How much money is enough?

This is the second online mention of Texas energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens--seriously, I am soooo not making that name up--I've encountered in roughly two months. The first was his wind farm scheme. And now he's meddling in California politics.

On the philosophical level, you have to ask a few questions, such as:

• "How much money does one person need to have?"
• "At what point does simple human acquisitiveness become a 'control issues' kind of mental disease?"
• "And when are we going to stop lionizing the diseased?"

On the political level, however, the question becomes "How many welfare billionaires do our state and federal governments have to make before people stop buying the notion that we're a 'capitalist' society?"

Societally, we look on comic-book mavens as somehow immature. But as farcical as spandex-clad heroes battling luridly-looking villains seems--particularly given that most of these characters don't have any visible means of support--perhaps the mavens have better instincts after all. A simple skimming of the tabloid headlines reveals a set of priorities that are pretty messed up.