September 16, 2008

I got deja vu all over again

Posted by blogger at 9/16/2008

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Always loved that "greed is good" speech. He has a point about the topheavy board of Teldar, though!

September 16, 2008 12:56 PM
Anonymous said...

Showing right now on AMC - coincidence?

hmmm...

September 16, 2008 12:59 PM
Anonymous said...

greatest-movie-evah!

well second best behind goodfellas.

September 16, 2008 1:37 PM
Anonymous said...

Oliver Stone intended this character to be an object of what is bad about Wall Street.
Instead Michael Douglas played the role so well that bad became a model for senseless accumulation for the sake of accumulation.
Plus, how about that son of his in the movie? The trophy wife?
Remember, for every Gekko there is a Wildman.

September 16, 2008 2:39 PM
Anonymous said...

But OMG... don't the raw numbers sound quaint?? "...30 executives making in excess of 200K each..." That's rich! I think Wall Street admin. assistants make about that much these days.

I saw this movie in h.s., in a commercial theater --like everyone used to have to do! ha ha! -- and now I fear I'm turning into my own great-grandmother, who left the IOMan in the 20's due to economic hardship only to live through the great depression, San Joaquin Valley edition. I don't think we told her the true price of anything from about ca. 1970 on... It would just meet with shrieks and moans. Watching this, Keith, I feel as old as dirt...) L.

September 16, 2008 3:25 PM
Anonymous said...

AMEN!

September 16, 2008 4:55 PM
Frank R said...

Ahh, my favorite movie scene ever :)

September 16, 2008 5:48 PM
Anonymous said...

This movie is actually no 2 to "American Psycho", as an expose of the Street and its culture.

The key here is that "Wall Street" was a morality play... unionized good workers vs corporate raiders (and pump 'n dump traders). The truth is that the world is more complex than that and that's where "American Psycho" kicks in.

It's that the whole culture of Wall Street is simply *not real* and only a sociopathic killer could see it, not the so-called well-to-do, law-abiding denizens there. And because this person (played by Christian Bale) hated the phoney society he congregated around and subsequently, himself, he went berserk but the truth of the movie was that he was more aware (though crazy) and the others around him, unconscious. And it's that collective unconsciousness which created the greatest mortgage back financial bubble in history.

September 16, 2008 7:30 PM
Anonymous said...

movie needs a remake. maybe even in documentary form

September 16, 2008 9:22 PM
Anonymous said...

The Michal Douglas character was a insider trader and a cheat in the movie . The character got it in the end .
Self-interest is something that all human have ,but greed is not good ,especially if you have to cheat to
get what you want.

Wasn't the housing boom game players nothing but a bunch of cheats trying get rich ?
The realtors were cheating ,the mortgage agents were cheating ,the borrowers were cheating with the liar loans ,Wall Street was cheating with passing off junk paper and rating agencies were cheating with mis-pricing risk .
The business world was cheating by making money off this baby .

Are you not leading your fellow man down the path of destruction by giving him money he can't pay back ?

Having a desire to produce something or get ahead is a normal desire ,but greed is wanting without earning or getting rich quick ,or wanting to much .

People who want to make 1 thousand % on their money in one year are greedy .Most investments just don't perform like that unless they are held for many years .

September 17, 2008 5:37 AM
Anonymous said...

--The Michal Douglas character was a insider trader and a cheat in the movie

Yeah, but Douglass played a Mephistopheles, a lone tempter to dissuades others, like Bud, on the straight and narrow. Now, the question is whether or not anyone, who'd worked on the Street, during a credit run up is on the, uh-hum, straight and narrow?

The truth is that Wall St is actually a culture of both mutual deception and a false sense of propriety. The rules for proper capitalization, compliance, etc, were all thrown out to keep the party going for the big firms. I believe that many workers, at some level, were a party to the game. In that sense, "American Psycho", as a film makes more sense than "Wall Street". It's not a morality play as it is an expose of a fraudulent culture of deception and self-deception. And the greater the deception, the longer the games went on. And finally, the roosters come home and non-HP persons sit around, surprised, wondering how it all happened?

September 17, 2008 3:45 PM

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