OOM, your lectures on “ethics” are presumptuous.  Thanks duly for your well-wishes, but I am not subject to your judgment.  You are prating with sanctimonious drivel to someone who has repeatedly lost or rejected financial opportunities by being too principled.  My whole life, I have been like that.  Recently, in the past few years, I have been slowly trying to change:  To become a “ruthless mercenary capitalist”, as I called it in a recent post here.  For it is awful to lack for money—you do not know how bad it is, unless you have personally experienced severe poverty and privation.  Hunger is the best teacher of selfishness.  Now, I want to get rich!  With no shame and no apologies, I have been trying bit by bit to embrace rational self-interest.  Finally.  Alas, in this most recent episode, I have been spectacularly untalented at exercising my newfound greed.

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