That's well said and absolutely true :)
Self interest runs the world and for the most part is a good thing because
it motivates people to do more than the minimum required, to create great
innovations, and find ways to be the most efficient. This has been an
interesting conversation (at least it hasn't devolved into name calling like
the last heated off topic outburst).
In my opinion the great counterbalances to greed (too much of anything is
bad) is responsibility and accountability. Many people that complain about
greed are not taking responsibility for themselves (I don't think the
examples on this list fit that). The biggest example of lack of
accountability I've seen is in our Government. They act as if the money
they take from us isn't our money. I wish every thing they spend money on
was subject to a public vote. It would slow pork barrel spending for sure.
Socialization sounds like a great idea until you see it in action. My wife
works in healthcare and sees it every day. People from Canada come HERE for
treatment because they can get it NOW and get the best medical care they can
afford. When you take away the motivation to do more people do less, they
don't innovate, they don't look for ways for greater efficiency. In a lot
of ways well meaning laws get in the way. You just can't break into the
medical industry because of all the bureaucracy involved from our government
and beyond. If I came up with a cure for Cancer in a lab in my house it
would have zero chance of making it into the world without going through a
gatekeeper. The SYSTEM is broken because of too much bureaucracy and too
many gatekeepers.
It's people like us that can make it change. Look at Linux. If it had a
single 'head' someone would have sued it out of existence but since there is
no single point of control the will of the community moves forward despite
those that would try to cheat. Oracle buys MySQL, MySQL forks several ways.
Freedom persists. We've removed almost all of the bureaucracy from Linux
and the best of the best moves forward. It's amazing how far Linux has come
since I started using it in 1993. Open medicine would have the same effect.
A perfect example is Jonas Salk. Instead of becoming a multi-billionaire
from the *cure* to polio he gave it away. I can't think of one example
other than that where medicine cures anything.
JD
On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 06:21, Lyle Tuttle <
L.tuttle@cox.net> wrote:
> At 09:17 PM 8/30/2010, you wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 04:10:22PM -0600, joe@actionline.com wrote:
> >
> > > I would say Wal-mart is a great example of true greed.
>
>
> Greed??
>
> Consider this....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
>
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