For over two decades, no speech has guided our business aspirations quite like the "Greed is Good" speech from the movie Wall Street. But, Greed, all of a sudden, is less popular than an AIG executive. We need a new rallying cry. Thankfully, I'm here to help:
Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity you are giving me here. There used to be an idea that was powerful. So powerful that it inspired the poorest people from around the world to risk their health and leave behind their families in pursuit of it. That idea was the American Dream. Today, that dream has been reduced to a joke. Ravaged by the very ones that we entrusted to its safekeeping. Goldman, Citi, Merrill, Lehman, AIG! They promised to watch over our dream with honesty and integrity. Instead, they sliced up our futures into a thousand pieces and sold them to the highest bidder. The truth is, they had only one true guiding principle: greed.
Now, here we are, with a financial system in ruin, wealth destroyed and dreams shattered. And what are We the People doing about it? Nothing! Everywhere I look, people are drowning in their own self pity. Waiting for things to go back to the way they were. Waiting for a white knight to come to the rescue. It makes me sick. It would make your ancestors sick. The very ones who built this great country. Yes, the investment bankers hijacked the American Dream. But it happened on our watch and we must take responsibility for it.
So, I ask you to open up your eyes and face two scary truths. First, the American financial system you grew up with is dead. The shallow existence of watching our wealth grow and indulging in our superficiality is over. Second, if we continue to sit idly, the Dream will be nothing more than a remnant of the fallen American empire. We need to act now. We need to take our Dream back! How? You the People, need to invest in the one institution that is innovative enough, that is capable enough and that is pure enough to be entrusted with the revitalization of the American Dream: yourself.
It is a scary thought to be burdened with the survival of our way of life and the revival of the American Dream. But for all your shortcomings, you are capable of extraordinary feats. You just need to invest in yourself! Invest in your knowledge! Invest in your evolution! Invest in your future! The internet has placed so much knowledge at your fingertips. And if you just scratch on the surface, you will open the floodgates of wisdom and power. If you're just willing to make the sacrifice and have the patience, you will find that not only can you navigate through this world, but manipulate it as well. America, everything you need to be successful in this world is within your grasp. Just reach for it. And I guarantee that you will save the American Dream. Thank you.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
unless its wikipedia! oh wait maybe not. oh I am all confused now. I will just sit on my couch and blame my neighbor for all my issues. I think he works for AIG.
ReplyDeleteOn a serious note. I agree with what you said. The one thing I do feel bad about it is our parent's generation. They may not have as easy of a time investing in themselves ... well because they already did. There are quite a few people that did it the way they were supposed to and still got hosed. We shoUld all feel lucky that we have the BEst thing going for us possible - TIME!
MC
did you really just say that investment banks were the ones people looked at to keep the american dream alive?
ReplyDeletethe american dream is worried about getting laid off, not about i-bankers
Daryl,
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure if I understand your objection. What I said, is that i-bankers were the ones "entrusted to it's [the american dream] safekeeping." They were entrusted with this when the people of this country gave them trillions of dollars of their wealth that they had accumulated through their pursuit of the american dream. And when the i-bankers leveraged this wealth 40 to 1, then subsequently lost it, the system crashed. Now small business with good products and ideas are having difficulties getting loans. Those who thought they had enough for retirement and to pass on wealth to their children are now mistaken. Furthermore, now, jobs hard to come by, further depressing individual's faith in the American Dream.
Put simply, the ones we hired to handle our money, lost it. And consequently, the ability to obtain the American Dream has been severely hampered.
Now certainly, bankers weren't the only ones responsible for our current economic crash. Lack of regulation for CDS, Alan Greenspan lowering the interest to 1%, predatory sub-prime lending, etc. For the purpose of this"speech," I used i-bankers because I thought they would be most identifiable to readers (I did though mention AIG and Citi).
I hope this helps clarify my argument. The only other thing I can think about is that we have different definitions of the American Dream. And certainly its different for different people. Here is one I found from a section on the American Dream in Wikipedia. "America has been viewed as a land in which one's prospects in life are defined by one's talents and energy rather than by one's family wealth or political connections. This hope includes the opportunity for one's children to grow up and receive an education and its consequent career opportunities." I think this one works nicely for my speech
DLaz
Greed is on vacation but will return soon, after fear abates and when people see other people starting to make profits again.
ReplyDeleteJust think, one day there will be no evidence that humanity ever existed and none of this will have meant diddly. That will make you feel better!
ReplyDeletejchalfin,
ReplyDeleteCertainly that's another way to look at. I'm already feeling better. ALthough that could just be the wine.
