I studied abroad in the US as a European and the first sentence the microeconomics professor blurts out: "Greed is good."

At that point I wasn't as gobsmacked anymore because several days before some 17 year old girl yelled in a 300 person biology lecture at the professor to stop telling lies about evolution (first week of college).

But "greed is good" struck me as an oddly American way of viewing the world. Europe isn't free of greedy people, by any means, but it's sort of not the first rule you learn in school.