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President Ronald Reagan during his administration employed an economic policy commonly referred to as the trickle down theory. A simplified description of this theory is that if big business is allowed to grow and profit, the profits will trickle down and boost the economy.

It could be described like this:
The more you make, the more you spend. The more you spend, the more business grows. The more business grows, the higher the employment rate. The higher the employment rate the higher the rate of consumer spending. The higher the rate of consumer spending, the higher the profits. Higher profits mean making more money. The more money you make, the more you spend.

Though the name "trickle down" implies the money only goes in one direction, the logic behind it is circular. The implication is that if big business does well, everyone, right down to the entry-level associate, does well. And everyone has a chance to rise to the top.

And that means making lots of money. But is it the money itself that drives that entry-level associate to move up the corporate ladder?

More likely, he is driven by the power that those with money wield. Money junkies don't chase the dollar; they chase the power behind the dollar. Just as a heroin addict wants heroin for the high, money junkies want money for the power.

Money becomes the only thing that matters because it is the thing that gives the money junkie his high, power.

When President Reagan explained his theory to the American people in 1981, trickling a handful of coins down through his fingers to his other hand, people imagined that they just might get their share of the economic pie. The decade of greed was born.

The accumulation of wealth was most certainly not invented in the 1980's, but rather than wealth being expressed strictly in terms of big houses, fancy cars, yachts and designer clothes, wealth was measured by portfolios.

Whoever had the biggest portfolio had the best tax shelters, and so protected his wealth. He protected his power, his power on Wall Street, his power in the corporate world, his power in society.

The accumulation of things is merely to make life more comfortable while obtaining more money. The money junkie no longer has a choice as to whether or not to continue creating positive cash flow. Without it, he loses power, and that means suffering from withdrawal.

Withdrawal from the dizzying heights of wealth and power is painful, disorientating, humiliating. When it happens on a massive scale, as in the market

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