The other day at the gym…

I heard two ladies engrossed in a serious conversation.  I couldn't help but hear what they were talking about.  They were in awe of certain well-known figures such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.  Later I understood their awe was based on how much money they had made.  Since they made a lot of money, they were smart and good people.  Strange logic when you find out more about how people build these empires.  I even heard how great they both were for all the jobs they helped created.

I'm pretty vocal and obviously opinionated.  It was hard for me to resist the urge to ask them how many companies Microsoft had swallowed up and put people out of jobs.  Yet I resisted because I just saw them as people lusting over money and power.  That's all there were to these two ladies at that particular moment in time.

It made me think how our society has raised a generation of people who love successful people with money.  It seems that if you have money then you are smart, a good person and worthy of praise.  While it might be true of some people, many ultra-rich people didn't become that way by being angels.  In fact, if you care to find out enough about most of these people, you will hear horror stories masqueraded under a veil of capitalism.  Capitalism is a good thing, but when kept under control from greedy urges.  The capitalism we are seeing now is far remote from the one imagined by our fore-fathers, I feel.

It was interesting to see these two ladies get all excited about how good people Warren and Bill are.  I wanted to ask them how having money, power and success were values automatically granted to good people.  Money or money with ethics?  Yes, people define their own sense of integrity.  However, I feel what counts nowadays, especially in the current sad state of our society is to clear up the ever growing obvious mess we are leaving our children.  Making money is a good thing but amassing empires that give back very little to society is not a very worthy life in my values.  I value those who make a lot of money, have a fairly low profile and actually help around instead of stocking up.  You can be the judge of that.