Diagnosis: Greed
又有税吏来要受洗，问他说：“夫子，我们当作甚么呢？” 约翰说：“除了例定的数目，不要多取。” 又有兵丁问他说：“我们当作甚么呢？” 约翰说：“不要以强暴待人，也不要讹诈人，自己有钱粮就当知足。” （路加福音 3:12-14）
他们离弃正路，就走差了，随从比珥之子巴兰的路。巴兰就是那贪爱不义之工价的先知。（彼得后书 2:15）
我们必须尽最大的努力避免寻求自己的利益，可是我们的本性在这方面不能帮助我们，因为它总容易使人只爱自己，而不关心他人的利益。（加尔文《基督徒生活手册》）
For a break from the news of the financial meltdown, The Times on Saturday offered a page one story about Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, a prominent psychiatrist at Emory University, who violated federal research rules regarding conflicts of interest and made millions of dollars consulting for the pharmaceutical industry.
Yet the story of Nemeroff, who earned $2.8 million in fees from 2000 to 2007, and had at one point consulted for 21 drug and device companies simultaneously, wasn't really a departure from the news of the week – or of this whole benighted era – at all.
It was, rather, yet another iteration of the ever-unfolding saga of greed and how the deregulation of absolutely everything has brought our country to this painful season of reckoning. Because Nemeroff's story – which is hardly unique – belongs uniquely to this time in our nation's history.
Excerpts from Diagnosis: Greed, by Judith Warner, New York Times, October 9, 2008