In the 1980s, the Reagan Era, an attitude slipped into the corporate world, especially with the young people who were pouring into the financial services sector: Greed is good! The purpose of a corporation is to promote the net wealth of the stockholder. CEOs should be rewarded for producing stockholder wealth by huge salaries—more in a day or even an hour—than their workers earned all year.
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CDOBs Editor says:
Fr. Greeley makes the common logical error thinking that making money is equivalent to greed, and that sub-prime loan companies actively trying to make loans that are not likely to be repaid.
Given that two of the largest subprime lenders, Countrywide and Novastar, have lost $10 Billion and $240 Million, in the last 3 months, using the same logic Greeley could conclude that never have we lived in such generous times.
Of course seeking profit is not greed, and making losses is not moral. Greeley relieves the individual of his common sense in taking on debt, and demonizes a typical business transaction, one that needs less hysteria and less blame.