the.com/greed
the engine that built empires and the crack that sank every one of them
means An intense, selfish desire for more than one needs — usually money, food, or power.
from From Old English grǣdig, 'hungry, greedy,' rooted in a Proto-Germanic word for craving (a cousin of Dutch gretig and Gothic gredus, 'hunger'). The noun 'greed' is actually the younger sibling: it was back-formed from the adjective 'greedy' fairly late, around the 17th century — so the wanting had a name long before the want itself did.
- deadly sin
- Dante stuck the greedy pushing boulders for eternity
- market mantra
- Gordon Gekko's speech inspired actual finance careers
- brain chemistry
- wanting more lights up the same circuits as cocaine
- word root
- comes from old word for ravenous hunger
- never satisfied
- the goalpost moves the instant you reach it
bernie madoff — ran a $64.8 billion ponzi scheme, the largest in history, defrauding thousands of investors
enron scandal — executives hid $1 billion in debt through accounting fraud, collapsing the company in 2001
subprime mortgage crisis — banks issued risky loans they knew borrowers couldn't repay, causing the 2008 financial collapse