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In February's Vanity Fair, there is a very brief blurb about the sequel to Wall Street alongside fancy Annie Leibovitz photos of the cast.  No one is mentioning the plot much, beyond the fact that Gordon Gekko, out of prison, is now going to be the hero, not the anti-hero.  Some other strange tidbits include that Gekko's estranged daughter will be the love interest of the young hero/hedge fund trader Shia La Beouf.  Did Gekko have a daughter 20 years ago?  He had a spoiled-but-ignored toddler boy, but I don't remember a daughter.  While we're being catty, could no one think of a better subtitle than "Money Never Sleeps"?  In 20 years, no one could think of anything better? 

Also, speaking of 20 years, Gordon Gekko never would have gotten 20 years in 1987.  Remember, he was supposed to be Ivan Boesky, who bargained for three years and served two in those halcyon pre-Guidelines days.  And recall that Michael Milken, or our Bud Foxx, was scapegoated and still only served less than two years.  But they were both barred from the securities industry, so I hope the plot deals with Gekko being barred as well.

OK, so the only quote in the paragraph-length article comes from Michael Douglas, who is trying to give a hint to the plot. 

?Gekko couldn?t manipulate the markets like he did back then,? he says. ?It?s so big, so huge, that to be a minor player you need to be a major bank.?

OK, let's think about this. Yes, the market has grown in capitalization. Using the Dow as a benchmark, a 10,000 point Dow is bigger than a (1987) 2,000 point Dow. Can it not be manipulated? We have a lot of laws that seem to suggest that it can. Interestingly, Gekko's manipulative schemes in the first movie were all done by straight buying and selling of common stock, which seems a little primitive these days. Surely Michael Douglas has heard of derivatives?

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