Greed causes a great deal of negative problems with the politics and economy of our nation.

I would like to note that I am very sorry for the missed round, but I am sure that everyone is aware that whatever is priority in your life sometimes requires attention before debate.org That being said, you said the debate had been forfeited, not quite! only the round. You defined wealth as: a. all things that have a monetary or exchange value. b. anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged. I believe in economic terms what you are referring to is more along the lines of capital than wealth. Therefore, I will stick to my prior definition. You bring up the subsistence point because my definition of wealth was when people seek to obtain more than what they need. --You say: Need is something of only the most savage of peoples- something that people without capitalism must worry about (Pre-Industrial)" This is absolutely incorrect. People seem to think that history moves in a linear direction from pre-industrial savages, to industrial capitalists. This is not true, in fact, there has been extensive studies that show that pre-industrial hunter-gatherer societies aren‘t in a state of need. They are completely content with their intake of food, supplies, etc. They subsist purely on what their herd, environment and family has to offer. It is the transition into capitalism that sparks a deep desire for need, and sadly for greed. If anyone would like to read the many scholars that have talked about this, I will gladly point you in the right direction. --You said: "This evil greed, this evil desire to have more than you need has brought us from living on our own farms to living in a society like we have today, one with very high standards of living, and livelihood. Population exploded when Capitalism and good came into the world." Once again here you are assuming something without proving it. Moving from a farm to a society like we live in may or may not be a good thing. Population explosion can be seen as a good sign of living conditions, but for any Malthusian theorists, we would agree that increase in population causes a lot of problems, not only with infrastructure, but also with crowd diseases, allocation of resources, etc. Once again, I have provided examples of the negatives of greed, where as your "positives" are simply opinion, not fact. --You said: "Nobody is harmed in the making of capitalistic wealth. Both parties benefit from the mutual agreement, otherwise it wouldn't have happened without coercion." Nobody is harmed in the making of capitalistic wealth? I will allude to the example of coffee. When the islands of Indonesia were part of the Dutch empire, it was converted to growing coffee instead of rice. This caused a famine that killed unbelievable amounts of people. Why? All so those coffee companies and capitalism could continue. Another example: Fishing-based economies on the west coast of Africa. These economies go into an agreement with foreign countries and sell the rights to fish the waters because they need the money in the short term. It is an agreement; however, the African economies will fail in the long term, because their primary economy source is being drained for the benefit of fish companies. Example after example can show you that people do desperate things for money. Things that are not at all rational (prostitution, etc). Therefore just to say that people do something for money, in no way implies that it benefits them, or is a moral good for society. --You said: "Wal-mart does indeed get more and more money. At what cost does wal-mart get this money? Well- all of our lives are substantially improved! Things cost less money; especially things need a lot (groceries). We can spend this extra money on other things, things we want but might not 'need'." I believe this proves my point; the workers that barely scrape by on wages and have children that can't go to the doctor when they need medicine are put into those situations why? Just as you said, so we can spend the money on things we don't need. Does that make much sense? "All" of us don't benefit, especially considering the child labor that makes the cheap clothing. You also discuss that Wal-Mart employees go into the agreement voluntarily because they get paid above market value. This is true, because if it was up to the business owners, they would contribute ZERO to labor costs. Why? Because they want more money!! So saying above market value, is not saying that it is enough to live. They don't have healthcare as I previously mentioned. As for having "very nice" factories. I would really like you to do more research on this; I will point you in the right direction: research recent Nike factory conditions, or the wal-mart factory conditions. These children work in extremely dangerous, poor conditions for "market price". A child should not have to work, and the fact that there is child labor hints that when those children grow up they will only know how to do their non-skilled job. What does this mean? That greed involved with child labor traps people in the cycle of making "mutual" agreements that really aren‘t to their benefit. As for a Wal-Mart worker not being worth 80,000 dollars, nobody said that they were. But with Wal-mart making enough money to be alone one of the largest economies in the world, they could give them benefits. You claim that oil prices are market based, however refineries are shut down to limit our supply and push prices up, and considering we are the number one consumer of oil in the world while we get most of it outside of our own borders, it is up to a limited amount of people exactly how much oil we receive. If it's a low amount, that pushes prices up. Billions of dollars in one quarter! That is what Exxon made. I think that everyone can agree that to a certain extent gas prices are dictated by the government and corporations. --You said: "As far as illegal immigration goes, a rise in population isn't necessarily harmful. We have lots of room. I have no idea where you get the statistic that the average American can not live off of minimum wage, and it's quite clear you're wrong by your own example. The illegal immigrations do in fact live off of the MARKET wage, NOT MINIMUM WAGE. First of all, I have already covered why a rise in population is a bad thing for any population. For an illegal population it is specifically bad because they have limited rights. When disease, poverty, etc rise among growing populations and the state can't do anything to help, that is a huge problem. As for minimum wage, I promise you, that it is nearly impossible to live off of minimum wage if you have a family that you are feeding. If you are supporting a significant other and two kids off of one minimum wage job you are below the poverty line, and need state help, a clear example that it is too low. You bring up the market wage again, and I will point out with a new example that slaves were also paid the market wage: nada. GREED caused slavery, GREED causes wars, GREED causes a few people to get boosted up on the shoulders of the hard workers. You cite often that people make a mutual agreement, but as I have shown, mutual agreements are sometimes out of desperation, and are not always a wonderful thing. I will agree that corporations, and industry can be a prosperous thing, I have not in one case mentioned socialism. We are however, not debating that. We are talking about monetary greed, a hunger for more when your belly is already full. A desire to pack your wallet when it is already loaded. It is in its definition a bad thing, and greed makes people throw people under the bus while they benefit.Example after example.