Quote from Humpy:
The young looters are behaving just like ......er politicians ( the expenses scandal ) , bankers etc. but on a micro scale. Every country is now gripped by the "PIGSTY" culture of greed - thanks to the USA
I'm not a fan of most politicians/bankers, but what most of them do is legal, whether ethical or not. At worst, they usually exploit gray areas. There's a world of difference between that and bashing someone over the head, setting a building on fire, and stealing all the inventory from a struggling shopkeeper.
(OK, politicians sometimes do this via the police or military, but that's still a bit different.)
Blaming all this on "U.S. greed" is idiotic. Similar rioting has happened in Muslim countries with little Western influence who hate the U.S.
Japan, on the other hand, is influenced much more by the U.S., but there was virtually no looting after the earthquake/tsunami. And what little looting occurred was mostly by the hands of foreigners. What happened there was like Katrina X 10, yet they didn't react anything like in U.S. or European inner cities.
The same lack of looting after natural disasters is typical of rural/suburban areas of the U.S.
There are many cultural factors at play. Blaming it all on U.S. greed isn't one of them.