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greed

How greed destroys the greedy.
Greed is an equal opportunity destroyer!




Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed
Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed
Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed
Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed Greed

Greedy people can suck the life out of a city, instead of creating useful things, because it redirects people's energy into acccumulation of capital, while not producing anything anything useful, and may even hurt others, by creating malignant and coercive organizations. Greed can damage the healthiest of economies, for example, San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the greed of San Jose real estate developers, is causing lots of bankrupcies, even though the internet is bringing prosperity to the rest of this area. My premises are:
If greed and mismanagement can damage part of Silicon Valley, it can do it anywhere. By not being so greedy, (planning to include all classes) the economy will function much better because currently: the housing isn't selling, and as soon as the subsidies to new businesses run out, those businesses can't compete with the businesses that
1) Cater to the real demographics, OR
2) Aren't competitive with the newer businesses because subsidies run out. the newer businesses are getting subisidies (And they're alot of them, because all the yuppie businesses go out of business as soon as the subsidies run out.)

Despite the prosperty that the internet is providing this area with, the business vacancy rate in San Jose is quite high, much higher than it would be if there were no meddling and subsidies, and so the millionaires who own the politicians here were so greedy that they failed to do what they wanted to do, raise property values.


The San Jose Redevelopment Agency, by trying to subsidize upper-class housing and businesses, in a lower-middle class neighborhood, are trying to create a niche that already is saturated in the Valley, so no one is moving in, in fact, it's displacing businesses more suitable with busineses that consistantly fail, and is actually causing property values to drop.
Meanwhile, the politician's greed is taking away space and taxing the people who want to live downtown (the University students: SJSU is downtown) and those who don't have cars (the hub of the bus routes is there). 


Statistics courtesy of San Jose Municipal Chamber of Commerce:

                       1960     1970    1980    1990       1995
County Population
(excluding San Jose,
in thousands)           455      619     667      716        763
County Taxable Retail
Sales (excluding San
Jose, in millions)     $508    $1,547  $5,500   $9,897    $8,719
Per Capita Sales
(excluding San Jose)   1,116    2,499   8,248   13,823    11,427
San Jose Population
(in thousands)          204      446     628      782       849
San Jose Taxable Retail 
Sales(in millions)     $414     $849   $3,094  $6,731    $6,583
Per Capita Sales 
in San Jose          $2,010   $1,904   $4,927  $8,608    $7,738


These statistics state that San Jose had a higher per person retail sales than the county average in 1960, and since then, it has declined to well below the county average.
UPDATE: The city finally backed down on some of its worst ideas. The chairman of the Redevelopment Agency resigned because the mayor stopped his plan to build more expensive stores downtown, but they don't seem to realize that you have to have housing near stores in order for the stores to prosper.



Some people can't get anything straight!

Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.
--Ancient Greek proverb



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