The most serious spiritual problem in the country today is reckless and untrammeled greed. caused the disgraceful corporate scandals that fill our newspapers. Greed is responsible for crooked cops and crooked politicians. Greed causes the constant efforts to destroy unions that protect basic worker rights.

• Greed is responsible for the fact that so many Americans have no health insurance and the fact that the recent reform of Medicare was a fraud
• Greed is responsible for the obscene salaries of CEOs. In the ’90s the ratio of CEO compensation to average workers’ compensation was 250 to 1
• Greed is responsible for outsourcing, which is incapable of comprehending that the employees who lose their jobs are also the consumers who sustain the economy
• Greed causes expensive wars that shatter the budget.
• Greed is the reason that only the wealthy are benefiting so far from the economic upturn that is allegedly happening. Greed drives loan sharks
• Greed is the reason poor white Appalachians, poor African Americans and poor Native Americans must fight the wars that the wealthy start
• Greed is the reason why the country is being run by those whom the president has described, however inelegantly, as the ”haves and the have mores.”
• Greed is the reason that the country is being run by the insurance, pharmaceutical, weapons and petroleum industries.

The greed of President Bush has created a robust economy for “his people,” the “have mores” but also contributed to more Americans now living in poverty. The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor!

But how is this possible? GREED. The economic pie is getting bigger — how can it be true that most Americans are getting smaller slices? The answer, of course, is that a few people are getting much, much bigger slices. GREED. Although wages have stagnated since Bush took office, corporate profits have doubled. The gap between the nation’s CEOs and average workers is now ten times greater than it was a generation ago. GREED!

And while Bush’s tax cuts shaved only a few hundred dollars off the tax bills of most Americans, they saved the richest one percent more than $44,000 on average. In fact, once all of Bush’s tax cuts take effect, it is estimated that those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year — the richest five percent of the population — will pocket almost half of the money. Those who make less than $75,000 a year — eighty percent of America — will receive barely a quarter of the cuts. In the Bush era, economic inequality is on the rise.

GREED! 

Some content reprinted from the Common Dreams Newsletter article, "America’s Disease is Greed"