When Presidential Aspirations Become a Deadly Flaw

The political world is filled with enormous egos.  Politicians on the left and right are generally possessed of ten parts ego-fed ambition for every one part of public spirit.  No, I don’t have a source for that.  Let’s just say that is an aphorism born of many years of observing politics and human beings.  My cynicism in this regard may be a bit exaggerated, but I doubt I am far from the mark.

Shooting for the presidency is perhaps the biggest ego trip of all.  To imagine oneself as the supreme ruler of the most powerful nation on earth is heady stuff.  Becoming the Master of the Universe is such an incredibly seductive accomplishment that politicians will do almost anything to achieve it.

First and foremost, they will give up any normal life of family, friends, work and leisure.  They will abandon whatever firmly held convictions they had in their earlier years and bend their opinions and platforms to conform to a best fit for winning.  They will court powerful people and corporations with so many promises and assurances that they won’t even be able to keep track of them.  They will spend most of their lives fundraising.

But the link between these compromises and truly dangerous or deadly consequences is generally not visible or easily discerned.  The candidates can rest easily, assured that their dalliances with the powerful, the rich and whatever policy issues they have endorsed are just the normal political game.

However, in the time of COVID and Trump, this link is crystal clear.  There is no doubt that Presidential aspirations are directly causing death and misery.  Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, both eyeing a possible run for the presidency in 2024 should Trump decide not to, have burnished their Trumpian reputations at the expense of their constituents’ lives.

By refusing to promote and mandate mask wearing and vaccination, in direct opposition to the best medical advice in their states and in the nation, these two governors have essentially committed wholesale manslaughter in the name of their presidential aspirations.  They have sacrificed thousands of lives on the altar of their egos. Their names should go down in infamy.  The names of the dead should be chanted to them wherever they go.

Politics is often referred to as a dirty game.  But this type of pandering for the votes of the Trump world is despicable in the extreme.  It deserves condemnation from all quarters and it is a sad reflection on the state of our political life.

The Tragedy of Afghanistan

War is always a tragedy.  Our ‘forever’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tragic for so many reasons and have had almost an endless series of heartbreaking events.  The latest one, the death of 13 service members and over a hundred hopeful Afghani civilians by an ISIS suicide bomber, is one more sad reminder that we must only commit human lives to military operations when it is absolutely necessary and there is no other choice.

The tragedy of 9/11 produced understandable horror and outrage.  Unfortunately, that triggered a crusade for vengeance that precluded a more sober and sensible approach to seeking justice for those killed in the attacks.  The subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have reaped a harvest of death and destruction that dwarfs the 9/11 attacks and has diminished the USA in the eyes of much of the world.

Over 7,000 U.S. service members and over 8,000 contractors have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Over thirty thousand post 9/11 U.S. service members have died of suicide.  Were these deaths necessary to quench our thirst for revenge? 

It would no doubt have been difficult to root out Al Qaida in Afghanistan without invading, but when one looks at the cost in human lives and suffering to kill Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaida meambers (who by the way have been replaced by innumerable new extremist volunteers and new terrorist organizations such as ISIS) then only a very contorted rationalization can justify it.

These wars have done nothing to improve the situation in the Middle East.  Indeed, they have arguably worsened it considerably.  They have also been unsuccessful in stemming the growth of extremism and terrorist acts.  Violence begets violence.

The current debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been exacerbated by inadequate planning or haste, but I would argue that there was no way to leave the country without chaos and death ensuing.  No matter when or how we left there were going to be tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Afghanis desperate to leave with us.  The Saigonesque scenes were bound to occur in some form. 

An earlier mass exodus would not have been a logical plan, as it would have undermined the Afghani government and caused panic in the country.  But the exact nature of the planning, the decisions, and the mistakes made should be studied for the future, in the likely event that we still have not learned from the horrible mistakes of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans of these cruel wars have spoken of their understandable despair in the realization that nothing was gained by their sacrifice.  I commiserate with their frustration, but a sacrifice should never be assigned value based on the success it achieves.  It is the nobility of the sacrifice itself, not its result, that deserves our recognition and praise.  A fireman who gives his or her life by racing into a building to save a child is no less noble if the child is not saved or if the child had been rescued earlier.

The time has come for the USA to make a sober appraisal of the utility of military exploits and the extent to which our employment of the empire-style manipulation of other nations and people has caused more harm than good.  The world is inter-connected now by global trade, tourism and cultural exchange in a way that should allow us to solve problems in a less catastrophic manner than warfare.  The calculus of war has always been problematic – more people die, and more lives are ruined in warfare than in the situations that warfare is attempting to solve. 

