The point of the Gekko speech was always that it make sense to small shareholders because that's who he's appealing too. When he says "Greed is good" he's saying that's it's ok for them to want to take the cash for their shares. It was never intended as a defense of billionaires, because it was selling the idea that by owning and then selling shares everybody could get rich.

There is a similar movie with Danny DeVito playing a Gekko-type character where he does a very similar speech in the climax, but the name escapes me.

The real 1% speech is the anonymous Wall Street rant that circulated about how Wall Street guys are all about making money and they'll just take everybodyelse's jobs if they lose their jobs on Wall Street. Something a bit more school of Ayn Rand.

The default inspiration of about half the country is "business is the ultimate force for good."

Its counterpart for the other half is "business is the source of all our ills."

It's hard to see either side responding wholeheartedly to "you know, you can make an awful lot of money by smashing going businesses and selling off the parts."

Other People's Money was the DeVito movie. Gregory Peck gives an impassioned speech about old-fashioned values and loyalty and then DeVito carves him up.

All Obama has to do is show this Romney ad that never aired!

Ana Marie, you're probably too young to remember Ivan Boesky:

The character of Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street is based at least in part on Boesky, especially regarding a famous (commencement) speech he delivered on the positive aspects of greed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986, where he said in part "I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself".[8][9][10]

Romney's supporters are mostly old enough to remember that Berkeley speech. They didn't like it then, and they weren't surprised when Boesky ended up in jail for insider trading. Greed is like power: it leads to corruption. And absolute greed leads to absolute corruption. Romney's supporters aren't young kids, they've lived through this stuff. They know how it works. They supported Romney because they thought he did, too. Now they're finding out he doesn't.

Don't forget that Warren Buffet started out as an asset stripper, and he is now regarded as at least a demi-god, if not further up the great chain of being, by a vast proportion of the country.

I don't think his time at Bain hurts him with the crucial swing voters anywhere near as much as Democrats are hoping. What they need to concentrate on is what he wants to do to the country if he gets elected, not what he did when he was making his fortune.

Fulton, I suggest you read these comments by Oliver Stone about his film, Wall Street. Focus on this one

:•It’s funny to read articles about Gordon Gekko as if he exists. If you really listen to Gekko’s speech, half of it makes sense. But it's the excess, losing moderation, that destroys all. There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as a human motivator, greed motivating evolution. But there's a huge disconnect between the classes. It is very demoralizing to work for someone who makes a billion dollars a year while you make just barely enough to make it."

Ana Marie Cox

Romney's background in corporate restructuring casts him as a latter-day Gordon Gekko.

Gordon Gekko was an asset stripper. I’ve never heard that said about Bain Capital. Making losing companies profitable again is very different from liquidating losing companies to acquire their assets. If only we had more Bain Capitals...

"I like being able to fire people" --Willard Romney

'nuff said.

Past, present or future

Federal prosecutors proved that the Rigases used complicated cash-management systems to spread money around to various family-owned entities and as a cover for stealing $100 million for themselves. The New York Times noted that this differed considerably from other accounting scandals like Enron and Worldcom, saying "For the one trait that distinguishes the Rigases from virtually every other culprit on Wall Street is that they didn't sell their stock. The evidence suggests less that they intended to defraud than that they intended to hide inconvenient facts until they could be righted. This is also, of course, against the law; it's just a more tragic crime than ordinary looting.

John and Timothy Rigas started their prison sentence at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner, near Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 13, 2007. John received a sentence of 15 years and Timothy received 20 years.

Business is complicated. The Rigases, who kept their shares, took corporate assets for personal use, and will now spend a long time in prison. Shareholders who own poorly performing companies can immediately sell shares. It's a better deal than government. I can't sell my stake in this porly performing administration, and they keep borrowing money I'll have to pay off.

Companies like Bain perform a necessary function.They provide capital, like we do for government, but at least they have a choice. Less government actually increases our choice of investmnents.

Romney's unselfconscious pride in Bain's slash-and-burn approach to revamping companies ("we had to burn the village in order to save it") has always been the most serious threat to his chances against Obama.

That's true. Too many people don't understand business. But here's the type of tranaction a company like Bain would make:

If a super solar power cell was invented that reduced the need for coal by 50%, Bain would rightsize a coal producing company, so it could profitably produce at half the previous capacity. That would mean reducing employment by about 50%, and closing facilities. Should they maintain full employment and operations when nobody wants all their coal? Bain will of course attempt to do this profitably. And oif course they can't guarantee they can keep the company in business.

Let's hope the electorate is sophisticated enough to understand how business works. Most conservatives actually do. I'm a little concerned about many of the CIFfers, and most members of the Obama administration.

Are you under the impression that I think Gordon Gekko or the DeVito character are cool or something?

As Stone says, the speech makes half sense, it's meant to because the movie is reflecting it's time and place in the 80's when the message was that everybody should own shares because owning shares would make you rich. Gekko's speech is meant to be of its time, and it's meant to be appealing to people at that time, it was never intended to be a "the 1% are the job creators, don't tax them" speech.

I don't know what you think I'm meant to be getting from Stone's quote, since your post is devoid of any actual content.

Since we're on the topic of firing:

President Obama announced on Monday that William M. Daley, the White House chief of staff, was stepping down, after a frustrating year in which Mr. Daley struggled to find his footing in a ferociously partisan Washington.

Daley was brought in because he understood business. I guess in the Obama administration, that's a useless skill.

Huge conglomerates (Beatrice Foods, for example) were once seen as the ideal structure for the same reason "diversifying one's portfolio" (index funds, for example) was seen as ideal. Some businesses are inherently cyclical, so balancing them out can make sense if one's trying to appeal to the stock market. (Institutional buyers wanted to see a steady, even increase every year.) Not bad in concept, but also not good when taken to extremes. Getting rid of businesses extraneous to one's core competencies isn't "asset stripping", and I doubt that's what Warren Buffett was doing.

What Bain et al did was buy out companies with their own money. Look at their record. They bought that steel company, took out all the money to "pay themselves back" on their "investment", and then didn't have anything left when that CYCLICAL business went into a typical cycle. People who successfully ran cyclical industries didn't leverage themselves to the max because they recognized they were in a cyclical industry. Bain probably knew that too, but didn't care. I don't want the country's president to be someone who takes a short-term view (his tenure) rather than a long-term view. We've seen where that gets us.

Nothing on the Romney supporting Chris Christie oral sex put-down?

Something may go down tonight...

Greed is like power: it leads to corruption.

Perhaps but would like to live in a society without power? Greed is indeed good as long as we have mechanisms to put checks on it. Remember that Ivan Boesky spent years in prison (just like Gordon Gekko btw), was fined $100 million, and never made it again in business.

Michael Milkin, he of the leveraged buyout was another.

It's hard to see either side responding wholeheartedly to "you know, you can make an awful lot of money by smashing going businesses and selling off the parts."

It helps if you belong to the Austrian School and believe in 'creative destruction'.

I'd rather believe in the tooth fairy. Money magically appears under the pillow, and no-one loses their job.

You can cut the snark. Daley's going back to Chicago and will be a co-chairman of Obama's re-election campaign. I expect he's also going to be doing some projects with his brother Richard, whose wife recently died of cancer after a long fight. That's a close family, and I expect Bill felt any number of people could be Obama's chief of staff. He's more indispensable as Richard's brother.

Washington is now indeed too "ferociously partisan" for any Democrat to be listened to by the "our goal is to defeat Obama" Republicans. The point made by Huntsman in the last two debates and his TV ad. Obviously that sailed right over your head.

Thanks - I meant to include him and forgot while doing the cut and paste stuff. ;-)

If only you had a clue about what Bain Capital actually did in the years Romney was running it.

ngavc, I doubt you even bothered to read the story about Bain and the steel company. Here it is.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. had to bail out the company's pension fund because Bain underfunded it by $44 million.

The pension agency stepped in to pay basic benefits to the plant’s retirees. The benefit paid to GST Steel workers was less than the benefit promised in contract negotiations.

That happened two years after Romney left Bain, but based on his reaction to the report he doesn't seem to have any problem with what happened.

To understand this better, read about the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Then think about the FDIC, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All these groups have to rely on the honesty and business sense of others. They exist to mitigate the damages when an unforeseen disaster happens, NOT to help some guys game the system - and then brag that they must be smarter than everyone else because they were the first to figure out how to rip them off. No, they were the first to be too STUPID to understand that destroying the foundations of the economy is NOT a smart thing to do.

Those of you wanting "more Bain Caopitals" mnight want to give that some thought.

Time will tell but I tend to think you're wrong about that.

I think almost everybody who isn't a banker or a rentier understands the difference between businesses that make things and financial houses that divvy them up.

The former was our model from 1820 until Reagan, when the latter took over for good.

