Senator Biden's denial of his impassioned Iraq support was surprising.

Also, his pro-war stance -- he seems ready to send troops anywhere as long as it isn't Iraq -- would seem to disappoint anti-war voters who are paying attention. How many days does he think we'd be in the Sudan? Al Qaeda will move in the moment we announce that we're serious about that place.

It WAS al Qaeda's base for years.

===|==============/ Level Head

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Yes, I agree. And I think he had some other stumbles of fact, too. I actually think Palin did better than he, especially considering the very low expectations that had been set for her.

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"What exactly distinguishes greed
from a normal desire to succeed?"

Very good question. And I hate the way reprehensible greed, ie stepping on people to get what you want and laughing, is run together with just plain old wanting things. Then again, deliberately using words which make people go "grrrr" to describe something actually normal or harmless is a forte of both the left and right. It seems that the left does it more, but that's probably just because there are more writers, reviewers etc on the left.

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The trader who honors the values of partners
Builds upon his own, accumulating wealth with honor.

There is an absence at the heart of true greed
That is the opposite of the desire to succeed.

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Rand called Galt's Gulch a "utopia of greed" in Atlas Shrugged, but I think that was one of her tactical mistakes; greed happens all the time and it's not a good thing.

It seems to me that a valid Objectivist definition of greed would be something like "seeking a value out of context."

Often the context which gets dropped includes things like the importance of honesty, rationality, or respecting the rights of other people.

It seems clear to me that the current financial crisis is the result of greed -- but the greed of politicians, for the most part, rather than Wall Street.

Politicians like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have been greedy by claiming, in effect, things like:

1. that the actuarial tables used in the mortgage industry could be safely ignored in favor of bleeding-heart social engineering programs (ignoring the importance of rationality)

2. that they are not responsible for creating the crisis, even though they created the subprime mortgage crisis and were responsible for oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (ignoring the importance of honesty)

3. that American taxpayers should bear financial responsibility for the crisis they created (ignoring the rights of other people)

In such cases, politicians are seeking a value (political power, promoting a social agenda, saving face) while dropping the relevant context.

That sure looks to me like greed, and I would expect most Objectivists to agree.

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Politicians behaved very irresponsibly in this mess. Some of them never met a context they couldn't drop.

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oops. That was me.

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What word would you use for the desire to acquire material values in a productive manner?

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If only we had a reliable word for this! It would be a different culture.

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"What word would you use for the desire to acquire material values in a productive manner?"

Ambition. Drive. Aspiration. Motivation. Enterprise. Entrepreneurship.

All of these have healthy connotations, most of the time.

Greed, in contrast, has a connotation of hurting other people, being unprincipled, and losing a sense of integration or balance.

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Oops, that was me. Sorry.

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It had to be you!

Or at least I figured it was. :)

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