Diplomacy and international cooperation on terrorism and other ills of the modern world are often painfully slow and frustrating and require patience that has historically been in short supply in US foreign policy.  But the alternative of endless warfare is clearly a solution that is a tragic and unnecessary mistake.

The Demise of the Buffalo – A Not-so-simple Allegory

Everyone knows the story.  Once upon a time herds of buffalo roamed the great plains in uncountable numbers.  It is estimated that there were more than 30 million at any given time.  Indigenous people hunted them and relied on the success of those hunts to provide most of the essentials for their survival. 

They used every part of the bison.  They ate the meat and every other edible part of the animal – organs, tongues, fat, brain. They tanned the hides, or simply kept them as rawhide, and employed them for clothing and shelter.  They even used many of the skeletal components for tools.

Then along came the Europeans with their long rifles, and eventually their wagons and trains.  The market price of a bull buffalo skin was $3.50 and a man could make a good living killing buffalo, so they came by the thousands, especially after the economic depression of 1873. Buffalo Bill Cody earned his nickname by claiming to have killed 4,280 buffalo in an 18 month period. 

And as the market experienced a glut of hides, the hunters killed even more energetically to make up their losses.  They cut off the hump, the skin and the tongue.  They left the rest to rot on the plains. 

They were encouraged and aided in their work by the U.S. Army.  The battle against the plains Indians was being waged mercilessly, and Gen. Phillip Sheridan, the civil war hero, saw the extermination of the buffalo as a strategic ploy to force the Indians into reservations and agricultural work.  One army colonel wrote, “Kill every buffalo you can.  Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone!”

By 1875 the plains had become a vast graveyard, a veritable charnel house for buffalo.  Congress passed legislation to protect the buffalo, but President Grant refused to sign it. By the end of the 19^th century there were only a few hundred buffalo left in the wild. There are now twenty to thirty thousand after more than a hundred years of protection and conservation.

I started out to write this essay to condemn the European slaughter of the bison and extoll the virtues of the way the buffalo was treated by Native Americans – to portray the contrasting methods as an allegory for the excesses of our modern industrial society.

But as I read more about the topic, I learned that the plains Indians had also begun to overhunt the bison, and that the competition among Indian tribes was already paving the path to extinction for the buffalo before the Europeans built a super highway.  The acquisition of horses in the 1700’s and the subsequent dramatic increase in nomadic populations spelled disaster for the animals even before it was accelerated by the white buffalo hunters.

Make no mistake, our treatment of the plains Indians is a horrible blight on our nation’s record.  But the plains were not an idyllic place before the Europeans arrived.  The brutality and the merciless nature of intertribal warfare was a fact of life, and each group was relentless in its hunting of the poor bison.

The near extinction of the buffalo is indeed an allegory, but it is an allegory for the entirety of human impact on nature, not any particular group’s.  Human beings are clever enough to find the means to exploit nature for their benefit and increase their population exponentially.  Each step of progress, each invention, each new technique, improves their lifestyle and longevity, and consequently heightens the environmental impact of humanity. 

We have little capacity for a united approach to conserve or protect our natural world, as we have spent hundreds of years glorifying private property, personal freedom and consumption.  The ‘tragedy of the commons’ (a model used by economists to refute Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand of the Market’ concept in Wealth of Nations) is in full view everywhere these days - the use of carbon-based energy, the proliferation of plastics and other non-recyclables, the overuse of water resources and the ever-increasing materialism that infects every society on earth.

Ultimately, nature has feedback mechanisms that defeat extreme aberrations.  Our excesses are already provoking dangerous weather phenomena, wildfires, arctic and Antarctic glacier melting, and the proliferation of more deadly viruses.  The future will no doubt bring further shocking repercussions.

In the end, after painful disruption and cataclysmic events, perhaps humanity will be forced to confront and surmount its greatest challenge, the creation of a global social compact that allows it to live in harmony with the natural world. 

Meme Stocks, Gambling and Good Fortune

The current meme stock craze is yet another example of the sad propensity for human beings to gleefully rob Peter to pay Paul, Paul being themselves.

