Wealth addiction

Former Wall Streeter, writing in the New York Times, says it is definitely a thing. Good read, start to finish, about that world, whether or not you ultimately agree with him or not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/for-the-love-of-money.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

Wealth addiction was described by the late sociologist and playwright 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 McDonald’s 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.

 

That's how they sold Jordan Bastian in the Wolf of Wall Street movie -- as a wealth addict. Not sure if it was taken from the book (as pretty much everything else was) or added for the flick. But now I suppose we can prescribe treatment and medication for wealth addicts instead of jail time.

 

Maybe that's where the "affluenza" defense came from, and why white kids who kill four people get probation and rehab instead of prison.

 

Or greed, you mean?

 

You're slipping Whitman. I was wondering on Sunday night why you hadn't yet posted this link. It's got wealth addiction, wealth shaming and the economic divide all rolled into one story.

 

BTW, dude's a thug.

 

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A

 

Yeah, but nothing about social media.

 

But there is the "recovered pot head" angle.

 

Is it me, or does every story in "how I made it on Wall Street" contain words that basically say "I was a complete fucking asshole"?

 

Well, I don't think self-awareness gets you very far in that world.

 

Yeah, this is a really good story. I listened to it on Umano this morning on the way to work.