Who are the ones who are truly greedy?

Because the idiots who support the politicians are hoping to gain something by toadying up to them.

@josie
The politician you describe are the ones who use class envy to dupe the public into perpetuating their hold on power. They are quintessentially greedy, those who purposefully divide We the People for the sake of maintaining office. Most important to them is setting the “Word Agenda.” They use words to divide and conquer the sheeple, thereby setting themselves up as the gatekeepers of political discourse. They use words to elevate themselves as “saviors of the people” creating dependencies in thought as well as economy.

Who is to blame? I’ll let Jefferson do the explaining.

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”

Because who you’re describing are people that obviously got it made. They are the ruling class or something. Damn, I wish I was one of those people, but wait, thats just money, power too I guess. Shhh they don’t want anyone to know their secrets. If I had that kind of money I wouldn’t know what to do, I would be terrified. Wouldn’t know what bank to stick it in, what to invest in, what to buy, how to carry myself. Goes to show that there is a lot more going on in these peoples lives than it could be suggested.

I feel your rage, @josie but wow, where to begin with all the wild distortions in the details of this question. Politicians never are criticized? Last time I heard, approval for congress was at an all time low. They are vilified in the press constantly.

They produce nothing? Contrast the USA and Somalia. We are different from failed states because government, for better or for worse, does do some good. Countries don’t run themselves any better than driver-less cars drive themselves.

Politicians never get laid off? Seems I can recall a whole slew of incumbents that got pink slips from the voters in the primaries, and all indications are another slew of them will do so on November 2. If they are bad and don’t get a pink slip from the voters, then who are we to shake our fists at them? As @dkranzberg‘s Jeffersonian quote indicates, was it not we the people who voted them back in after seeing their failures? Don’t we all decry pork then vote for the guy who keeps bringing home the bacon?

Now, to your initial question about who are the truly greedy bastards. There were a number of top-level bankers, mortgage brokers and hedge fund managers who literally slipped $1.6 trillion dollars out of taxpayer pockets and lined their own. This all started with Reagan deregulation and Greed is Good psychobable. The free-market supply-side economics led to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, a Republican piece of legislation which also gathered only 1 Democratic vote in the House but tragically was signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton. That act gutted the protections put in place back in 1933 to deal with the first time Wall Street ran wild with casino capitalism. It opened the door for it to happen all over again, and within 8 years, it did. We came oh so close to a second Great Depression.

It opened the door to consolidation in the financial industry so that a single firm could operate as a bank, commercial bank, mortgage lender, loan insurer, and rating agency. It set the stage for mortgage lenders to deliberately make loans they knew would fail, rate them as AAA, insure them with money they did not actually have, then repackage and leverage them as derivatives at a massive profit by operating as a brokerage.

Hedge fund managers were making up to $5 billion a year in bonus pay, and building nothing of value, instead staking up a huge house of cards they knew damned well would fall. It was so egregious that many of these guys were selling these derivative securities while secretly betting against them to further profit when they predictably failed.

We had $5 trillion worth of mortgage securities where over 59% of them were stated value loans. The financial disclosures and property valuations shown on them were blatantly fraudulent. Mortgage brokers coached borrowers in what lies to tell to get a top-notch rating. And doing this, they leveraged $5 trillion in largely bad debt into an annual market of $62 trillion in derivatives.

The wealthiest 1% of Americans now own over ⅓rd of all the wealth in America, and many of them are dumping millions (chump change for them) into electing politicians who will make sure their effective tax rates stay lower than a average factory worker or secretary. Most of them don’t work, they invest. And many aren’t even willing to invest in America. It seems they won’t be content till they own 100% of the wealth, and then the multinationals will just pick up and move on. Now that’s greedy. And voting for candidates that will let them do that, that’s stupid.

Just like I heard on TV and at a bar last Thursday…

@josie I’d like to hear it in a court of law. As angry as I am at those that set it all up, I am just as angry at Obama for sweeping it all under the rug and signing financial reforms into law knowing fiull well the door to the derivatives house of cards is still wide open. If nothing is done to stop it, it will happen again.

