What a nice scene from a nice movie in 1987, Wall Street. Michael Douglas played Gordon Gekko, a brilliant and evil monetary genius who ultimately went to jail. Fast forward 20+ years- what's changed? Well the sequel Wall Street: Cash Never Sleeps is in production (I am unable to wait to see it-its unleash date is September 2010). The film is ready in 2008. Gekko gets out of jail and unsuccessfully tries to warn business leaders of the approaching economic downturn.
What have we tend to leaned from Gordo? Certainly as a society we have learned by the awful experience of the past 2 years that in fact greed isn't sensible, it isn't right, and it doesn't work (a minimum of not for the larger good). We tend to are nearly two years into a cratered economy set into motion by the greed and financial manipulations of the Gordon Gekko's of some of the state's largest financial institutions.
But the painful reality is that the American public conjointly shares blame for our economic demise. Several people spent recklessly. We assumed solely upside and growth. We usually bought a lot of than we could afford, had higher mortgages than our incomes justified, bought vacation homes, cars, toys, jewelry, etc. that were beyond our suggests that and beyond our needs. We have a tendency to believed the money models that said money doubles each few years. How's that working for you?
Though the economy has stabilized (e.g. not gotten worse) we are still on the precipice of economic disaster and still have deep societal issues staring us within the face-a healthcare system whose prices are out of control, aging baby boomers many of whom can outlive their savings, an underfunded social security system designed for people who died in their 60s not their 80s and 90s, and an atmosphere that we have a tendency to've trashed and want to clean up. And we tend to face the real prospect that our children's lives will be harder and less prosperous than ours. Happy thoughts.
My hope is that we tend to have entered an era of "new frugality" where outrageous conspicuous consumption is viewed as ugly, and economic humility is respected. Saving cash, using coupons, and questioning expenditures is good. Overspending using oversupplied credit on unneeded items is bad. I realize that lesser spending on merchandise and services might stymie an economic rebound. Therefore be it. But, a lot of frugal and well balanced personal lifestyles by the American public, along with real controls that won't enable the Gordon Gekkos to pillage our economy will help offer a platform for future stability. Most customers have altered their lifestyles-some painlessly, whereas others have had tremendous personal sacrifice. Also beyond the economic woes of the many, there is an underlying shift of more control on one's spending together with technology to provide smarter shopping and price comparison.
I pray we tend to've learned our lesson and there are sunnier economic days ahead. Only the long run will tell. Then again I assumed 3-hour lines at the fuel pumps in the 70s were our wake-up decision about our overdependence on oil. I guess we have a tendency to learn slowly and painfully. In any event I anticipate seeing Gordon Gekko on the large screen within the fall.
Lonny Strum is Managing Director of the Strum Consulting Cluster that provides strategic business promoting and business consulting to skilled services corporations and corporations seeking an independent audit of their selling activities. Lonny includes a thirty year background in selling and has been CEO of two of the most important Philadelphia space communications agencies and had been part of the management team of BBDO/New York, one of the nation's largest ad agencies.
Author Resource:-
Link :
Alex Turner has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Economics, you can also check out his latest website about:
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/feed-icon.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://article2008.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites