About Mark 19: 21, and Isaiah 5:8. I couldn't recall Jesus saying anything anywhere like "A little greed is a good thing." But I'm no Scriptural authority. The Conservative Bible Project is at work to remove any "liberal bias" from the Bible. (Take a peek at conservapedia.com), so maybe Jesus is evolving.

A brief etymological interlude.

The word "Manichean" is a good one to understand, especially in these Manichean times. Mani, a 3rd century A.D. religious charismatic, called himself an apostle of Jesus. He believed he was the "Paraclete" or Holy Spirit mentioned in the Gospel of John. Mani taught that humans lived in a sharply divided world of light and darkness, good and evil... he and his followers being goodness and light He had great influence in his day and -- judging from today's political and social discourse -- just as much in our Karl Rovian own..

Manichean, then, describes a stark, dualistic world without troublesome degrees and gradations -- a world of either/or. Republicans or Democrats. Liberals or conservatives. Light or darkness. Good or evil. Us or them. It is comforting to convince ourselves, or be convinced, that we're aligned with absolute light and right, and with God's might to conquer those "evil-dooers." Them's are all bad, us'es are all good. Socialism is them. Capitalism is us. Or the reverse.

End of interlude.

Well, the trouble with capitalism is also the trouble with socialism. In the abstract, they are admirable ideas. In reality they're made of mere mortals -- who are very mixed bags, individually and collectively.

Socialism is demonized for "redistributing the wealth." Those who praise capitalism as the true light of God are fond of pointing out -- correctly, let us add -- that there are welfare cheats and frauds, lazy people who could get a job to earn a living but instead scam the system. I cannot imagine any honest person, right or left, who says that's not wrong. One former SRS investigator estimated that perhaps 25 percent of his investigations exposed welfare cheats. However, investigations are done on recipients arousing suspicion -- not all recipients.

SRS is multi-faceted, but as one quick example, Michelle Ponce, Communications Director at the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, told me that in the last two years, only .4 percent of needy families provided temporary assistance were found to be cheating. Fundamental preacher Adrian Rogers thought wealth is never increased by dividing it. He was wrong. Welfare can and does rescue many people, young and old, from likely failure and help them become productive citizens, paying good dividends on the investment.

Some see capitalism as saintly because it rewards hard work and ingenuity and benefits society. But what about capitalist cheats who redistribute wealth upward, often to already bulging pockets? What about those who work the system legally because capitalists hate regulation, lobby for and get fat loopholes? Those who cheat their workers out of benefits and wages? The Bernie Madoffs and the Ken Lays who make the six o'clock news (if they get caught)? Does their capitalist behavior cost society less than common welfare cheats?

In 2002, Kelly Patricia O'Meara, of the conservative Insight Magazine, wrote that "some of this nation's brightest executives have been lying about the financial status of their corporations, spinning their lies as "restatements" when they hear the footsteps of the regulatory constabulary." Investors were "lied to and cheated."

In 2003, the New York Times reported that corporate tax cheats alone cost the government from $14 to $18 billion.

In 2004, NPR noted that after staff cuts of 20 percent and a corresponding cut in sleuthing, the IRS calculated that tax cheating rose to $300 billion annually.

Just this past February, Securityinfowatch.com wrote: "Without the help of whistleblowers, the government catches only 1% of corporations who defraud more than 20 government agencies, like the military, the post office, Medicare, and Homeland Security." Yet, journalists' right to conceal whistleblower sources comes under intense fire from the political right. Maybe you can guess why.

` In April, Fox-News reported that the FBI was then conducting 530 investigations of corporate fraud, 38 of them involving financial institutions. The number of mortgage fraud investigations reached 1,800, doubling from 2007. Note the focus is not on individual home buyers but on"lawyers, brokers or real estate professionals that are systematically trying to defraud the system." This was just before the near collapse, when the multi-million dollar bonuses went home with greedy CEO's because the time was ripe.

A little greed is good, right?