GREED

One would never have placed greed as a sin as grave as say murder or stealing or adultery.

But recent events suggest otherwise.

One would never imagine the Chinese middle men to add a toxic chemical like melamine, used in the making of plastics, to raw milk. What these middle men did was to collect raw milk from the milk collecting stations, add water to the milk to give more volume to the milk and then add melamine to the milk to restore and enhanced the high protein level of their milk product and then on-sell them to San Lu. This company, in which NZ Fonterra has a 43% interest, then produces the infant powdered milk .

In quality checks, the protein content of the milk powder is tested for by measuring its nitrogen levels. These greedy middlemen realize that they can fool quality checks by adding nitrogen rich melamine to their watered down their milk in order that they can reduce the cost of milk and produce a fatter profit margin.

Business people can be smart. But if they are greedy and lack integrity, they will be very smart to exploit every loophole to make the extra buck.

But in the end, it was tantamount to murder as thousands of babies became seriously ill and a couple of babies have died in China.
Also the reputation of China's food industry is seriously damaged.
People start to question all the other Chinese food products that is sold all over the world.

Another example of greed is that demonstrated by some whizz kids from the financial institutions. Now I must say that many try to make a living with their financially creative ideas . And they deserve the good pay because they make millions for their companies. But when they start to put together instruments that are collateralized and make them appear of little risk but in reality very risky, then their greed and lack of integrity must be answered for.

I know of a case whereby marketeers try to sell investment properties to pensioners. They assure the not so financially savvy pensioners to second mortgage their homes in order to invest in another sure property bet. But then the investment property company failed and the pensioners lose their deposits and don't receive the second property that they thought they owned and yet they have to pay a higher mortgage for their first home. And some are forced to sell their original homes when they cannot service the higher debt.

Yet another example of greed.
One Australian marketeer tried to interest me in an Australian Time-share resort facility. They called me in Auckland. When I turned down his investment proposal, he became pushy and rude to me.

Greed possesses some of us.
Money, more money and possessions become our pre-occupation.

It is alright to have possessions.
But do not let possessions possess us.