Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Wall Street

Wall Street (1987). Directed by Oliver Stone, starring Michael Douglas (Gekko), Martin and Charlie Sheen (father and son Carl and Bud Fox). A classic that fully anticipated our age of hyper-finance. Gekko and company look tame compared to LTCM, Enron and our current hedge fund overlords!

Gekko: Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies and cuts through and captures the essence of evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Gekko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own.

Carl Fox: Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.

Personally, I followed the Create path, but I'm not sure I came out ahead :-)

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