The memory is so vivid it comes with smell and sound. Early 80's, movie theatre, boyfriend, michael Douglas - the movie was "Wall Street". The sequence was Douglas speaking to a group and at some point in his impassioned speech he said ... "Greed... Greed is good."

In the theater there were whistles and yells of praise. I was a product of the 80's, I understood the perspective. Still I recoiled. What was being applauded wasn't simply getting rich, it was getting rich at ANY - ALL cost. This was a concept, that even my MTV saturated mindset recoiled against. And yet here we are ...

2005. Are we at a better place in the U.S.? Corporate greed has made the bottmline the merciless god of our day. We sell off jobs to India, Mexico, China, Korea, Vietnam. Anywhere where labor is cheap, laws are lax, healthcare is either non-existant or government funded. But who cares, the stock holder - read CEO circles - get theirs. In our country pensions are scuttled - oh well to those who are retired already and living off of it, you should have planned better. But how possible really, was planning differently? Those pensions were promised in lieu of pay. Money that as individuals they might have been able to invest "safely" was tucked away as a promise for later. And now that money is being yanked - a defacto retroactive paycut, but oh, well the tax payer will carry the burden for the PBGC. But please note, the corporate management frauds are taken care of, they have their golden parachutes, their separate retirement funds - funds removed from company books, so therefore immune to bankruptcy proceedings. You see, these brilliant business people, they need to be kept whole, you can't afford to lose talent. Greed is good.