Project B: movie response
Global Financial Ethics – FIN6620
The movie response that will be covered in this essay will be on the film “Wall Street Money Never Sleeps ”. It was directed by Oliver Stone, released during 2010 and is the sequel to the 1987 film “Wall Street”. The film starts with the release from jail of Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko before cutting to a rather elaborate plot involving Shia LaBeouf as the young trader with (some) scruples, who's rising in a world that just happens to be collapsing at the same time, as investment banks run by the likes of Frank Langella and Josh Brolin teeter under the weight of the 2008 financial crisis. The story then carefully weaves in more and more to Gekko (who, conveniently, also
…show more content…
This is one of the many flaws, which has been allowed to occur within the banking industry, to the point where it has become the norm (Peston, 2011).
One of the most prominent ethical issues presented in this movie is the idea of insider trading, which is the trading of stock with hidden information that the general publics is not informed about. It began with rumours being spread on “Zabel” by Bretton James who runs the rival bank Churchill Schwartz, which caused the rumours to become true, and Keller Zabel to be on the verge of collapse. Bretton James then insults Lewis Zabel by offering him $3/share when the firm was trading the previous week at $75/share. Zabel claims that this was revenge for letting Jame’s company go under eight years ago. These series of events causes Zabel to commit suicide by throwing himself under a subway. To avenge his mentor Shia Labouf releases rumours on Churchil Shwartz, which caused their shares to drop down 8% in pre market trading costing them $120million. Insider trading can be a very powerful tool within the financial sector; it can be used to make large profits as well as destroying others. As illustrated in the movie, Lewis Zabel took his life due to the results of Insider trading. It’s a criminal offence in most countries, however as Shia Labouf said it’s “hard to prove”, this is due to the difficulty of trying to prove what a person has heard via word of mouth. Because Insider trading is illegal,
Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something such as power, wealth or food.’ We have all heard the stories of the stockbroker that stole millions of dollars of their client’s money for personal use, or men that were able to take down large public traded corporations by falsifying the books and pocketing large sums of money. Greed has always existed among people; there are stories that date back to the Ancient Roman Empire. There are movies and books written about greed, Wolf of Wall Street is a famous one based on a true story. The main character Jordan is a stockbroker that figured out how to beat Wall Streets rules and regulations. He would become one of the riches men to ever work on Wall Street. Why are people so greedy? Is greed
The stock market crash was a leading cause in the great depression and negatively impacted the US by increasing poverty, making it harder to live, and it also changed economics and the world today. I will explain the reasons behind the crash and its effects on life in America.
In 1938, and in the teeth of the longest and fiercest depression that the United States had ever known, capital spending hit an all time high. That’s right! In 1938 the men who owned America began to pour millions of Dollars into new plant and equipment as if there was no tomorrow. We don’t think much about it today, because it has been a long time since the United States has experienced a real bone jolting economic slowdown. The fact is, however, that the very best time for the industrialist to invest in new technologies is in the middle of a depression. This is because it is at such times that labor, raw materials, and new equipment can be purchased at rock bottom prices. Henry Ford may have jumped the gun a bit. He shut down his River
“I am not in this world to live up to other people 's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine”, states Fritz Pearls in the “Gestalt Prayer”. As a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Pearls’ quote casts a spot light on social awareness versus self- independence and nonconformity. Similar to the short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”, published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine in 1853 by Herman Melville. The narrator, is an elderly lawyer with a small time firm who hires a scrivener named Bartleby. In the beginning Bartleby does the work asked of him by the lawyer but as time progresses he stops working completely using the phrase “I would prefer not to” as a form of negligible defiance. As a result of Bartleby’s consistent refusal to complete various tasks and to leave the establishment the lawyer is forced to move his practice elsewhere. The lawyer returns to find that Bartleby was labeled as a vagrant and removed from the office by law enforcement. The lawyer’s strange obsession with Bartleby drives him to visit him in the tombs that have become his prison. As he continued his defiance in the form of refusal of food, he soon dies from starvation.
Hollywood films sometimes survive long after its initial release, moving its characters and messages into mainstream culture. One such example is Oliver Stones’ 1987 film Wall Street, which introduced the world to the infamous Gordon Gekko. Stone set his film in the 1980s around the time when several insider trading scandals and prosecutions were in the news. The film portrayed the high-flying lifestyles of New York traders and speculators and showed the extreme excess and greed of American culture. Gordon Gekko captured the essence of this greedy lifestyle with his “take-no-prisoners” school of capitalism. Gekko is portrayed as a corporate raider. He buys underperforming companies, breaks them up and sells their parts at a healthy profit.
Life insurance is meant to provide funds to replace a breadwinner's to protect and support dependents. Chad and Haley are dependents, not income providers. Therefore, the purchase of life insurance is unnecessary and not recommended. The Dumonts should use the money they would spend on policies for the children to increase their own coverage.
