We?re learning the hard way as a nation: Never underestimate the grip of greed. Reports that executives of some of the mega-banks receiving billions of dollars of taxpayer bailout money are still spending it on lavish luxuries are revolting and infuriating, but should they really surprise us? Greed got us into this mess, and it?s bound to keep us in it for some time.
We have a right to be angry at the bank executives, but we also should take a hard look at ourselves. The desire to live more lavishly than we can afford to, to leverage our future with debt, to live for immediate gratification rather than with the long view, to define our success by value of our material possessions….. We can criticize their degree of excess, but we share the disease. ?DR
