Despite what Gordon Gekko said, greed may not be good. There's nothing wrong with wanting a better life, with striving to make more money, but greed can take those desires to an unhealthy place.
Here's a solution.
Dutch artist Diddo Velema has created "The Cure for Greed."
"What exactly is greed?" Velema asks. "Is it an immutable algorithm hardwired in our DNA, a survival instinct that triggers responses to a constantly changing environment that can turn hostile at any moment?"
That's fancy talk. The dictionary defines "greed" as "excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions."
So how to cure it?
Velema shredded a lot of $50 bills (cheaper than shredding a lot of Benjamins) and puts them in a blender to turn them into pulp. The artist then extracted the pigment, "re-stabilized the ink" into liquid form, then put the ink into medical vials. The vials are presented in a mahogany or walnut case with a 24-carat syringe and needles. The "cure" costs $10,000.
So, to cure yourself from greed, do you shoot up with greenback ink? Is merely the thought of doing so supposed to nullify your love of money?
Velema says the project is "an invitation to reexamine our assumptions and inject them with the type of energy that will ensure new and evolving perspectives."
Whatever that means. All I know is if he's charging $10,000, that's kind of greedy.
—By CNBC's Jane Wells
@janewells
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