America's disease is greed

ANDREW GREELEY

_T he most serious spiritual
problem in the country today
is reckless and untrammeled
greed. Greed caused the disgraceful
corporate scandals that fill our
newspapers.Greed is responsible
for crooked cops and crooked
politicians. Greed causes the con-
stant efforts to destroy unions that
protect basic worker rights.
Greed has produced rash tax cuts
that have given money to the rich
and in effect taken it away from the
poor. Greed has led to the immigra-
tion policy in which hundreds of
poor men and women die every year
as they struggle across the desert for
the jobs that el norte promises them.
Greed accounts for the efforts to take
profitability out of the pensions and
health insurance of working men and
women. Greed is responsible for the
fact that so many Americans have no
health insurance and the fact that
the recentreform of Medicare was a f
raud. Greed causes newspapers to
overestimate their circulation.
Greed is responsible for the ob-
scene salaries of CEOs. In the '90s
the ratio of CEO compensation to
average workers' compensation was
250 to 1, meaning that the boss
earned on his first day of work dur-
ing a year as much as the worker did
in a whole year. In European coun-
tries the ratio is closer to 100 to 1.
Recent estimates put the current ratio at 500 to 1 -- the boss makes
as much before lunch as the worker
does all year. Greed is the cause of
the high wages paid to the bosses
even if the company is failing.
Greed is responsible for the end-
less stress and ruthless competition
of the workplace and the strains and
tensions of professional class mar-
riages. Greed (in this instance an-
other name for relentless ambition)
explains much of the cheating on
college campuses.Greed is responsi-
ble for outsourcing, which is inca-
pable of comprehending that the
employees who lose jobs are
also the consumers who sustain the
economy. Greed generates the reck-
less ventures that in part caused the
bubble of the late '90s. Greed causes
expensive wars that shatter the
budget. Greed is the reason that
only the wealthy are benefitting so
far from the economic upturn that
__________
It is responsible for the
endless stress and
ruthless competition of
the workplace.
is allegedly happening. Greed drives
loan sharks. Greed is responsible for
the success of big box stores that tax
the poor with low wages to provide
bargains for affluent suburban
shoppers. Greed is the reason poor
white Appalachians, poor African
Americans and poor Native Ameri-
cans must fight the wars that the
wealthy start. Jessica Lynch joined
the Army so she could go to college.
Her Native American roommate,
killed in action, joined so, single
mother that she was, she could sup-
port her children. Greed is the rea-
son why the country is being run by
those whom the president has de-
scribed, however inelegantly, as the
''haves and the have mores.''
No one said during the bizarre
deification of President Reagan
that he taught us that greed is
good and that we should feel good
about our greedy country. Greed is
the reason that the country is be-
ing run by the insurance, pharma-
ceutical, weapons and petroleum
industries.Greed causes worldwide
sex slavery of women and children.
Greed drives the murders of the
narcotics world. Greed is responsi-
ble for the exploitations of teen
sports stars by colleges and for the
mess in the pro sports world. It is
also the cause of the use of perform-
ance drugs by young athletes. Greed
is responsible for the bad advice
lawyers gave the Church years ago
to beat victims of sexual abuse into
the ground. It is behind the scam
artists who steal from the elderly.
Greed may have been a more se-
rious problem for Americans, say,
in the era of the robber barons.
But the Garys and the Morgans
and the Carnegies were a small
bunch of men. Now their greed has
seeped down to a much larger seg-
ment of the population.
The Catholic Church speaks of
four sins that cry to heaven for
vengeance. Two are cheating work-
ers out of wages and exploiting
widows and children. Both happen
every day in our greedy country.
Ambition is not evil within limits.
The struggle for success is not bad
within limits. Hard work and fair
rewards are good within limits.It is
not good to take from the poor and
give to the rich, and that's exactly
what this country is doing today.
Don't let anyone tell you that lust
is the most deadly of the deadly sins.