Quote from: abbyd on May 28, 2013, 07:15:41 AM

Quote from: Spendulus on May 27, 2013, 02:53:35 PM

You sure about that? Have you just equated under the term "greed", the actions of a child and the actions of adults running organizations and/or institutions, then correlated the results based on the child's experience?

Secondly, fyi, Rand did not say "Greed is good." The above quote refers to the rebuttal by Rand of an assertion that "Money is the root of all evil", cast in fiction in Atlas Shrugged. Even when Rand asserts that acting in one's own self interest is good, that...applied to the child would indicate the child should not eat so many sweets.

I think what may confuse the entire issue is the various definitions and uses of the term "greed."

OK, semantics get tiresome pretty quickly for me. Also I did not attribute "greed is good" to Ayn Rand, rather the long quote that Gordonium pasted without attribution.

From wiki: greed = "an inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort".

Obviously my analogy was to point out that a child has to learn not to take more than they need. I don't think it's much of a stretch to apply the analogy to the rich/greedy? Is it good that we have people who could spend $100,000 a minute and still not be broke by the time they die?

I would think that greed is inherently counter to self-interest, so let's not bother trying to equate those terms.

Sure, in the sense that adults with poor impulse control are going to be failures in life - that impulse control can be hunger, sex, anger, any of a number of things.