America’s bankrupt morality

[arely staircase]

It's not just Wall Street. Every profession from medicine to academia has been corrupted by our money obsession

First there was the “New Economy,” a millennial fever dream predicated on the twin ideas of a people’s stock market and an eternal silicon prosperity; it collapsed eventually under the weight of its own fatuousness.....
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Second was the war in Iraq, an endeavor whose launch depended for its success on the turpitude of virtually every class of elite in Washington.....
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And then, Wall Street blew up the global economy...
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What I didn’t understand was that these weren’t cognitive failures at all; they were moral failures, mistakes that were hard-wired into the belief systems of the organizations and professions and social classes in question. As such they were mistakes that— from the point of view of those organizations or professions or classes—shed no discredit on the individual chowderheads who made them. Holding them accountable was out of the question, and it remains off the table today.
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http://www.salon.com/2012/03/29/americas_bankrupt_morality/

[Speck Tater]

1. The immutable laws of thermodynamics say

there's no free lunch.

You can have the appearance of something for nothing by exploiting a foreign or domestic underclass, but that appearance can't be maintained forever. Eventually the scales must balance, and then people will once again come to realize that you have to perform some kind of useful work, or make some kind of tangible contribution to your community if you expect that community to support you in return.

Money for nothing and chicks for free only works if you're Dire Straights.

In a very real sense the whole concept of compound interest is contrary to the laws of thermodynamics. If you want to retire to a life of leisure, work twice as hard and put half your money aside for your future. Don't expect to make a living day trading stocks because that, in the final analysis, is playing the role of a parasite on the rest of the community. You only get something for nothing by taking that something away from somebody else who earned it, and has a right to. It is theft.

[arely staircase]

2. "Stop going for the easy buck

and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others."

[freshwest]

3. +1,000