The Jewish Observer

The following stream of consciousness was started by a comment/observation by Bill Maher on his last installment of “Real Time.” Maher was talking about how the insatiable appetites of investors, pointing to Wall Street’s reaction to Apple’s last quarter earnings report for 2012. When Apple posted its last quarter earnings, a profit on the order of 13 billion dollars, it was the largest profit ever posted for a business not an oil company. Same for its year end profit of 42 billion dollars. Yet, Apple stock has declined since the report came out. Why? Because investors were predicting even larger sales, and even more distribution for Apple products. Never mind that Apple continues to dominate Iphone and tablet sales despite the presence of quality cheaper alternatives. Because the investor class expected more, wanted more, its stock performance has no relationship to the actual strength of the company. Maher showed headlines predicting doom for Apple. And he asked the question, “Can Americans ever be satisfied?”

I know that many people ascribe to the old Gordon Gekko line that “greed is good.” Certainly competition is good. The drive to compete, to do better and better motivates businesses, which increases prosperity, provides jobs, and provides ever improving products. I have been in business. We took a lot of pride in what we produced, its quality, and yes also in the profit we made. We strove to satisfy our customer. Competition forced us to try to produce more efficiently, to be more creative in our product, and to build lasting relationships with our customers. As we grew and became more successful, we employed more people and provided a good living for our family and theirs. All of this was the result of productive competition. So I would say that competition, that is the free enterprise system, is good.

But there is a difference between the motivation that competition brings and the greed of investors looking for ever increasing killings through financial manipulation. Greed, the kind that causes a disconnect between productivity and profitability on the one hand and perceived value on the other, seems not so good. Greed, I think, causes a distortion in how we order our values. It is greed that pushes us to try the get rich quick schemes that have proven so destructive not only to our general economy but to many individual lives. Remember the scheme to flip real estate that so many bought into during the years before the real estate collapse in 2007? That was born of greed skewing people’s common sense so that they bought into what was essentially real estate Ponzi schemes. To believe that greed is good is to believe that we can never have enough. Greed can twist our thinking so that we devalue good hard work, creativity and real risk – all ingredients in building a successful business. Greed takes what is positive in our competitive nature and turns it to narcissism.

But I believe that we can have enough – at least enough physical stuff. More importantly, while we can all agree that earning money is important to take care of our needs, to enjoy some comforts and to give some tzedakah; greed causes accumulation of money to become an unhealthy obsession. Here is where I love the approach of Jewish tradition. There is nothing in Judaism that teaches we should not try to be as successful as possible. There is nothing evil in making a lot of money through our occupations or businesses. Yet, our daily prayers urge us to temper our drive and find a level with which we are satisfied. In the ninth blessing of the daily Amidah, the blessing for a year of prosperity, we pray that what we produce be bountiful, that it be of the best of years. But we also say the words “may we be satisfied through Your goodness.” In other words, at some point we should realize that the bounty we enjoy is enough, and we can feel satisfied.

So when is enough, enough? Perhaps it is the point when one can look at their lives and ask that very question, “Do I have enough?”