Christmas Greed Greed is the one thing that everyone in the world has in common. Greed can cause cause someone to be selfish and hurt those around them as a result. Bad greed causes people and others around them to get hurt. Greed can change a person’s personality. In Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol, the main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, keeps and collects all the taxes, pays his employees very little wages, and doesn’t give anything away- not even to charities. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future visit him to attempt to change his greedy and selfish ways. As we study history, the richest people are the most powerful. It doesn’t matter what time period or country. This simple fact always rings true. The rich rule. If this is so, why is Scrooge not living lavishly and happy, given his abundant wealth. This is because wealth and greed are not the same. In the beginning of this book, Scrooge would rather hassle families and bring misery to the community than to spend the money he already has on a nice Christmas. In the first stave, Scrooge, although he is wealthy, is such a miser that he won 't even allow his clerk to have enough coal to keep him warm. He insists on saving money by burning only enough coal to keep a small flame glowing whether the heat that it puts out is sufficient to keep the clerk warm or not. Scrooge 's greed is his downfall because he is so consumed with his money that he neglects the people around him, and when all is said and