Cambridge, MA
NYT Pick
The one word I don't see mentioned here anywhere is shame. It is somewhat related to fairness, but in general, there is no shame in this country any more. CEO's should be ashamed to take a wage 400x their average employees...stock brokers should be ashamed of milking $500,000 salaries out of 401K's and the investments of retirees. Bankers should be ashamed of the scams they perpetrated which were one of the root causes the housing bubble and the Great Recession. Without shame the greed knows no bounds.
And it works on the other end of the spectrum, from a social worker friend I hear stories of parents on welfare with abusive situations with their kids being brought to a program to teach better parenting where they are provided a healthy meal and they complain that it isn't KFC or McDonalds. They should be ashamed of their ignorance and willing to accept assistance and be grateful for it.
Granted in all cases there are exceptions, the businessman who is not greedy, the welfare recipient who is grateful and striving, but more shame and humility would go along way to fix issues at both ends of the income scale.
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