If one purchases a stock that has social media hype but little or no real value, then one is betting that latecomers to the FOMO hysteria will fund their good fortune.  When there is no real value or profit created by the company, then the appreciation of a stock and the profit reaped by early investors is the money lost by later investors.  In the long run, if the company is not growing or creating value, or if the stock is merely a fad, then the price will drop and the latecomers will lose money.  This is no different than going to a casino, where there is a zero sum game and for every winner there will be a loser (and if you count the casino's take, then there will ultimately be many more losers than winners).

One may argue caveat emptor, but is benefiting from the misfortune of others an ethical act?  There are many investments available that allow one to slowly acquire wealth through the success of a company that is creating a valuable product or service, an investment where all investors are likely to benefit.  The reason that meme stocks are so popular is simply because they offer the tantalizing prospect of immediate large gains.

This is the same impulse that has driven every gold, silver or diamond rush throughout history, every treasure-seeking voyage of discovery, and every frantic purchase of powerball tickets.

This obsession with lottery style winnings is a more dramatic example of a broader human trait – the selfish hoarding of good fortune.  If I happen to discover oil on my land, do I deserve the wealth that it brings, or should I share it with others?  If I am born into a stable, wealthy family in the richest country on earth, should I find a way to help others in less fortunate countries or circumstances?  Or should I build a wall around my country to make sure that my good fortune is protected?  If I am endowed with intelligence and good health, should I be motivated to share my good fortune with those who are less able or who suffer from maladies of various types? 

These are difficult questions.  The disparities in good fortune in this world are overwhelming and they are made more complex and sometimes intractable by the economic and political circumstances that surround them.  But it is perfectly clear that much if not all of our ‘good fortune’ is undeserved in any absolute sense, and that some measure of kindness, and generous sharing is incumbent on us.

How seriously we take that obligation and how far we go to respond to it is an individual choice that each person must make.  Few will choose to sell all their possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, as Jesus suggested to the rich, young ruler.  But the world would certainly be improved if all of us acknowledged the role that ‘good fortune’ has played in our lives and took measures to even the playing field.  And I am pretty sure that buying meme stocks is not one of these measures.

Morality, Religion and Humanism

Organized religion is a powerful force in the world.  It plays a major role in culture and politics as well as serving as a critical source of comfort and strength for much of humankind.  Its rituals, spirit of community and cultural expressions are interwoven tightly into the human experience.  Religion and its spiritual associations provide solace in a world that is both mysterious and unsettling.

In this modern age, a growing number of people have become unaffiliated with formal religion.  They may retain some of the cultural trappings of the religion of their ancestors, but they no longer subscribe to the doctrine and the exclusive dogma that most religions demand of their congregants.  Many describe themselves as agnostics, with a vague and ambiguous sense of the spiritual realm and a reluctance to embrace any rigid theology.  A substantial number are outright atheists.

 

A basic tenet of those who continue to strictly practice formal religion is that the moral and ethical development of civilization has been shepherded by religious thought and faith.  Consequently, they fear that the slow but steady secularization of society and an increasingly agnostic or atheistic population will cause the world to fall into a death spiral of immorality and corruption.

 

This view deserves careful examination, as it is a primary motivation for a significant part of the culture war that currently divides our society.  There are several questions that must be answered:

 

• What is the definition of morality? 
• Who or what defines morality?
• Is morality an absolute?
• Is religion necessary for moral behavior? 
• Are non-religious societies less moral?

 

My objective in questioning the role of religion in defining human morality and ethics is not to downplay or denigrate the importance or value of spirituality in our lives.  I believe that many aspects of religion are very valuable and nurturing for the human condition.  However, the exclusive nature of the world’s religions, their claims to absolute truth and their inability to recognize and adapt to nuance, ambiguity and change, are the basis of many of the world’s conflicts.

 

What is the Definition of Morality?  How does it differ from ethics?

One definition is that morality is a code of behavior relating to right and wrong.  There is great debate on the difference between morality and ethics.  Some maintain that ethics is a set of practical rules that may or may not relate to any absolute morality.  But the two are certainly closely related.  If one is behaving ethically, then typically one may assume that one is also exhibiting moral behavior.

But the question of what to include under either morality or ethics is not so clear and has evolved over the millennia.  If one considers the most common examples of potentially immoral behavior – murder/assault, stealing, lying, sexual improprieties – it is already apparent that defining immoral behavior is no easy task.  Is all murder or assault immoral?  Is bombing a city in wartime immoral?  Is defending oneself in a violent encounter immoral?

And what about lying?  Is telling the truth always a moral act?  Is a white lie permissible?  Stealing is not easy to define either.  Is taking advantage of people to get their hard-earned money immoral, or simply unethical?  Is stealing land from people who have inhabited it for years immoral, even if it is “legal”?  Is stealing to support a starving family immoral?

