Amor nummi crescit quantum ipsa pecunia crescit.
(Juvenal, Satires 14.139)

The love of a coin grows as money itself grows.

(pron = AH-mohr NOOM-mee KRES-kit KWAHN-toom peh-KOO-nee-ah KRES-kit)

Comment: This section of the Satires is, in general, on greed. And so this
proverb offers a fairly straightforward lesson. The more money we have access
to, the more our attachment to it grows. The Latin word for "love" is used
here, but this is the word that also describes passion, desire, and the kind of
stricken attachment that happens when Cupid shoots his arrow. This is not love
as respect. This is love as passionate attachment. Shortly later Juvenal
indicates that one who does not have access to such fluid amounts of money
chooses other kinds of things.

Poverty is not an experience that we should wish for anyone, nor need it be made
out into a virtue. However, learning how to alter our choices, learning that
there are alternate choices is a good skill, a good practice that one often
learns when the money has run out.

Yesterday's news reported that the average CEO of large corporations in Atlanta
bring home $100,000,00.00 every two weeks. That's nearly a half a million
dollars a month. I found myself wondering, after the news report, what one
does with that much money every two weeks. The news commentator said that
among these CEO's that kind of money was considered "normal". It made me think
about how much my wife and I make. It feels "normal", too, and yet it is
significantly more than we made 20 years ago, and it is significantly more than
beginning teachers make. Our income would strike new teachers as a lot of
money. What we have access to shapes our world, our views, our choices.

It's easy to point a finger at someone else and say--that's greed. It is much
less easy to discern when I have crossed that line.