The Wolf on Wall Street is a movie based on the true story of Jordan Belfort. The beginning of the movie Jordan narrates his middle class up bring and his current lavish lifestyle. He confesses his extreme drug use and his favorite drug, money. The movie goes on to a flashback of the beginning of his career at a mediocre stock firm. As the film progress, the views get and inside look into Jordan’s rather regular early life. Jordan was hooked instantly. Our main character goes on to starting his on firm with a few of his friends. Jordan fell into a life of corruption, greed, and crime. This movie shows the stratification of social classes with in the live of the main character.
“The Choice of Wall Street,” is the title of the first chapter in William Greider’s 1987 book, “Secrets of The Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country.” This chapter is basically the story of how and why Paul Volcker was chosen to be the new Federal Reserve Chairman. It all started in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter took a trip to Camp David with his most trusted advisers, the purpose of which was to decide on the course of action that needed to be taken to regain popular support so that he had a chance to win the upcoming Presidential election. All of his advisers understood that the economy was his most pressing issue. Inflation was incredibly high and all attempts to
The financial crisis of 2008 was an enormous catastrophe and therefore a perfect story to be adapted to film. Retelling the story of the collapse of Wall Street had a further result than merely being lucrative though. Movies like Inside Job (2010), Too Big to Fail (2011) and The Big Short (2015) also inform people about the causes and dealings of the financial collapse. Most importantly however, they evoke an emotional response by telling the audience where to lay the blame. However, the movies not only helped shape the public narrative, they are also reflections of the people's attitudes towards Wall Street. While the movie's narrative stands in contrast to the narratives that advertising, journalism and public relations told, it is still the more commonly accepted one.
Compare and Contrast Essay In comparing and contrasting, Kate Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”. In the both short stories, the element of fiction- symbolism which is defined as “anything …represents, something else. In a story, a character, an action, an object, or an animal can be symbolic… stand for something abstract…or an idea” (smithsonianeducation.org).is being used on all accounts to convey the theme of individuals’freedom being suppressed by society. Symbolism is being extensively used by both authors in the short stories to convey the themes of the stories more effectively.
People who work on Wall Street are considering elites of the society, their works relate to finance and deal with the world economy. Many students desire for working on Wall Street; however, this dream is hard to accomplish because this job is for people who are considered “smart”. In Biographies of Hegemony, the author Karen Ho brings up the idea of smartness, which addresses to people not only have individual intelligence, but also have the quality of being an expert and has self-confidence, aggressive, and hard-working. Basically, in the article, Ho talks about students graduate from Harvard or Princeton and now they are working on Wall Street. Ho believes smartness is a form of impressiveness because smartness is not just about intelligence, but also a way to separate away from normal people. However, in Project Classroom Makeover, the author Cathy Davidson pays more attention to students who may not be the expertise, but they will use collective learning to share different opinions. Collective learning brings out the idea of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a group of people share ideas and solve problems, which is one way of collective learning. The theory of smartness shares commons and differences with collective learning. For common, both smartness and collective learning require students to work together and have the confidence to conquer the difficulties, which lead students to the future success. For differences, smartness is associated with students who have an
The movie 'Wall Street' is a representation of poor morals and dissapointing business ethics in the popular world of business. This movie shows the negative effects that bad business morals can have on society. The two main characters are Bud Fox played by Charlie Sheen and Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas. Bud Fox is a young stockbroker who comes from an honest working-class family but on the other hand, Gordon Gekko is a millionaire who Bud admires and wants to be associated with. Greed seems to be a huge theme of this movie. This movie portrays the unethical society we live in. It shows how money oriented society has become and that people will do almost anything to get ahead.
There is a sense of complexity today that has led many to believe the individual investor has little chance of competing with professional brokers and investment firms. However, Malkiel states this is a major misconception as he explains in his book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”. What does a random walk mean? The random walk means in terms of the stock market that, “short term changes in stock prices cannot be predicted”. So how does a rational investor determine which stocks to purchase to maximize returns? Chapter 1 begins by defining and determining the difference in investing and speculating. Investing defined by Malkiel is the method of “purchasing assets to gain profit in the form of reasonably
It was 1929, and in the United States things could not be better for those smart enough, or for that matter, brave enough, to gamble on the Stock Market. All of the big stocks were paying off handsomely, the little ones too. However, as much as analysis tried to tell the people that this period of great wealth would last, no one could imagine what would come of the United States economy in the next decade. The reasons for this catastrophic event in American 20th century history are numerous, and in his book, The Great Crash, John Kenneth Galbraith covers the period and events which lead up to the downward spiral in the fall of 1929 and the people behind the scenes on Wall Street who helped this fire spread.
This work will examine the case 'Banking Industry Meltdown: The Ethical Financial Risk Derivatives" and determine which moral philosophy is most applicable to an understanding of the banking industry meltdown and explain the rationale. The case study will be analyzed and white-collar crimes considered as to whether they are different in any substantive manner from other more blue-collar crimes. This study will determine and discuss the role that corporate culture played in banking industry scenario and the response will be supported with specific examples. This work will postulate how leaders within the banking industry could have used their influence to avert the industry meltdown.