"The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for a lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms. Greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked an upward surge of mankind, and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."
- Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street
Gordon Gekko is surely one of my all time favorite movie characters. He hits the spot with his greed-speech, in a way that is hard to deny (giving a certain ability to think rationally).
It seems strange to make a movie character speak with such economic wisdom, clarity and rationality in one scene, and then say some complete nonsense a little later in the movie, like his following words about the capitalist free-market: "Its a zero sum game. Somebody wins, somebody looses." Here he says something that couldn't be further from the truth! The free market is not a zero sum game, not by a long-shot! It's the very opposite. It's the expansion of the cake, not the division of it. Politics is the division of the cake. Perhaps Oliver Stone got confused?
Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that everyone watch Gordon Gekko's speech about greed and get inspired!
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