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small businesses and individual conmen and con-women. There is a big increase in dishonesty in this country and "buyer beware" has never been more important.

But we experience this most acutely, though some are not even aware of it, at the corporate and government level. If Americans knew how many deaths and how much suffering have occurred here at home as well as around the world because of corporate and government malfeasance (for profit), there would be an immediate uprising.

A book could be written about the death and destruction brought about by the profit motive through American and international corporations. This includes global organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade organization (WTO), and others.

In fact, the book has been written. It is "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" by Naomi Klein. This book outlines, in painful detail, how the corporate run U.S. government as well as the international organizations mentioned above, have taken advantage of chaos (such as the great tsunami and the destruction of Katrina) for profit. When that is not available, they simply create their own chaos through wars.

This corruption in pursuit of profit is probably historically unprecedented because of the global economy. We now have the capability of destroying another nation nearly completely, through economics and/or invasion. And we are doing it.

We have a saying, "Follow the money." If you really want to know the motives for war and economic piracy, just look at who is profiting from it. That is all you need to know. It is possible, and even likely, that every war ever fought has really been about money and power. From the revolutionary war to the present, in our country, there has always been an economic and power issue involved.

What? The American revolutionary war was about money? Of course it was. The founders of this nation, however wonderful they might have been, were all pretty much wealthy men. The problems that instigated the revolution were financial.

King George was taxing the burgeoning colonies. There was the tea tax and the stamp tax. It was partly because George wanted to profit from the new world. It was also because he was being pressured by his own "corporate" friends in high places. They were concerned about the competition from the increasingly prosperous colonies.

The pursuit of profit is certainly moral as long as long as no one is harmed by that pursuit. When people suffer and die because of that pursuit, it is not only immoral; it borders on evil.

Learn more about this author, Bob Trowbridge.
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