Word: greed
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...those with a taste for both melodrama and irony, it would be appealing if Tisch -- widely considered the duller of the two men -- were cunning enough to use Diller as bait for an even more robust suitor. Why, it would be the stuff of network television. Greed! Lust! Power! Infighting! Backbiting! The Barry and Larry Show, with a few mystery guest stars, could be CBS's hottest program this summer...
...result is both eccentric and oddly endearing. Kirstein portrays himself as a child with "an inborn greed for artificed splendor," mesmerized by patterns and designs. One of the longest episodes in the book recounts his intense quest for just the right emblem to paint on his canoe paddle at summer camp. Citing an occasion when his father gave him a $20 bill, Kirstein remembers "the papery cash, its tough fibrous thinness inlaid with bits of red and green silk." The dreamy young man did not take much interest in academics, but he passed Harvard's entrance exam anyway. Once enrolled...
...Greed also comes into play. Although only two companies are authorized to produce the drug in Brazil, several underground laboratories reportedly sell it to people without a prescription. Health authorities shut down one illicit operation last year, after a TV-news crew showed how easy it was to buy the pills...
...Denver's leaders to retain control and ensure minority participation in all phases of construction led them to put city officials in command, overseeing hundreds of contracts, rather than hand off the duties to a general contractor, who might have provided tighter management. Notes an insider: "It was raw greed. Everyone wanted a piece of the contract monies. The city lost control at the outset, and the project was destined to run amuck...
...astronomers searching in space for black holes when they need look no further than the financial derivatives market on Wall Street? That is the nearest end-of-the-world scenario. Governments had better get their act together to control this unbridled orgy of greed and speculation. If the bubble bursts and hundreds of millions lose their life savings and jobs, taxpayers and investors won't choose to put future generations in debt to pay off this financial scandal, which will make the cost of the savings and loan rip-off look like petty cash...