Sadly.....very sadly, I agree with Lew almost 100%. Now, I must now express myself regarding a parallel subject. In the sixties, executives would occasionally succumb to the darker of two choices: Obey their cursed alarm clock and continue to toil to produce the result that they were hired to produce or, grab ten, twenty or a hundred thousand dollars (a large amount back then) of company money they were entrusted with. This was coined "White Collar Crime" and was reported on by the "Sixty Minutes" magazine-style news TV show. Special comfortable, safe prisons were built especially for these criminals. These facilities were called "Club Fed" as a sort of joke on Club Med and many of these places had no walls or fence because white collar criminals were considered more.....trustworthy? Later, it was found that many big business connections and deals were made in these easy going facilities. In this era, white collar criminals are born and bred into highly profitable albeit anti-social behavior (lead paint in infant toys, cars that lose steering capabilities, contaminated or genetically engineered foods, pilfering of retirement funds etc.) and these criminals are desensitized from birth to the human fallout of capitalizing all their business gains and socializing all of their losses, a can't-lose strategy contrived and feverishly implemented by their parents that, if applied to large company pensions such as United Airlines, can make 30 years worth of personal retirement money unavailable to the people that earned and rightfully own it and provides the criminal with an additional stable of luxury boats, cars or other self-indulgent and socially non-redeeming  toys. Please do not talk to me about how that scenario creates jobs. United Airlines has hired at least two CEOs and payed them each 10 million dollars in severance when they left after steering United into even deeper debt. This is not only unjust but rather, not at all SANE! When The President Of The United States can't or won't slap the greedy hand of Wall Street white collar criminals for diverting seriously sizable amounts of our nations economic fuel to themselves without producing any tangible or useful product or service, then "things" are out of hand and simply wrong with the capitalist system as it is currently structured and practiced. No, I'm not a Communist HOWEVER the word does stem from "commune/community" and so, at least Communism, in it's original concept seeks to obey some form of social justice rather than simply glorifying, worshiping and/or excusing any and all obsessively greedy behavior that manages to stockpile vast sums of money for one socially irresponsible and callous person or group by exploiting any persons and any means possible. "Hey, it's just business!" is their polished, self-serving mantra that "deodorizes" their image to themselves and to the drooling, envious onlookers who would switch positions with these monsters in a hot second in order to hobnob with The Donald and feel above it all.

 War is America's most robust and profitable export with the instigators investment strategy being: create or define a cause, publicize it on a massive enough scale for folks to believe it must be true, demonize but sell arms to the opposing side, then let the predictable mechanics of hate and killing begin to reap astronomic profits for those in the right position, potentially gaining control of a country, it's mineral resources, it's banks and influence, it's army, it's land, it's geographic position, etc. It is common knowledge that (for example) George Bush Sr sold Saddam a goodly sum of tanks, guns, ammunition, missiles (No, not the fabled WMDs) at a goodly price.

*In many places around our Planet Earth, in this very moment, there are humans purposely attempting to send metal projectiles into other humans in order to cause lethal bodily damage and ultimately creating financial profit and power for those at the top to selfishly enjoy. Please read that last sentence again*. In my mind, the evil that Lew speaks of is the evil of humans failing to consider other human's well being, as simple as that. Whether it's born/bred into the individual or not, it is ultimately each Earth-Citizen's responsibility to deal with their own immature fear (from the dawn of their conscious infancy) of not having enough, successfully manage their compulsion to gain perceived safety by behaving as a tyrant man-child and rejoin The Human Race, not as someone that's perfect and selfless but as someone who may consider sharing some portion of what ever their advantage may be.

   So much more than aggressive product marketing of a flawed product, devious, illegal business tactics and successful corporate management can be learned from observing Bill Gate's current philanthropic campaign. Notice how this white collar criminal has LEARNED TO EXPERIENCE JOY IN SHARING when signing a check these days! Babies will eat, thirsty people will drink fresh water and sickly, painful bodies will receive medical treatment.....

 

Thanks Lew!

Thanks Aubrey!

Thanks Bill!

PS - Aubrey, your Mars site is being massively spammed.