The morality of sexual behavior is also complicated.  Is premarital sex immoral?  Is gay sex immoral?  How about pornography?

There are many things that were once deemed immoral and even cause for capital punishment in days gone by – blasphemy and apostasy (still considered punishable by death in certain Muslim countries), making oaths, worshiping other Gods or images, insulting one’s parents, violating the sabbath, etc. – that are no longer considered immoral in most of the world.  Moreover, some things that are viewed today as highly immoral, such as slavery and the total subjugation of women, were considered perfectly acceptable in the past.  This brings us to the big question:

Who or What Defines Morality?

To ancient peoples morality was handed down by a deity – stone tablets, the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran,  the Vedas – though in some cases it was more humanistic in its origins – Confucianism and Buddhism are examples.  To many religious people, morality is still precisely defined by their religious beliefs and they look to their creeds and sacred texts to find answers to questions of morality.

But to many modern thinkers and an ever-increasing part of the modern world, morality is perceived as a product of human thought and evolution.  Morality is seen as a set of principles that enable human beings to create a better society and a more just community, and to minimize the pain and suffering in the world.

No stone tablet ever said that slavery was immoral or evil, yet human consciousness has evolved to condemn it.  No ancient creed celebrated the basic equality of all human beings and encouraged equal treatment of men and women, but the world is slowly adapting its moral compass to those principles.  The ancient texts celebrated conquest and domination in the name of religious fervor and conversion, but our modern sensibilities are ever more distant from that type of thinking.

Thus, we see that morality is defined and also refined through both religious and humanistic means.  The evolution of our moral sensibilities is ongoing and may be motivated by both sources of inspiration, but I would argue that humanism is now the dominant underlying principle.

Is Morality Absolute?

The earlier examples of the murky nature of stealing, killing, lying and other potentially immoral acts are testament to the fact that like many of life’s puzzles, morality is indeed not an absolute.  One person’s stealing is another’s good business deal.  One person’s murder is another’s patriotic duty.  One person’s lie is another’s kind gesture.

A common critique of humanism is that it promotes ‘moral relativism’.  There may be some truth to this, in that humanism is reluctant to make absolute declarations about morality.  But any rigorous exploration of moral questions will certainly find that there are a lot of gray areas in human behavior, and that for every general category of potentially immoral acts there is a spectrum of choices that must be individually analyzed to determine right or wrong.  In my view humanists are not at all hesitant to strongly condemn immoral behavior, rather they are merely unwilling to generalize and over-simplify the task.

Is Religion Necessary for Moral Behavior?

This is an interesting question.  Is religion, or at least some sort of spiritual impulse, the basis for our moral development?  Did religion create moral thinking, or did humans create religion as a means to apply moral thinking to their world?  These questions are impossible to answer definitively.

But I would argue that the last two hundred years have demonstrated a humanistic divergence from ancient religious cultures and have produced a more moral and humane world.  Some of these advancements have been led at least in part by religiously-inspired people to be sure – the slavery abolition movement, the social justice movements, the workers’ rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay and LGBTQ movements, the anti-war movements, the anti-torture movements, the anti-colonial movements.  But religious people were also prominent in opposing all of these changes in society.

I have argued in the past that there is evidence that some sort of basic spiritual impulse guides our ‘humanistic’ morality. (https://rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2015/04/conscience-morality-and-argument-for.html) But have our ‘religions’, i.e. the institutions, dogmas and doctrines from hundreds or even thousands of years ago, outlived their usefulness in dictating our definitions of morality?  If we liberate ourselves from them, do we risk a moral collapse?

Are Non-Religious Societies Less Moral?

How do we inculcate morality in our citizens?  Is religious instruction an essential part of that process?  Does religious belief and/or attendance play an important role?  If we abandon religion as the primary instructive tool, then with what do we replace it?

We have an ongoing experiment in non-religious societies.  Western Europe is substantially non-religious, as are significant portions of the USA.  People in these areas are not necessarily atheists and may still have a belief in some sort of spirituality or deity, but they are generally not attending church and are definitely not dogmatic in their application of religious laws.  However, Europe still provides religious education and moral instruction in schools and many parents continue to have their children achieve basic religious milestones.

These European nations are certainly not experiencing a rapid decay of morality.  Murder, violence, corruption, robbery and other acts that one generally considers signs of moral collapse are actually much less of a problem in Europe than here in the United States.

