14 Comments
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Karen RN's avatar

Excellent writing! Thank you Pen

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Penfist's avatar

Thanks for the support Karen.

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Gail Adams VA/FL's avatar

Thank you Pen. Very well said.

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Carla Childress's avatar

Agree...

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Penfist's avatar

Thanks to both of you.

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Bill Alstrom (MA/Maine/MA)'s avatar

Time for a clawback. The money at the top of our food chain is so top heavy as to be unsustainable. Sooner or later, the 90% will say "enough!" and rise up.

In the meantime, vote blue no matter who and if given a chance, organize a union.

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Mark VanLaeys's avatar

I read a few years ago that the breakoff point in the correlation of wealth and happiness was around $70,000. Up and to that point, people tended to be happier the wealthier they were. After that, there were diminishing returns on acquiring more health. My hunch is that in the real world the second million doesn't actually add much if any happiness compared to the first one. Not to mention Billion $

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Mark VanLaeys's avatar

I do not remember reading such a good synopsis of the place of greed in capitalism, our history and present days. The fact that both obscene wealth and scum frequently rise to the top together, apparently is no coincidence - How 'bout that. Thank you for your excellent piece.

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Penfist's avatar

I'm finishing up a master's in psychology, and the statistics on malignant narcissism correlating with political desires and making money (power) one's primary motivation are pretty sobering.

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Mark VanLaeys's avatar

Very interesting but not surprising. We're seeing the effects of unchallenged narcissism on our democracy, pretty much every day.

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Penfist's avatar

If we don't successfully challenge that narcissism, which is due to the apathy and ignorance of one party, we will eat our own nation-state and possibly more.

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Mark VanLaeys's avatar

I agree the narcissism needs to be challenged but I think there's no viable mechanism if the GOP's not on board. They're terrified they'll lose their base voters, campaign funds and in the process risk not having a pardon if they were involved in Jan 6th - while hoping Trump wins. I may not like Chris Christie's political positions but he's the only one from their party who is standing up for truth and and a return to reason.

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Penfist's avatar

I might have to write about him soon.

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Mary Ellen Spicuzza's avatar

Thank you. I am sharing this one with my 30 something daughter. I think she may represent her peers when she recently said, in so many words that included expletives, that no one should have a billion dollars and anyone worth a billion dollars should be ashamed.

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