PBS/NPR affiliate KERA has started, One Crisis Away, a rich-media collection of stories examining various aspects of economic struggle in the Dallas area. The first of the series, Walking on a Financial Tightrope, follows several local families as they try to deal with crises brought by job loss, medical emergencies, death of family provider, and the like. The second collection recently released, A Place Called Jubilee, explores within the context of a particular inner-city neighborhood such issues as survival on the minimum wage, dealing with debt and payday loans, and trying to eat right when affordable groceries are not near.
Is "greed good" as declared by Gordon Gekko? Sam Polk's article in yesterday's New York Times suggests otherwise. In fact, he gives a candid account of the problem he had, attributing his own drive for money to "wealth addiction." Although he amassed a sizable fortune as a Wall Street trader a few years ago, he never felt he had enough. Personal introspection, with assistance from psychotherapy, led him to understand that his greed, and that of others in the industry, is essentially the same as that with drugs or alcohol. Polk has since left Wall Street for social activism, starting Groceryships, an organization working to promote nutrition education among poor families.
