On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 15:23:16 -0700, "h" <f@s.com> wrote, quoted or
indirectly quoted someone who said :

>      Man is full if he is in tune with the universe; if he is not in tune
>with the universe then he is empty, utterly empty. And out of that emptiness
>comes greed. Greed is to fill it: by money, by houses, by furniture, by
>friends, by lovers - by anything, because one cannot live as emptiness.

Greed is a GAME.  Your self worth is measured by the quantity of
money, houses, lovers etc. you have.  People collect more than they
need, to the point of serious inconvenience to themselves, even to the
point of cheating and depriving others, even to the point of
compromising the life support systems of planet earth.

The problem is your relative rather than absolute wealth is the
measure.  You need more money just because there is someone else with
more.

This would be fine if it only ruined the lies of those that play the
game.  Unfortunately, the winners of this game are the most powerful
people, who control government and corporations, and hence destroy
everyone else's lives with their insanities -- such as war as a
profit-making venture. Unfortunately, the most ruthless people, the
most devoid of compassion and ethics are the most frequent winners.

What is even stranger is that people who don't play the game are often
deferential to the misguided boobs that do.

Thorsten Veblen wrote one of the funniest books ever written back in
1899 about the players:

The Theory Of The Leisure Class

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See my 13 essays on money at http://mindprod.com/money/money.html 
-- 
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green, http://mindprod.com
More than anything else you want the end of the Republican reign of terror.
Buy a big chunk of it at http://www.democrats.org/