Corporate Governance

Wall Street: Greed Never Sleeps

By Katharine Jensen

Those of us who flocked to movie theaters this past weekend to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, inevitably left with the same question in mind: will the clean tech bubble be the next to burst? 

Fans of the 1987 original film will be thrilled to see Michael Douglas reprise his role as Gordon Gekko, a Wall Street tycoon sentenced to eight years in prison for insider trading and securities fraud.  Prison seems to have changed Gekko, who attempts to reconnect with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan) upon his release.  Shia LaBeouf gives a striking performance as Jacob Moore, Winnie's fiancé and clean technology protégé, who teams up with Gekko to seek revenge for the collapse of his investment banking firm and death of his mentor. 

Oliver Stone, in directing the only sequel of his career thus far, aims to portray the financial crisis of 2008 as this generation's 1929 stock market crash.  It is unclear whether Stone intends the film to be merely a mirror held up to the banking and oil industries or whether its purpose is to show that the crisis was preventable- an internal collapse caused by the very people entrusted to protect the country's financial health. 

What is clear, however, is Stone's message concerning the instability of almost every industry.  Consistent references to the dot-com bubble, which 'burst' in 2000, and the housing bubble, which some argue has yet to fully deflate, leave the audience wondering what's next for America's financial community.

What's next, the film hints, is clean technology, a term without a clear definition but what most agree means a range of products, processes, and services that utilize renewable energy and materials to reduce or eliminate emissions and waste.  In 2007, The United Nations Environment Program ("UNEP") reported that clean technology companies received $148 billion in new funding, a direct response to rising oil prices and a growing interest in renewable energy.  This funding increased by 60% from 2006, despite the infamous 'credit crunch' at the time.  With an average annual growth rate of 254% since 2004, Achim Steiner, the head of UNEP, was correct in 2008 to deem this the 'green energy gold rush.'

One cannot help but wonder if the writers of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps read John Kenneth Galbraith's 'A Short History of Financial Euphoria.'  Not only does the book mention Tulipomania, a consistent theme throughout the film, but it seems to center around the movie's primary message.  Some argue that Galbraith's book predicted the financial crisis in 2008, suggesting that all major investment trends suffer from what he calls 'mass escape from sanity by people in pursuit of profit.' 

Whether Galbraith's book will accurately predict the future for clean technology is yet to be seen, but the truth of Galbraith's book is echoed in the words of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps: 'Someone reminded me I once said ‘greed is good.'  Now, it seems, it's legal.'

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on September 30, 2010 (boomark / email).