The real question is why are they where they are at and why are the complainers where they are at. Eliminate the silver spoons….nothing you can do about them. Take the rest of the hard charging go getter successful people some love to hate who worked their asses off….went to school, did their homework and chores….worked harder so they could go to college…worked even harder to get a good job then worked their asses off to make a decent buck and even run for political office. Now you have Joe Elbow on the bar who did OK in school…if lucky got a union job or better yet a Government job. Now where is the difference??? Where is the entitlement?? Who has the right to point fingers here?? Who is the one who should be more responsible for the state of affairs in this country?? Who is really greedy here??? They guy who worked his ass off from day one and wants to preserve the fruits of his ultra hard work or someone who coasted yet carries the burden of the blue collar values this country is built upon and wants his piece of the action??

IMO it is all about choices in life and the one single choice we all have….rich or poor is to vote!!! Your vote is your voice and is as important as a rich persons vote or a regular guys vote. Each vote counts and should represent how you feel and after you vote you simply quit your bitchin, accept the results and live to vote again.

@Cruiser The hard orkers who build companies or keep them running profitably, as long as they generate things of real value and not just funny money, don’t deserve the rage. The financial kingpins who set up and the massive hose of cards that collapsed in 1007 are the truly greedy.

Talking about greed in a capitalist society is like coming out of the closest by telling your parents your a republican.

The politicians are less greedy than those that bought them.

@ETpro Not always true and IMO false more often than not. Most if not all companies including huge corporations were at one time just a brain child of an entrepraneur who had a vision and probably scarificed all they had to make that company happen so they could hire their first employee. But then a funny thing happens when that company grows and becomes successful. Soon those workers see the growth and rise of the company and want more…they want their piece of that pie…..yet they risked nothing to make that company a success….they passed on the opportunities to buy in or invest in that company….no they wanted their paycheck and they then wanted more.

Honestly who is more greedy?? The guy who risked everything to make himself a success and his fortune….or the guy who simply works their and then demands his share.

@Cruiser They wouldn’t have a share if nobody worked for them. Neither is being inherently greedy in a bad way, necessarily. Those who make fortunes on computer managed day trading, commodities and foreign exchange speculation, hedge funds. This who create nothing of value save profits for themselves, and are willing to sell out their own country’s interest in a heartbeat, they get my greedy bastard vote.

I think the truely greedy people are the ones that are so intent on making a buck, that they cant see the forest for the trees and end up poor schmucks.

@ETpro Sure they would. Take now for instance….I could right now fire all my workers and there would 100 people in minutes lined up to take those jobs for ½ their salaries and benefits. If I did that…would that be greedy or simply reality. Or is it the worker here who despite great pay and benefits wants more just because the owner makes a profit and they know it??

@Cruiser As your own example just demonstrated, any worker who gets too greedy does themselves in. And likewise, owners who routinely fire experienced, highly productive workers because they can hire somebody who works at minimum wage but is clueless—they generally do themselves in too. You and I are both down in the level where greed has consequences. WHere it ceases to have consequences (aside from enormous returns without generating any value) are when you get to be a billionaire and decide to just milk the system with the power that money confers, not produce anything of value to anyone other than yourself.

@ETpro Let’s no forget the real reason we are here debating this very question is when the company owner has an agenda and plan to make even more money and now needs a politician to help him do some dirty work and the plain brown envelopes with oodles of campaign donations start to fly….now we are talking big league greed!!

@Cruiser No argument there!

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. Who is greedy? In part everyone, some just have better means to act upon it. Many politicians are greedy and egomaniacs. When you think of someone who would spend millions of their own money for a job that won’t recoup them on the money even if they survived two terms has to be something funny there. Execs are greedy and they have the means to get it from the consumer and justify it as they are the brains that keep the machine running. Outside of Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett I don’t see too many execs worth all they get paid am sure many will disagree. Middle America is greedy but they have limited ability to act upon it less going neck deep in debt. To a point I would say most people are greedy in part even though that greed is not manifested the usual way greed is seen.

