Greed

Greed was what motivated Gordon Gecko. "Greed is good!", he proclaimed. So did the others, like Ken Lay, Boeski, unscrupulous money and hedge fund traders.

Greed drove the hedge fund traders to buy into crude oil, which they don't use to refine and derive products like petrol, diesel, bitumen, tar and chemicals for the plastic industry. Instead, they keep it to sell at a higher price, that when demand slackens, they end up with a lot of crude oil that needs to be disposed of.

Greed drove those banks to offer security loans for bad debts of risky defaulted home loans in the current sub-prime crisis.

Greed drove the developers of houses on dangerous gradients to keep on building houses that were swept down in landslides. Ditto, the local authorities who approved those projects, knowing full well they get immunity from whatever indemnities and liabilities incurred should God act and give those meeks a landslide that they cannot claim insurance of.

If greed is so good, how come it is one of the seven deadly sins? If greed is good, how come so many bad things come out of it?

Khe Sanh

Been listening regularly to an old favourite song. "Khe Sanh" by Cold Chisel, singer Jimmy Barnes. About how a V-vet who'd come back from war feeling out of place, and jetted back from where he came from, to be at ease at a place he had once reviled but became familiar with.

I guess somehow, sometime we feel that way. We've adapted to the pains that had since innured, rather than taking that one step off that ledge to feel the freedom of flying - Matrix's Neo style - to place ourselves anywhere but here. It's a big step to take, and your mind had been psyched up to know that you'll fall to your death. But in your mind, your imagination, you'll believe that the one step won't kill you physically, but can actually lead you to the road to mental freedom.

But, as the song goes, that place you've left and came back to also could not offer you what - je nais se quoi - you're looking for. Then, the traveller you are, move on to newer climes.

Khe Sanh
Cold Chisel, Jimmy Barnes
(Don Walker)

I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And my soul was sold with my cigarettes to the blackmarket man
I've had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it's only other vets could understand

About the long forgotten dockside guarantees
How there were no V-dayheroes in 1973
How we sailed into Sydney Harbour
Saw an old friend but couldn't kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the lucky land

And she was like so many more from that time on
Their lives were all so empty, till they found their chosen one
And their legs were often open
But their minds were always closed
And their hearts were held in fast suburban chains
And the legal pads were yellow, hours long, paypacket lean
And the telex writers clattered where the gunships once had been
But the car parks made me jumpy
And I never stopped the dreams
Or the growing need for speed and novacaine

So I worked across the country end to end
Tried to find a place to settle down, where my mixed up life could mend
Held a job on an oil-rig
Flying choppers when I could
But the nightlife nearly drove me round the bend

And I've travelled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the more for wear
And I've been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain't there
But I'm drifting north, to check things out again

You know the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Only seven flying hours, and I'll be landing in Hong Kong
There ain't nothing like the kisses
From a jaded Chinese princess
I'm gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long

Well the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Yeah the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
And it's really got me worried
I'm goin' nowhere and I'm in a hurry
And the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone