The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.
–Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, in 1987’s “Wall Street”
Oh, sure, we all knew greed wasn’t good anymore, but when, exactly, did it become fashionable to bash the unabashed accumulation of wealth? Isn’t every other 28-year-old a slacker turned instant dot-com kajillionaire these days? Instead of turning green with envy, aren’t we supposed to ingratiate ourselves with one of them, so we can get in on a good “friends and family” IPO gravy train?
We remained shocked that earlier this month GOP presidential front-runner George W. Bush took his party to task for its focus on the economy “to the exclusion of all else.” What a concept: It’s not the economy, stupid!
We continue to be bowled over by advice given to Nebraska students by billionaire investor Warren Buffett–the third richest man in America!–who told them last week, as the Associated Press put it, to choose their professions for love of the work, not the money.
(“If something is worth doing,” said Gekko, “it’s worth doing for money.”)
Perhaps the seeds of this budding anti-greed movement were planted in 1997 by the billionaire financier George Soros, who caused an uproar (with some apparently long-lasting ripples) when he wrote in Atlantic Monthly: “The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat. . . . Our sense of right and wrong is endangered by our preoccupation with success, as measured by money.”
So much for a Donald Trump presidential candidacy.