Greed is dependent upon how materialistic one is. The military is an excellent place to learn that humans actually need very little: food, clothing, shelter, and relationship with others. That’s it. Anything over and above that is based purely on greed.

No, you do NOT “need” that Mercedes 600SL! : P

Congressmen to the people “Let them eat cake”.

Investment bankers who don’t consider the consequences of their doing.

List of AIG execs receiving bonuses at the taxpayer’s expense:

Jacob Frenkel, Steven Bensinger, Frank Wisner, David Herzog, Robert Lewis, Andrew Kaslow, Richard Booth, Brian Dooley, William Tse, Edmund Moor, Kristian Bollenbach, Stephen Kelly, Anastasia Wintrob, Jay Martin, Rodney Walsh, Nicholas Kelley, Kevin Doyle, John Feldstein, Martin Miles, George Offit, Morris Sutton, Michael Langhammer, Fred Rometty, Virginia Orr, Nora Johnson, Suzanne Neuger

Wisner, Frank G
New York, NY 10022
AIG/Vice President for External AffOBAMA, BARACK (D)
President
OBAMA VICTORY FUND

HERZOG, DAVID L
NEW YORK, NY 10270
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP/SENIORCORKER, ROBERT P JR®
Senate – TN
BOB CORKER FOR SENATE
general10/17/06

Kaslow, Andrew
Short Hills, NJ 07078
Quanstar Group/PrincipalLAUTENBERG, FRANK R (D)
Senate – NJ
LAUTENBERG NJ VICTORY COMMITTEE

LEWIS, ROBERT E
NEW YORK, NY 10028
AIG/EXECUTIVEBIDEN, JOSEPH R JR (D)
Senate – DE
CITIZENS FOR BIDEN$1,000
primary12/18/06

Lewis, Robert C.
New York, NY 10023
AIGBIDEN, JOSEPH R JR (D)
President
BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT, INC

FRENKEL, DAVID
FLUSHING, NY 11367
FRENKEL & HERSHKANTZSCHEUER, JAMES H (D)
House (NY 08)
SCHEUER FOR CONGRESS – 1992

Booth, Richard
Essex, CT 06426
AIG/CAOCOURTNEY, JOSEPH D (D)
House (CT 02)
COURTNEY FOR CONGRESS

BENSINGER, STEVEN J. MR.
NEW YORK, NY 10028
AIG/EXECUTIVEMCCAIN, JOHN S. (R)
President
MCCAIN-PALIN VICTORY 2008

Bensinger, Steven J.
New York, NY 10028
American Int’l Group, Inc./Ex. V-P/KANJORSKI, PAUL E. (D)
House (PA 11)
PENNSYLVANIANS FOR KANJORSKI

Bensinger, Steven J
New York, NY 10028
American International Group/EVP &
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP INC. EMPLOYEE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

Bensinger, Steven J.
New York, NY 10028
AIGBIDEN, JOSEPH R JR (D)
President
BIDEN FOR PRESIDENT, INC.
primary12/20/06

BENSINGER, STEVEN J
NEW YORK, NY 10028
AIG/EXECUTIVEBIDEN, JOSEPH R JR (D)
Senate – DE
CITIZENS FOR BIDEN

Dooley, William N.
New York, NY 10270
American International Group Inc./S
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP INC. EMPLOYEE POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

SUTTON, MORRIS
NEW YORK, NY 10025
LOLLY TOGS LTDSCHUMER, CHARLES E (D)
Senate – NY
SCHUMER ‘98

SCHREIBER, BRIAN MR.
NEW YORK, NY 10128
A.I.G./VICE PRESIDENT STRATEGIC PLABUSH, GEORGE W®
President
BUSH-CHENEY ‘04 (PRIMARY) INC

Schreiber, Brian T.
New York, NY 10128
AIG/Financial Services PlannerACKERMAN, GARY L. (D)
House (NY 05)
COMMITTEE TO ELECT GARY ACKERMAN 2/29/08