as long as we live in a fantasy world, we won’t be working to change the real one. True happiness is found in a life lived with meaning. It’s not just that I can’t afford that car. We can’t afford it. We can’t afford to live in a world where our only aspiration is to accumulate wealth, irrespective of how it’s accumulated, while ignoring the flourishing of the human spirit in its artistic, idealistic and intellectual aspects.

“The love of possessions is a sickness with them,” said Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe. People are losing their lives in the pursuit of wealth and possessions. They’re dying from gunshot wounds and heart attacks, in gang battles and in solitary hospital beds. And it’s getting worse. The symptoms are appearing, not just in ourselves, but in the planet we call home. If we don’t cure it soon, it could prove fatal for all of us.



RJ Eskow is a writer, business person, and songwriter/musician. He has worked as a consultant in public policy, technology, and finance, specializing in healthcare issues.