Greed is good.

sure. what someone thinks is 'greedy' is subjective.



I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you've never heard!

Thats a trick question. Greed is not good, it brings out all kinds of evil to meet the requirements for feeding greed. You want something, at some point you get it, which will only lead to wanting more because it tasted good acquiring it.
At some point, you get that much, the only way to still feed the greed is stepping out of morality to obtain the feel, thats when it turns evil.
Now, its good, because what gecko was talking about IS good, all humankind accomplished, science, wealth, knowledge etc, all is from a drive to get more. And our current system, and im talking everything, from the beggar in the street up to the multi billion dollar rich fart only works on this. The first is being preyed on by the latter, everyone and everything is preying on to try feed the greed. Everyone is wriggling, finding ways to meet the needs to fill that need. Some stop at a certain point because it becomes to ugly.
However, if you can get past the morality issues that WILL arise going for the big ticket, you will succeed in this system, the only system we have.
The trick to it all is to stay covert, everything goes under the table, you scheme and plot all to fill the pocket you own, and you keep going. Sooner or later boundaries get crossed, then you have to scheme and plot meanwhile trying not to be detected because its ugly. Some of these ugly things get detected, then you need a scapegoat in order to turn attention away from what is really going on. And theres tons of those going around, the biggest ones always turn to political figures, but those are the scapegoats, political figures are just cannonfodder, and you or i are voting for them, theyre not the ones that pulling the strings, youre not that naieve are you? After hundreds of years of capitalism this has been nested so deep its become a cancer.

And thats the main problem i have with this movie, Bud kinda suplied a happy ending as is customary for Hollywood, the truth however is not happy at all, Bud in the movie is just another looser, he had the system in his grasp and let it slip trying to be a good guy, well you cant work in the system if you are a good guy you will be dead and forgotten by tomorrow.
Message of this movie: want a successful life, discard all morality, just think about you and you alone, use and abuse in order to achieve success, because thats how the system works, theres no room for morals, if you even think about what you are doing, you are lost and you can kiss everything byebye.
But what choice is there, theres only one system, money.
The meaning of life? Survival of the species. The meaning of our system? Keep control, think only about you = greed = species soon to be doomed.

And thats not all of the ugliness of our system, ever wondered why there was a population boom of humans in the last 50 years on earth?
Yup, feed the capitalistic machine, 1 human must pay X to survive, 100 humans must pay XXXXXXXXXXXXX to survive, 100000000 must pay XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx to survive.

Good luck planet earth.


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Collection
http://www.imdb.com/list/4zXrE3AAzT4/

Greed is good. Until you become obese.

I think greed in the negative sense is not the desire for money or great amounts of money but being so obsessed with it to the point of self-impairment in terms of making it. For example, you are a TV star who is paid a rather huge to an extreme amount of money for a years work. The studio in contract negotiations says that they will agree on X amount and not a penny over, but you state that you will not work for anything less than X + Y. As a result, the studio decides to cancel your series.

You then find out the hard way that you are not the only actor out there and you could have still have been making great money instead of the peanuts you are now making, plus you really have ruined your reputation.

Greed is the desire for money to the point of sheer stupidity.

I have to think that there is definitely a lot of truth in his speech. When you want to sell a lie, you do it with a good bit of truth. Things like ambition, drive, perseverance, and desire can all be good traits, but not when exercised without restraint. That is greed: the obsession for obtaining something to the point of self detriment in all other areas of your life.

The lie Gekko is inherently selling is that greed doesn't cost you anything. It's okay to be greedy, because being greedy will lead you to good places. Of course people who apply common sense know what Gekko said isn't really true, but, hey, it sounded good in front of a crowd. So did Hitler.

Perhaps 'enlightened self-interest' is a more appropriate term. However, that term would have been incongruous with Gordon Gekko's spin. What worked well about Bud as an anti-hero was that he was motivated by self-interest and personal ambitions, while at the same time he could not divorce himself from the consequences of his actions upon others. The second facet of his moral reasoning was best exemplified when Gekko failed to nullify Bud's conscience when Gekko told him that his father would never need to work again regardless of his father and thousands of his father's co-workers being left unemployed. I think the majority of people can relate to these two facets of Bud's moral reasoning. The main crux of the film seems to be that for any institutions to survive, the individual needs and wants of those involved need to be accommodated (it seemed at the start that Bud's firm did not adequately do that for at least some of their employees) yet at the same time those involved need to act honestly and ethically. Otherwise, institutions from the Roman Empire to Enron are doomed to fail. I don't think the film was anti-capitalist inasmuch as that different characters were portrayed as working industriously and ingeniously in a free market economy and whatever they set out to achieve, it worked in the end. However, for better or worse the means and ends varied for each character.