I have trouble believing that you and I can change anything, when our Government appears obsessed with executive compensation, and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteWhile I sign on to the idea that bonuses by the banks, etc. are "distasteful," they are not the source of our problems. In fact, reducing executive compensation at this time is bound to motivate the individuals most capable of steering these banks right into the arms of international competitors. And yet our Government seems focused on punishing those executives (without any idea of who those executives are, and if they are responsible for any wrongdoing whatsoever). It's typical Washington grandstanding, and it scares me to think that Congress is spending so much time on irrelevant issues, when they should be concerned with, say, making sure the credit card industry doesn't crash this year (for example).
Anyway, back to your post. When our Government, the only institution with the resources and ability to save us from this crisis, is either incompetent, lazy, or otherwise unwilling to step up to the plate, how can our collective potential save us from anything?
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you have to say. Right now, executive compensation is not the issue. And the AIG bonuses are just any easy target for Congress to score points with the press and the common person. Everyone should read this Washington Post article for a different perspective on the AIG bonuses: http://bit.ly/7Zi1
Although a cap on executive pay for the banks may have some unintended positive results. Instead of our brightest minds seeking work in fields (hold on, gotta build confidence, about to lose my entire readership) that mostly try to preserve our wealth, like finance, real estate and law, maybe, we would be better served if they go into fields that truly build our wealth, like science, technology and trying to figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.
As far as Congress goes, the only thing they have ever done is grandstand. I don't think they even write laws. They just have some lobbyist do that for them.
But the Fed, Treasury and the President are dealing with some serious issues, including, as you mentioned, the credit card issue, the money market issue (I think this is the issue that keeps the smartest people in our government up at nights) and of course, the toxic assets that are dragging down the banks balance sheets. And judging from Paul Krugman's response today, the administration is striking out on that last issue: http://tinyurl.com/c9m5mx http://tinyurl.com/c2dfws
Now, if the government can't guide us through the current crisis, then yes, we are screwed. But so is everyones else for that matter. The entire global financial system was leveraged off the health of the US economy. Now, if the government is able to guide us through the current crisis, and we don't invest in ourselves and in innovation in such fields as science and technology (making complicated financial instruments that don't work is not real innovation), we will fall behind the curve. And perhpas our grandchildren will be chasing the Chinese Dream.
Finally, if you would like to see something a little more forward thinking on the future of our global economy, please watch this video: http://vimeo.com/3204792
It's from Umair Haque of Harvard Business Publishing, speaking on constructive capitalism. He speaks to the 5 ideals he thinks that are changing business, the economy and the world. Basically, he concludes that business models will need to focus on real sustainable values, rather than on monetization. This means, the global economic system needs to focus on a model of investment, rather than consumption and saving (the video is over an hour long). Enjoy.
DLaz
How can we invest in ourselves, we’re bankrupt!
ReplyDeletePoliticians will always jump on a hot issue and executive compensation and excessive bonuses to executives of companies receiving bailouts are really bugging a lot of people right now. You say that executive compensation is not the issue, but don’t forget these are retention bonuses going to the very people that failed in their jobs. The real bankers are long gone. When Walter B. Wriston and William Spencer headed Citi, they were real bankers, their successors were anything but. I say let these people leave and bring in a new crew and give them a shot. They can’t be any worse then the current industry leaders. Most of them got their jobs based on who they know not what they know.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletekenlaz,
ReplyDeleteAt the root of this problem is not that this country is suffering from a bankruptcy of our balance sheets. But rather, a bankruptcy of ideas and diligene. Hate to sound like a broken record, but the only way we get past this is by investing in ourselves.
The cost to begin investing in ourselves has never been cheaper. It begins with the price of an internet connection. And from there, it takes desire, sacrifice, patience and perhaps a little ingenuity.
As far as executive compensation goes, I reiterate my comment that, "Right Now, executive compensation is not the issue." Right now, our global financial system is on life support. Solving this issue should take up 99% of our governments time (I think this is the point Mark was trying to make). And as "distasteful" as the $165 million in AIG bonuses are, we have trillions of dollars of OUR money at risk if we don't stop the economic bleeding. Tim Geithner and the President (who already probably don't sleep) shouldn't have to be distracted with this right now.
But yes, executive compensation got out of hand. The banks stopped being banks a long time ago and became high stake gambling vehicles (to me, the regulation of banks' risk is a much more important issue than executive compensation). Obviously, the share prices of the banks now reflect what they were/are. And when (if) we get ourselves out of this mess, I would like to believe (if we learned anything from this fiasco) that the future shareholders will not put their money behind a bank that gives its executives outrageous compensation for short term, high risk success.
DLaz
Hey guys. I just read this great Rolling Stone article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/1
ReplyDeleteVery relevant to what we were discussing here. Kind a long, so you may need to set some time aside, but well worth it.
DLaz
check out you tube OBAMA DECEPTION
ReplyDelete