George Romney was a fine example of the old model. Sure he was a boss and a millionaire, but he was also a sometime hero to his employees, enough so that they crossed party lines and elected him their governor. Thirty years down the road, his kid, the one with the eyeshade and the inky fingers, advises Obama to let the automakers go bankrupt (he says it's really what his old man would have wanted). His generation evolved beyond noisy, smelly factory floors. They shake their heads and wonder how any sophisticated person with a taste for the finer things and even average good sense could possibly care whether those factories are in Michigan or China.

That happened two years after Romney left Bain, but based on his reaction to the report he doesn't seem to have any problem with what happened

I'm not sure what you think Romney should have done, pay out the $44 million. Companies fail. It is difficult to compete against foreign competition with unionized workers.

By 2001, facing increased competition from cheaper imported steel — and several years after a bitter labor dispute at the plant — GST Industries filed for bankruptcy and closed the subsidiary Kansas City operation, dismissing the remaining employees. A spokesman for the company said GST Steel lost $25 million in 2000.

The company also said it could not meet full pension and health care commitments to retirees, the Reuters story said. In August 2002 the federal government, through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., said the company had underfunded its pension obligations by $44 million.

The pension agency stepped in to pay basic benefits to the plant’s retirees. The benefit paid to GST Steel workers was less than the benefit promised in contract negotiations.

Pension agency benefits were paid for by premiums provided by pension plans and not directly from taxpayers.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/06/3356924/bain-capital-tied-to-bankruptcy.html#storylink=cpy

Here's what the NYT says:

Mr. Daley, an affable former banker who is the son and brother of legendary Chicago mayors, proved to be an awkward fit on the Obama team. Recruited largely for his deal-making skills and ties to the business world, he failed to help his boss strike a huge budget deal with Republicans in the House.

After that failed negotiation, which led to months of acrimony between the White House and Congress, some of Mr. Daley’s duties were transferred to Pete Rouse, a low-profile former Congressional aide with closer ties to the president.

The news of Mr. Daley’s departure was first reported by the Tribune Company newspaper chain.

That Mr. Daley was frustrated by Washington was no secret. In October, he told a Chicago TV station that he planned to leave the White House in January 2013, at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. It was not clear what precipitated his decision to leave now.

During his tenure, Mr. Daley had come under criticism for not adequately cultivating leaders in Congress. Some Democrats bridled when he publicly criticized Democrats, as well as Republicans, for being responsible for the gridlock in Washington.

It doesn't appear Daley, the guy who was touted as business friendly, was performing well. Apparently, suggesting partisan Democrats had some responsibility for gridlock didn't help.

Romney's unselfconscious pride in Bain's slash-and-burn approach to revamping companies ("we had to burn the village in order to save it") has always been the most serious threat to his chances against Obama. It's been fascinating to watch – as the strongest negative argument against his nomination to begin with.

Dream on. With Jon Corzine around their necks, particularly Obama's, Romney looks like a choir boy in comparison. Offered the choice between Romney and Obama, linked to Corzine, voters will take Romney every time.

What Bain et al did was buy out companies with their own money.

One of the more transparent examples is ManU's purchase by the Glazers, who transferred the debt onto the books of the formerly debt-free club.

Normally, what the Romneys of this world rely on is that business transactions involving sums way up in the stratosphere are usually presented in businesese, deliberately so in order to make them so opaque that the general public won't understand and therefore won't get mad. The consequent layoffs are presented as inevitable, with the hand of the corporate raider well out of sight. Romney's name probably didn't appear in an local paper or news show reporting that a plant had been closed.

However the Occupy movement develops, it has notably changed the conversation overnight, so that people are questioning business abuses that were previously accepted as the norm by the business and political establishments - Republicans and all too many Democrats. Otherwise, who would have dreamed that Romney's business track record would have attracted strong attack ads from his Republican primary opponents? If Romney wins the nomination, and the Democrats have the sense to exploit his history, it will be the gift that keeps on giving. And for heaven's sake, how much sense will they need?

Romney's unselfconscious pride in Bain's slash-and-burn approach to revamping companies ("we had to burn the village in order to save it") has always been the most serious threat to his chances against Obama

.

i disagree. both with your caricature and with the substance. I think people are hungry for a leader with some real world experience.I still believe something beats nothing, and i think most of the country still does too. we'll see soon enough. If Romney created one job, started one successfull company, as we know he did, its more than obama's ever done. More than gingrich or Perry has ever done too, by the way.

if you think keeping people on the payrole of failing enterprises is preferable, take a look at greece or italy or portugal or spain...to say nothing of backwaters like cuba.

the idea of it reminds me of that famous story of mussolini rolling out wooden tanks and planes for a parade when hitler came to town...to make it look like he had something...but it was all a charade. A mirrage. Smoke and mirrors.

its preferable for politicians because it wins them votes but its terrible for the economy.

greed isn't good. but nobody's talking about greed.

we're talking about competitiveness. Competitiveness is good. Europe save for germany lost its a long time ago. We're on our way.

lets not how about it?