The only danger in a non-religious approach to morality is the same danger that the general recognition of ambiguity and mystery in the world brings:  The risk of every person coming up with their own morality, their own worldview, their own set of ethics.  Parents and teachers may give children guidelines, but in the end, there are no absolutes.

But outside of sexual morality, was religious morality ever any more capable of clarifying moral choices than what we have in a non-religious setting?  What religious text actually explored in detail the questions of right and wrong in business ethics, in warfare, in investments, in ecology, in politics, in government?  Haven't people, even very religious people, always found a way to justify their actions?

The goal of imbuing people with a strong moral character is not achieved by a set of rules, whether religious or humanistic.  It is accomplished by teaching empathy, humility and a strong sense of justice and fairness.  Every human being is faced with the challenge of reconciling their own interests and desires with those of the community.  It is in this final frontier of morality that the battle will be fought in the future.  It is, in the final analysis, the full development of humanconscience.

If we are facing an onslaught of moral relativism, it is not because we have abandoned our religious dogma, but rather because the human race is finally confronting the complex nature of the human condition and its social, political and economic implications.  A tablet of ten commandments is not going to solve that problem.  But I believe the spirit of humanity (whether divinely guided or not) will continue to evolve and will help us find our way.

 

 

 

 

History, Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project

The recent controversies over Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project of the New York Times call into question how we interpret history and how it is best portrayed to students at various times in their education.

What is history?  Is it a set of events?  Merriam-Webster defines history as ‘a chronological record of significant events (such as those affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes’. Is history subjective?  Can there be a truly objective analysis of history?

Any historical period has an infinite number of events.  The very act of choosing which events to list in an historical account is already an ‘interpretation’ of history, a subjective view.  Moreover, a mere list of chronological events does little to help one understand what actually occurred during an historical period.  The historian is not a chronicler, but rather an interpreter, an analyst.  It is the job of every true historian to attempt to comprehend the underlying significance of events, to depict the mood, the atmosphere, the Zeitgeist that influences and motivates human activity

Long ago societies recorded their history by creating myths and heroic sagas for the purpose of indoctrinating their young in a specific way to serve the community.  Accurate depictions and analysis were neither desired nor attempted. 

Modern historical accounting has evolved over the last couple of centuries as an ever-increasing volume of information, letters, documents, etc. has become available for analysis.  The way that history is recounted also evolves as society’s consciousness evolves.  Our perceptions of conquest, enslavement, colonization, exploration, religion, science, economic growth and other components of history have undergone significant changes.  Those changes impact our interpretation of history and cause us to take a closer look at events and relationships that may have seemed less significant to earlier historians.

For example, the history of the American colonial period was, for much of our nation’s existence, portrayed in terms of the development of the economic and political evolution of the white colonists, with occasional references to Native American hostilities.  The virtual annihilation of the Native American people and culture, which in modern terms could easily be categorized as genocide, was not deemed historically significant.

Now one can argue that the virtual annihilation of the indigenous people by the colonizers was no different or more heinous than what had been done by conquering nations throughout history up to that point.  But to argue that this aspect of our nation’s history should not be studied in more detail is a call to whitewash history.

The same is true for the analysis of slavery and all its ramifications.  There is certainly no doubt that slavery has had tentacles throughout our country’s development and played a major role in many if not most of the major events.  The goal of the NY Times 1619 project – ‘to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are as a country’ – is a worthy exercise in historical analysis.  Should it become the primary means of viewing the nation’s history?  Should it take precedence over other analyses that focus on the development of concepts of liberty, freedom and equality?  No, and there is no danger that it would.  History is much too complex to be viewed through a single lens.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is too complex for a full discussion here.  The objective of CRT is to identify systemic aspects of racism (i.e. laws, policies and other institutional implementations of racism - intended or unintended) that have impacted the plight of African Americans. 

Critics complain that CRT’s goal is to portray everyone as racist, but that is not the case.  If we truly want to address the problem of race in America, then we need to identify the remaining institutional barriers to African American progress and eliminate them.  For example, the fact that education budgets in the USA are locally funded is effectively a racist policy because we continue to have segregated communities and black communities are significantly poorer than white communities.

If our civilization is to continue to progress, then it must be honest with itself about both its successes and its failures, its heroism and its villainy.  We know that our ancestors had a different level of social consciousness and morality than we have today.  Many of their actions were deplorable.  But they also made possible the more enlightened and peaceful world we live in today.  Humanity was and still is full of contradictions.

