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Someone on my friends list wanted to know why Madoff even scammed the amount of money he did in the first place -- it's far more than any human being, and his entire family, and his descendants, could spend in several generations.
And one of the more libertarian people on my friends list was saying how upsetting it was that a Congresscritter wanted to cap executive pay on companies receiving bailout money: a commenter said, "It's as if she doesn't even understand why executive pay is as high as it is in the first place!"
Which, for the record, I don't ,either.
But there's been some interesting MRI studies about people's neurological reactions to making large sums of money.
Basically: if you're making the kind of money you need to live, it registers in your brain as things like "security" and "comfort" and stuff like that.
But once you get beyond that -- it triggers the addiction centers. It shows up the same way as cocaine, and other significant drugs.
And, like those drugs, it acts as an addictive drug, with tolerance of dosages, and the need for bigger and bigger hits to get the same high.
Making huge amounts of money is genuinely addictive.
The CEOs who are making those salaries, the Wall Street traders who are, and all the other wealthy power brokers are neurologically indistinguishable from heroin junkies.
Our economy is run by junkies who NEED their next fix. CEO salaries are as high as they are because the people making them need that dosage in order to get their hit. Bernie Madoff screwed people out of billions of dollars because he NEEDED that for his fix.
And one of the more libertarian people on my friends list was saying how upsetting it was that a Congresscritter wanted to cap executive pay on companies receiving bailout money: a commenter said, "It's as if she doesn't even understand why executive pay is as high as it is in the first place!"
Which, for the record, I don't ,either.
But there's been some interesting MRI studies about people's neurological reactions to making large sums of money.
Basically: if you're making the kind of money you need to live, it registers in your brain as things like "security" and "comfort" and stuff like that.
But once you get beyond that -- it triggers the addiction centers. It shows up the same way as cocaine, and other significant drugs.
And, like those drugs, it acts as an addictive drug, with tolerance of dosages, and the need for bigger and bigger hits to get the same high.
Making huge amounts of money is genuinely addictive.
The CEOs who are making those salaries, the Wall Street traders who are, and all the other wealthy power brokers are neurologically indistinguishable from heroin junkies.
Our economy is run by junkies who NEED their next fix. CEO salaries are as high as they are because the people making them need that dosage in order to get their hit. Bernie Madoff screwed people out of billions of dollars because he NEEDED that for his fix.