All Posts Tagged With: "greed"
Enron Lessons
The Enron soap opera continues to unfold. and as it unfolds, lessons are being learned. Some people are learning lessons about the energy business. Some are learning lessons about the securities business. Some are learning lessons about the accounting business. But some are not content to learn such narrow lessons. They want to look at [...]
1Jun2002 | Russell Roberts | 1 comment | ContinuedMoney, Greed, and Risk: Why Financial Crises and Crashes Happen
The reader of Money, Greed, and Risk is informed that the book’s author, Charles R. Morris, has been a partner in a consulting firm, an executive with Chase Manhattan Bank, the secretary of health and human services for the state of Washington, and assistant budget director for New York City. In short, Morris has considerable [...]
1Nov2000 | Larry J. Sechrest | 0 comments | ContinuedGreed Versus Compassion
What’s the noblest of human motivations? Some might be tempted to answer: charity, love of one’s neighbor, or, in modern, politically correct language, giving something back or feeling another’s pain. In my book, these are indeed noble motivations, but they pale in comparison to a much more potent motivation for human action.
1Oct2000 | Walter E. Williams | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It
The word “greedy” is so hopelessly vague that it is virtually useless. But if anyone can be said to be greedy, it’s those who run the government. For them the word is appropriate both for how much money they want and how they get it: taxation, confiscation, fiscal force. Aside from a few freelance criminals, [...]
1Jul2000 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Golden Rule and the Free Market
William Peterson is a Heritage Foundation adjunct scholar and Distinguished Lundy Professor Emeritus at Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina. How tantalizing to find that virtually all the world’s major religions exalt the Golden Rule in one way or another: Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even [...]
1Jun2000 | William H. Peterson | 0 comments | ContinuedIs Greed Good?
“Unbridled avarice is not in the least the equivalent of capitalism, still less its ‘spirit’.” —Max Weber[1] Recently greed has become a popular term of endearment. There’s even a TV game show by that name. In 1987, Oliver Stone released a popular movie called Wall Street, in which Gordon Gekko, the fictional dealmaker extraordinaire, declares, [...]
1May2000 | Mark Skousen | 1 comment | ContinuedThe Selfishness of the Unselfish
Several years ago, I encountered a woman at a cocktail party in Atlanta who was active in that city’s historical-preservation movement. To make conversation, I asked why she thought that stricter historical-preservation regulations were required. “Because greedy developers tear down too many old and beautiful homes or renovate them in ways that destroy their historical [...]
1May2000 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedReclassifying a Classic
Daniel Oliver is a research associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center (http://www.capitalresearch.org) and a freelance writer. A version of this article originally appeared in the December 26, 1997, Wall Street Journal. For a century and a half, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) has been read and reread, told and retold, performed [...]
1Dec1999 | Daniel T. Oliver | 24 comments | ContinuedConservation and Speculation
I often ask my students, “How many of you are in favor of conservation?” Except for those who are asleep, every hand goes up. I then ask, “How many of you are in favor of speculators?” and almost no one raises his hand. The students see conservation as a noble activity that prevents people from [...]
1Aug1999 | Dwight R. Lee | 0 comments | ContinuedBill Gates, Philanthropist
Let’s review the familiar refrains on charitable giving. Social democrats criticize tycoons for not giving more of their wealth to charities. Business people are repeatedly admonished to “give something back.” The implication is that commercial profits are taken from others, and decency demands that the lucky takers return at least part of their booty to [...]
1Jan1998 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Trial Again
Ms. Kapushion is a freshman at Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, where she is majoring in economics with a particular emphasis on the Austrian school of thought. For the last three years, beginning at age fifteen, I have taught myself philosophy straight from the great works of Western thought, and have formally and informally studied economics. [...]
1Mar1997 | Meredith Kapushion | 1 comment | ContinuedMergers and Acquisitions: Why Greed is Good
Dr. Klein is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia, and an Adjunct Scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. In 1989 the New York investment banking firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) shocked the corporate world by acquiring RJR-Nabisco, the food and cigarette giant ranking nineteenth on the Fortune 500 [...]
1Sep1995 | Peter G. Klein | 4 comments | ContinuedFreedom from Taxes?
Mr. Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (Transaction). WASHINGTON—Income tax day may be behind us, but the pain is not over. We are still working for government, and we won’t be finished until the middle of this month. According to the [...]
1Jul1995 | Doug Bandow | 0 comments | ContinuedFortunately, It’s Just a Game
Ms. Allen is a social studies and economics teacher at the Pueblo School of the Arts and Sciences, a Colorado charter school. I haven’t played Monopoly for years and years. But a few nights ago I was given another chance. After I’d banned the television for the evening, my twelve-year-old son persuaded me to play [...]
1Apr1995 | Candace Allen | 0 comments | ContinuedEbenezer Scrooge and the Free Society
Behaving in a self-interested manner does not mean disregarding others. On the contrary, because we are social beings who depend on, and often care deeply about many others around us, a sound attention to our self-interest must include a great deal of concern for others.
1Dec1988 | Howard Baetjer Jr. | 11 comments | Continued-
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