The objective of a critical analysis of America’s history is not to drag its name in the mud or slander its favorite sons, though recognizing our forefathers as all-too-human and taking them down off their pedestals is a very healthy thing to do.  No one wants to make our children into America-haters.  But how are we to continue to form a more perfect union if we cannot acknowledge both the good and the bad of what has transpired?

History’s role is neither to glorify nor to condemn.  Its role is to understand!  The history we teach to our children and indeed, the history that we learn as adults, must help us identify the best way forward for our society.  This can only be done with a sober, clear-eyed approach that offers a multiplicity of views and interpretations for us to consider.

Investment Ethics - What is True Capitalism?

Capitalism is the economic engine of the world.  There is no denying that fact.  Of course, there are significant parts of every economy that are part of the ‘state’ and therefore not subject to private investment and management, but the true driving force is capitalism.

Here is my simple description of how capitalism works in its pure form: 

•  An entrepreneur with a dream or idea starts a company
• People invest in the company and become part-owners because they believe that the company will grow, create ‘value’ and become profitable
• People work for the company for wages based on the market value of their labor
• The investors receive some portion of the profits (dividends) based on their share of ownership
• The value of the shares of ownership grow or decline based on the current profitability of the company and the market perception of its future potential for growth.

In an ideal world, that is how capitalism and investment would work.  In theory, our goals as investors should be to encourage the creation of jobs and valuable work output (i.e. value creation) in our society and benefit when those goals are achieved.  If the company does well, then all the investors should benefit.  If it fails, then all should face the consequences.

But investment is often independent of, and even at odds with what I would call the ‘capitalist spirit of creating value’.  Investment is more like gambling.  Most people are perfectly happy to make money regardless of the success or failure of the company in which their investment lies. 

Examples of this are numerous:  the short sellers are the most egregious example.  When short sellers make a profit off the failure of a company, they are not benefiting from any sort of ‘value creation’, which is the whole purpose of capitalism.  On the contrary, they are simply taking money from other people who are not aware of the impending decline of the investment.

Trading in investments like bitcoin is another example.  There are many investments that produce no identifiable value, or dramatically exaggerate value in order to produce a FOMO (fear of missing out) in potential investors. These investments are the equivalent of a casino.  The casino mentality is a ‘get-rich-quick’ mentality, typically at the expense of others who are getting-poor-quick!  And sadly, most people are perfectly happy to obtain money in this fashion.

When there is no value creation – no new products or services created and providing value to the world – the investment game is zero sum.  For every winner there must be a loser.  One can argue that the poor schmucks who lose are themselves to blame for their losses, but this is certainly not an ethical stance.

Perhaps I am being puritanical here. I have never enjoyed gambling and I find no pleasure in ‘winning’ when my winning means that others must lose.  I never buy lottery tickets and Las Vegas is the last place I would choose to go for a vacation!

Interestingly, real estate is also somewhat of a strange investment.  No ‘new’ value is being created in property or housing as these assets age.  In theory, their value should be a constant, adjusted only by inflation.  Yet real estate has been the path to riches for many people simply because of the laws of supply and demand, and the relative scarcity of real estate in desirable locations as populations grow.  In my view, real estate investors are also parasitic, increasing their wealth at the expense of others.  Another case of the haves screwing the have nots.

And finally, to firmly cement my contrarian views, I will condemn the entire financial services industry for its absurdly high salaries and commissions.  How much value they actually create requires a fairly complex analysis that I am not able to conduct.  But if I were a betting man (and clearly I am not!) then I would bet a large part of my wealth that their added value (which is a service) is a tiny fraction of the trillions that they skim off of financial transactions.  One has only to view the list of the world’s wealthiest people to see how many are hedge fund managers, bond traders, investment bankers, venture capitalists, and other types of so-called financial wizards to realize that they have substantially rigged the game in their favor.

Investment is generally a good thing for everyone.  But it is also clear that the wealthier one is, the more one may benefit from investment.  Access to information, often 'insider' in nature, and opportunities to invest in higher yield investment options are available much more frequently to the wealthy.

The world’s capitalist economy is complex and unjust in many ways.  Alas, there is no simple way to fix it.  Revolutionary doctrines and socioeconomic models have been spectacular failures.  So, we keep plodding along with capitalism and try to make it as humane as possible.  But perhaps if people could feel ethically compelled to make investment choices that truly add value to the world rather than simply enrich themselves, then capitalism would improve significantly.