Academic

Greed is Good II

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

In yet another instance of serendipity, we are watching Oliver Stone's movie Wall Street next week in my Law, Literature, and Business class. In fact, I was in the middle of watching the movie (which I hadn't seen since it debuted in 1987) as Lisa was blogging about the ungoodness of greed. Apparently she wasn't the only one thinking about Gordon Gekko.

Stone's Gekko reminds me of Milton's Satan or Shakespeare's Shylock in that, although we the audience know that we're not supposed to like this guy, he gets the best lines, steals every scene he's in, and lingers longest in our memory. It's particularly odd in Stone's case because his politics are so anti-Gekko, although my reading of the classic Greed is Good scene is that Gekko pitches himself as a shareholder activist. In Stone's rather bizarre take on a shareholder meeting Gekko contrasts his good greed to the apathy of the 33 Vice Presidents Teldar corporation, with their corporate jets and golden parachutes (a funny juxtaposition, because presumably they acquired said jets and parachutes by being greedy). Somehow Stone, quintessential rabblerouser, created the apparently timeless Gekko.

And speaking of greed, where are the AIG deal documents? We all want to see them. I'm teaching my students about disclosure-based system of securities regulation, and we've got one piddling press release. Are they still being negotiated, as Davidoff speculates?

Full post as published by Conglomerate on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).