Pride's Worse
Sure, like several other panelists, I well remember Michael Douglas's impassioned speech as corporate predator Gordon Gecko in "Wall Street." Greed, he said then, "is right," it "works" and it "has marked the upward surge of mankind." Creepy stuff--no one's supposed to say that, right?
Among the Seven Deadly Sins, greed gets its particularly bad rep because its results are often so visible, grotesque in their benefits for some and their destruction for others. The tiny band of crooked corporate chiefs get their hundreds of millions, while the thousands of men and women who answer the phones, run the machines and work the loading dock get left without jobs, health insurance or pensions.