There was a front page article today in the WSJ analyzing Romney's tenure at Bain. He had some big successes. There were many failures or at least mediocre performances. The successes more than paid for the non successes. Venture capital works on much the same "home run" model; enough of them makes up for the strike outs. Patching up floundering companies can make big profits but they are floundering for a reason. Not all are patchable, and floundering companies do not provide the good secure jobs some here apparently think they do.

Asset stripping generally means an asset is sold off. If an asset is sold off it means it is now in the possession of someone who wants it and actually might pay more attention to it. What's the matter with asset stripping?

Buying and selling companies and consolidation of industries has been around a long time - a lot longer than Reagan. How many car companies were there in the early 1900s? Lots. Ditto for railroads in the late 1800s.

BAIN

Bain, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for
With real downsizing powers to call my own
As President, I’ll never, ever not be alone
And you, my friend, soon will see
Corporations are people, just like you and me

Bain, you’re always running here and there
(here and there)
You seem unwanted anywhere
(except for 25 per cent, how’s that fair?)
If you ever look behind and don’t like what you find
There’s something you should know
It’s easy just to change your mind!

I used to say “I” and “me”
Now it’s “us” now it’s “we”
(At least, far away in Salt Lake City)

Bain, most people would turn you away
I don’t listen to a word they say
They don’t see you as I do
Putting folks out of work shouldn’t make you blue
I’m sure the lazy bums would think again
If they had a friend like Bain
(a friend)
Like Bain
(like Bain)
Like Bain

- for Willard Romney, apologies to Michael Jackson (and Ben)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTJ2xVr0PA

There has been very little social, political, moral or ethical control over the "greed is good" attitude for the last three decades.
Who is to control? Politicians? They are "in it together" with the captains of industry and finance. Religious leaders could not handle the global child abuse scandal.
That leaves us the 99-per-centers. Are we up to it? I am not so sure.
As to the presidential candidates in the US, they are all millionaires, the one-per-centers. What can we expect? Nothing.

you know that you have crossed a line when you get mocked for heartlessness by Rick santorum.

tommy- yo, been ahwile.

waco- somewhat boring football.

Other People's Money.

Mildly funny, nothing special, exactly what you expect from Devito.

Getting rid of businesses extraneous to one's core competencies isn't "asset stripping", and I doubt that's what Warren Buffett was doing.

It's interesting that you 'doubt' asset stripping is what Warren Buffet started out doing. Because there isn't any doubt: that is really is what he did, and not just 'getting rid of businessesextraneous to core competnecies' either. His activities put plenty of people out of work, too. It was a long time ago, now, but that's how he built up the beginnings of his vast fortune. I'm not defending Romney or Bain by any means, only pointing out that if Buffet can now be viewed as a near saint the categories may be more malleable than some people suppose. Me I wouldn't want Warren Buffet as President any more than I would want Mitt Romney. But I know a lot of people don't agree with me there.

Of course I understand the difference between businesses that make things and financial houses the divvy things up. If Obama can successfully paint Romney as a Henry Potter, then I agree Romney loses big time. My point was that it might not be as easy to do as you suppose, and my evidence is that Warren Buffet is now seen as some kind of financially successful version of Will Bailey, when the truth is rather different, and I'm sure Romney will attempt at least to follow that same road. And the truth doesn't matter so much as how easily the swing voters may be persuaded to follow him along that road. Yes things changed, in the real world, in Reagan's time, but the notions in people's heads often still cleave to that old model no matter what goes on in front of their eyes. So I wonder. I hope you are correct, but I wonder.

My point wasn't so much that our ilk recognize that difference or that it's important to those of us that do - actually, I think we mostly don't and it mostly isn't - but that business people on the non-financial side of things feel it very acutely, and have largely come to hate the street intensely. Rove's narratives aside, they don't yearn to be ruled by hedge fund operators and arbitrageurs. On the contrary: every time the cell door slams on one of that crowd, there is satisfaction in offices everywhere.

If a Jack Welch or Lee Iacocca could come back and run, every Republican businessman I've ever known would fall in love with him instantly, never doubting that the very things that made him great in business are exactly what we need in a president. But they know and fear Mitt's kind of bottom feeder way too well to confuse him with the people they grew up admiring.