Hurricane Greed (Katrina: one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes)

"Greed is not the product of one particular economic system, but something that all economic, political and social systems have to cope with one way or the other." So asserts economist Thomas Sowell, the Rose and Milton Friedman senior fellow on public policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

According to Marxist ideology, "greed" in a capitalist system would inescapably deliver a lower level of overall well-being -- economically, morally, and politically -- than a collectivized "people's" system with more elevated and nobler goals than crass acquisitiveness, unbridled individualism and gross profit-making.

Instead, as was demonstrated in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, we saw that "greed" for political power can be more harmful to a population's overall well-being than the capitalist "greed" an entrepreneur might have for a larger market share or the "greed" a worker might have within capitalism for a larger income.

In fact, either system, capitalism or socialism, can be corrupted and degraded by way of an overall weakening of the ethics of its general population. And within capitalism, neither the private sector nor the government sector is structurally inoculated against immorality and dishonesty if its members are immoral and dishonest.

As a case in point, recent disclosures about the level of corruption and fraud related to the relief efforts involving Hurricane Katrina show a pattern of dishonesty and "greed" among all sectors, among businesses, government and the general population.

The HUGE percentage of people on welfare in LA was a recipe for corruption and greed and theft, but what was he supposed to do??

First, NOT pander. Second, act like the nation's top executive we elected him to be and make careful, well-thought out decisions, not hasty knee-jerk ones. This is why he gets the "big bucks" and why we pay big bucks for his cabinet - these are supposed to be experienced, thoughtful, reasoned, intelligent people. What we got was a bunch of "chicken-littles" running around throwing taxdollars at a problem in hopes that it would hush up the leftist squeaky wheels". In the middle of this entire circus, overseeing it all stood our president as the Ringmaster, pretending that everything was under control while more clowns kept coming out of the little clown car and the pretend building was still on fire with no one to rescue the clown female fire victim because they're all running around screaming with their hands up!! Well, it's turning out that a LOT of those dollars - dollars that you and I worked hard to earn for the government - were thrown away on thieves, scammers and cheats who have no appreciation for where the money they were stealing comes from.

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