“You’re all pretty much fu****. You don’t know it yet. But, you are the NINJA generation. No Income, No Job, No Assets. You got a lot to live for too. Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said greed is good. Now it seems its legal. But folks, its greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he can’t afford with no money down. And its greed that makes your parents refinance their two hundred thousand dollar house for two fifty. Then they take that extra fifty and go down to the mall. They buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers, a SUV, hey why not a second home while we are it, cause gee whiz we all know the prices of houses in America always go up, right? And its greed that makes the government of this country cut interest rates down to one percent after 9/11 so we can all go shopping again. And they got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credits, CMOs, CDOs, SIVs, ABS . You know I honestly think that there’s maybe only seventy five people in the world who know what they are. But I’ll tell you what they are – WMDs, weapons of mass destruction! That’s what they are.
When I was away, it seems greed got greedier with a little bit of envy mixed in. Hedge funders were walking home with fifty, hundred million bucks a year. So Mister Banker, he looks around and says my life looks pretty boring. So he starts leveraging his interests up to forty, fifty to one, with your money, not his, yours, because he could. You’re supposed to be borrowing not them. And the beauty of the deal, no one is responsible. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool-aid. Last year ladies and gentlemen, forty percent of all American corporate profits came from financial services. Not production, not anything remotely to do with the needs of the American public. The truth is we are all part of it now. Banks, consumers, we’re moving the money around in circles. We take a buck, we shoot it full of steroids. We call it leverage. I call it steroid banking.
Now I’ve been considered a pretty smart guy when it comes to finance and maybe I was in prison too long. But sometimes it’s the only place to stay sane and look out through those bars and say “Hey, is everybody out there nuts?”
Its clear as a bell to those who pay attention, the mother of all evil is speculation, leveraged debt. The bottom line is borrowing to the hilt. And I hate to tell you this, it’s a bankrupt business model. It won’t work. Its systemic, malignant, and its global, like cancer. It’s a disease and we got to fight back. How are we going to do that? How are we going to leverage that disease back in our favor? Well I’ll tell you. Three words, “Buy my book!” Prices and profits work.”
Another great speech given by Gordon Gekko, in the new movie – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
I liked the movie. I didn’t love it like I love the first one but I loved every second GG was on the screen. And I think Josh Brolin did a great job. And I didn’t even hate Shia even though I could have done with a little less him and a little more Michael Douglas.
I was worried Oliver Stone would try to make this some huge morality tale since Hollywood loves to blame Wall Street, the big, bad corporate monsters and rich people (unless you are rich from making movies or music that is) for all that is bad and evil in the world. And Hollywood is full of morality…Plus Stone seems so shocked, in every recent interview anyway, that he unleashed GG on the world (really Oliver?) when he meant to show him as a villain (more people love Darth Vader than Luke so he should have known that.)
But he didn’t – not too much anyway. A lot of green energy plugging. I guess this was the only way to make the new young buck trader “likable” to the masses. “See Wall Street isn’t so bad when they want to bring cold fusion into the world! But shale oil – those guys are bastards.” Makes Shia’s character’s greed and drive acceptable. Kinda like when Al Gore pumps alternative energy…the areas/companies he has stock in that is…
The main plot centered around a Bear Stearns/Lehman Brothers-like take down followed up by the mass banking and financial markets free-fall and hysteria that came after. If you have read anything about those firms, this plot will not seem far-fetched at to you. At all.
Stone threw in some quite typical macho, alpha-male scenes but guess what – those guys generally ARE like that. So again, quite believable. Some of the special effects which I can only assume were included to help people figure stuff out (give them pictures = easier!) were needless, in my opinion. Felt they were more distracting than helpful. But I guess every single movie ever made now has to have some kind of digital effect.
Some fun cameos by financial and news people. And a few from the first movie which were funny. As well as a song thrown in as a throw-back! But alas, no Frank.
One very good thing explained was GG’s jail sentence and the time line from the first movie to this movie. I have complained forever that there is NO way he would be in jail all this time for insider trading – even with the WORST lawyer which you know he didn’t have. So thank you Oliver for making that more clear. I find it highly offensive and disgusting that anyone convicted of a white-collar crime would receive more actual jail time than a person who commits a violent crime – but people need their bogeymen and their heads on pikes.
Martha Stewart received 5 months jail time and 2 years probation (29 months total of punishment) for what was basically insider trading (the actual charges were different I think but that’s what she did.) This was a pretty small trade in her own account where she had insider knowledge due to the fact she was friends with the CEO. The amount of people that do what she did every day without getting sent to jail would probably piss some people off…the ones who didn’t get the insider info and act on it that is. I am not saying it wasn’t wrong and she shouldn’t be punished somehow. But jail time?
Michael Vick got 21 months of jail and 2 months home confinement ( 23 months total punishment) for his hands-on part in a dog-fighting ring. I recognize that I have a very strong opinion on this that not every one shares, but really? 23 months in total for showing us how cruel and inhuman you actually are? And then back to his high-flying football career being a hero to kids. Puke.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years for his multiple financial crimes. Horrible – yes. Deserves punishment – of course. But 150 years? How many murderers, rapists and pedophiles get off with 5 or 10 years – if that? But again – a head was needed, his rolled. End of story.
I am of the opinion that white-collar criminals should be made to do more community service as sentences. Real service – not give a lecture to at-risk kids. And no – not live in their penthouses while they do it. But how much are these guys fined for their crimes and hand over to the government? Use some of that to get them to work and keep them in a different facility (not tax-payer funded.) They are incredibly smart guys, make them use it for “good”.
But thrown in with drug dealers, gang members, rapists? No – sorry (contrary to popular belief they do not all go Camp Fed.) And those same violent criminals should be in jail longer than ANY white-collar criminal. My personal opinion only. But it’s my blog so my opinion rules :)
Anyway, went a little off-topic….back to the movie! If you liked the first Wall Street at all, then you will probably like this one. And there are so few movies pumped out nowadays that are worth the price of admission and hassle of going to the movies (rather than wait for DVD) to me.
I did feel the ending was a cop out. I wonder if Stone didn’t actually know where to go with it to keep morality in play? But I think he knew what people wanted and knew it was going to be hard to present it. So he went typical Hollywood. I won’t spoil what happens because I did find myself wondering most of the way through. It’s the last bit of the movie so it’s ok I suppose.
All in all, this one is not as fun and crazy as the first one but hey – this isn’t the 80s anymore.
11:49 am on September 30th, 2010
The feds need to make examples out of a select few to show that they are on top of all of the corruption. Laughable. That’s why I can’t stand when Rudy Guiliani was U.S. Attorney during the heyday – the guy ran so many specious witchhunts with little or no result – but he did make the target’s lives miserable. I think we know a couple of them too.
Paying back the profits and doing real community service as well as being banned from the industry is more than enough punishment to me – but I’m biased.
Speculation is what keeps the game interesting – with all due respect to GG, besides death and taxes there are no sure things. :)
8:28 pm on September 30th, 2010
Agreed – speculation is good by me. I loved his speech more for the pointing out that Mom and Pop refinancing their house for more than it’s worth and hitting the mall is no better or worse than the bankers and speculators. Sick and tired of the Obama-sponsored Wall Street finger-pointing…
You know me :)