Greed is Our Downfall

Working as a lead graphic designer and art director all these years I've often worked directly with owners of companies of all sizes. Since my work involved building the image and brand of the company and its product the owners were always very interested in my work, which gave me unique insights into how they worked.

Many of these men and women were very wealthy, very powerful people. Their monthly salaries would outweigh my annual salary. I'm not talking about hard-working people who made a good life for themselves. I'm talking extraordinarily wealthy.

If you asked me what one characteristic all of these very wealthy, very powerful people had in common, I would say, they all would push their grandmother in front of a bus for a dollar. Really.

I'll always remember my Uncle taking me for a ride on his sailboat on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. As we moved down the "creek" he lived along toward the Chesapeake Bay my Uncle caught me staring at an unbelievable mansion across the "creek." The mansion had three huge garages built along the water for massive boats. Catching me staring at the property my Uncle said to me, "You know Jim...there is no way you can live an honest life and make THAT much money."

I've never forgotten that. And, for me, it's proved true.

The years of experiences has taught me that to become unbelievably rich you had to also be unbelievably cold-blooded, ruthless, and just plain downright mean. I very comfortably concluded quite sometime ago, that rich was not something I wanted to be.

Sure, not every zillionaire is cold-blooded. There's exceptions to everything. But I've yet to meet one who didn't cheat, lie, and steal as part of their normal daily routine. I have very specific stories and examples that would without a doubt disturb you, as they disturbed me.

This may sound harsh, but I do believe greed is the biggest and most harmful disease in this country.

Do I really need a full-size indoor basketball court? How about a $200,000 car? How about seven $200,000 cars? Should I build my own personal amusement park while people are struggling to feed their kids?

The owner of the Boston Red Sox is considering buying an $18 million mansion. His plans are to tear it down completely and build a new mansion to his custom specs.

Greed.

And now the subprime mortgage crisis. We've all watched the housing industry escalate costs at incredible rates and margins. Costs of housing as risen so dramatically across the past decade it was almost as if those in charge were tempting fate. As many in the housing industry itself will admit, the current crisis is a necessary self-correction of an industry that grew out-of-control with greed. I watched simple townhouses double in price in just over five-years.

Enough of my soapbox for today.

I believe in having a nice house, a nice car, a nice life for yourself that is well-earned and deserved. But how much does anyone really need?

As Bruce Springsteen said recently, "I know George Bush has structured taxes to benefit the rich. I'm rich. And I've never done better."