..........and it can save you up to 15% on car insurance..................
Posted on 09/24/2010 6:03:13 AM PDT by facedodge
Gordon Gekko, the archetypal villain of iconic 1980s movie “Wall Street” has a new mantra: greed is not just good, it's legal and it's everywhere.
But his words, and the sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” that hits cinemas in the UAE on Thursday, is unlikely to strike the same chord with securities traders and bankers that made Gekko a cult hero and the epitome of unabashed, 1980s financial excess, industry experts say.
“I don't think it will be as big an issue on Wall Street in terms of dirtying its image,” said Igor Kirman, a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a major Wall Street law firm.
When “Wall Street” hit cinemas in 1987, the stock market had suffered a massive crash and Americans were angry. The film showed how bankers bought companies, stripped their assets, destroyed proud U.S. businesses and left countless blue-collar workers standing in unemployment lines.
Director Oliver Stone may be taking on Wall Street again, but in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial meltdown which drew universal ire from politicians and a steady stream of scandals – from Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme to the collapse of one firm which embodied the 1980s excesses, Lehman Brothers – bankers are not worried about Stone's new film.
“Wall Street has been dragged through the mud in the last year or so. It has been scapegoated,” said Kirman. “There is nothing that Oliver Stone is going to say...in this movie that our president has not said himself. It's not going to be a huge punch against Wall Street.”
The movie saw its premiere at the Cannes film festival in May and met with mixed reviews. Since then, Stone said, he spent three weeks doing some extra editing.
Michael Douglas is back as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko, but this time taking the blame for financial chicanery are the major money centre banks and those who run them.
Central to the film's plot is a love relationship between Gekko's daughter, portrayed by Carey Mulligan, and a young Wall Street trader named Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) whose aggressive business dealings land him in trouble.
Kool-Aid
“Someone reminded me I once said, 'Greed is good,' now it seems it is legal, because everybody is drinking the same Kool-Aid,” Gekko says at the beginning of the sequel as he leaves prison after serving time for insider trading.
Stone, a long-time critic of unbridled capitalism whose father was a stockbroker, told reporters that while the film was timely, bubbles in the financial cycle are here to stay.
“Love and trust and greed and betrayal; they go on and...they are equivalent to the eighties and they are equivalent now,” he said, adding that the 2008 crisis was not so different from 1987, “When I thought greed was outrageous.”
“The concept of American optimism, making money, being successful, is an ongoing part of the American ethos,” said Stone, who has put forward contrarian views of America in such movies as “JFK” and “Nixon.”
And if some on Wall Streets would not go and see the film because they don't like him, so be it, he said.
“If you look at it as a farmer...you don't sell all your crop to everybody.” he said.
While the ways in which Wall Streeters make money may be different now than a quarter century ago, some industry players said the principles of profit and ambition are unchanged.
“It's the same type of people and the same sort of culture,” said John Nowak, who works on Wall Street but asked that his company's name remain anonymous.
Some reviewers said the film will draw interest from fans of the original, but others, including veteran indieWire critic Todd McCarthy, said the script was poorly pasted together and did not stir emotions against the greed of corporate America.
“It's surprising for Oliver Stone to propagate an air of complacency about the financial state of things,” McCarthy wrote in his review.
BTW here is a link to the original speech "Greed is Good"
Greed is legal- one need to look at what the rat wingers on Capital Hill and ayatollah obama do with our money...
The greediest people on the face of the earth are those who are destroying our country for the purposes of getting power for themselves. Top among their names are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank, who are the criminals. Wall Street investment houses are simply accomplices.
I much prefer this greed speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
How about the timing of the release of this movie?
Hey hollyweird, if your boys stay in power, no one will have any spare cash left to go see your propaganda flicks.
..........and it can save you up to 15% on car insurance..................
I’ll stick with Tony Stark.
It is true that it is everywhere. "Greed" (meaning wanting to make money) isn't a bad thing. Greed only becomes a bad thing when you want to get money dishonestly or by hurting someone else. (You know, like how the Democrats do it.)
Greed is an emotion, not an action. When has an emotion ever been illegal ... well, maybe Obama wants to make it a thoughtcrime.
Very good clip. Too bad TV debates aren’t that low-key and rational. Maybe then the (gasp!) truth would get out.
Interestingly enough, Democrats believe theft is legal, and it’s a higher moral calling to take from “those who have” and give to “those who have not”.
To me that statement implies that regulation of the financial industry has, in recent years, been reduced. Why do I doubt that the number of laws affecting the financial industries has decreased over those years?
More subtle liberal propaganda.
I love those Geico commercials. A cool idea for political ads: “Can Geico really save you 15% on car insurance? Is Harry Reid corrupt?”
BINGO!!!!... and what is more greedy, the person who has greed for money, or the person who has greed for so much power he wants to legislate your very emotions.
“Can Geico really save you 15% on car insurance? Is Barack Hussein Obama an American?”........
Stone, a long-time critic of unbridled capitalism whose father was a stockbroker “
I figured Stone was a spoiled brat son of a well to do businessman. He has been arrested several times for DUI and cocaine in Los Angeles too.
I really liked the original Wall Street (even as I dislike Oliver Stone personally). Michael Douglas’ performance was a tour d’ force.
Has anyone seen the sequel? How does it compare to the original?
Greed is legal if your one of the chosen ones. If not a chosen one, or useful as an example that the government is doing its job, it’s still illegal. Ask Martha Stewart.
“Can Geico really save you 15% on car insurance?”
Not if it’s competing with State Farm. Hasn’t the citizenship issue been decided?/s
Great video. Always fun to see PH exposed for the ass clown that he is.
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