OK read this article:
When Oliver Stone came out with Wall Street (greed is good) in 1987 within a few months the market collapsed.
Now the next one is coming out in September. Many believe that will be the harbinger of the next collapse:
America is unprepared for the coming disaster
Stone's message is clear and powerful: You're ignoring the coming collapse of capitalism ... of our society ... collapse of America. We are ignoring the end of our experiment in democracy. We are unprepared ... "our way of life is going to change." Wake up.
Unfortunately, Stone's voice will likely be as ineffective in 2010 as in 1987. Few listen. Since the first film we've had bigger bubbles, bigger busts. Remember the Asian-Russian crises of 1997-98? Dot-coms in 2000? Subprime meltdown of 2007-08?
"Oliver Stone's 1987 Wall Street succeeded brilliantly in capturing a culture," says Lewis, "and failed miserably as a call for change. To the director's dismay, thousands of financial hotshots dreamed of becoming Gordon Gekko." It was like a recruiting poster for financial terrorists.
Why? Wall Street insiders and Main Street day traders are by nature optimists and opportunists. It's in their DNA. The love crises and volatility. Like the bomb-squad experts in "Hurt Locker," they race into the kill zone. This is a game to traders. They love the hunt, the thrill, the adrenaline rush ... they have to minimize the risks, deny the danger and ignore the consequences as they rush in to capture the moment.
Seriously: Lewis says "Michael Douglas often expresses his astonishment at the many Wall Street males who have sought him out in public places just to say, 'Man, I want to tell you, you are the single biggest reason I got into the business. I watched Wall Street, and I wanted to be Gordon Gekko.' The film's equally perplexed screenwriter, Stanley Weiser, has made the same point, in a different way. 'We wanted to capture the hyper-materialism of the culture,' he said. 'That was always the intent of the movie. Not to make Gordon Gekko a hero.'" Remember, greed never left ... greed never will leave.
Collapse! Chicken Little? Crying Wolf? Cassandra?
Wait a minute: Is this a conspiracy? That word, "collapse," keeps popping up in news and literature: Jared Diamond, anthropologist, in his best-selling "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" ... Hedge fund manager Barton Biggs in "Wealth, War and Wisdom" warns of the "possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure" ... Financial historian Niall Ferguson, author of "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire," writing in "Collapse & Complexity: Empires on the Edge of Chaos," warns we'll fail to see a coming collapse. ... Jack Bogle saw the problem years ago in "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" ... And Hong Kong economist Marc Faber used the dreaded "c-word" in his Doom, Boom & Gloom Report: "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system ... inevitable."
But is Stone credible? Not just to predict another collapse, but the timing? Or is he just another entertainer, like "Mad Money's" Jim Cramer? Was it just coincidence that his film was released right after the October 1987 crash? Doesn't matter: Lewis says Wall Street saw Stone as a guru. He denies it: "We didn't know what was coming and we didn't know this was a special period ... People accused me of being a genius who predicted the stock-market crash of 1987. I didn't predict the stock-market crash. I had no idea."
But you have to wonder: Are Wall Street's insiders right? Is Stone a guru, seer, great cosmic market timer? Is there a real link between the '87 crash and 2010? Is he linked in to all the many references to the word "collapse" by leading minds?
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung would tell us events like this are not random "coincidences," but a "synchronicity" of the "collective unconsciousness" surfacing in the voices of many tuned-in beings, warning us our world is in grave danger ... that yes, a collapse is dead ahead ... but that Wall Street, like bomb experts in "Hurt Locker," will go deep into denial, naturally blind to the larger historical warning while focusing narrowly on trading opportunities in their kill-zone.
I don't know about all this, but I do know this, there is a major eventual collapse that MUST come. There is NOTHING holding this market up. NOTHING at ALL.
From a commenter:
Maybe he has been reading the government reports to Congress the last few years. What is a "collapse?"
It is the loss of the standard of living for one thing. It is the loss of domestic tranquility (riots, looting, civil unrest, attacks on certain people in our society, etc. Hate is directed toward whoever has become the most recent target whether they are a scapegoat or actually deserve the blame.
So, what have our government reports to Congress been saying for six years?
quote
the federal government’s current fiscal policy is unsustainable. Continuing on this imprudent and unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our domestic tranquility and national security.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07362sp.pdf
Note two things. One, you can remove "gradual" as that was in the warning before this crisis hit and two, they include the loss of our national security. Again, this is from our own government, the biggest doom and gloom advocate out there. When you look at their projections you see why they say this can't continue and will cause us to lose our standard of living and what is that?
Power, water, sewer, health care, police, fire, good roads, rail and airports, bridges, buying power, high employment, and the ability of anyone to start their own business and succeed or fail on their own and to own their home in a stable home price environment, quality education, economic growth that keeps population growth employed at wages that meet the level required for a high standard of living.
Some of those things have obviously been in decline for decades but more are being added each year to the list of things at high risk of being lost or put in serious decline.
Not one policy to change those trends has been made. Instead, we are doing things that make things worse each month. We can't grow or tax out of this and spending cuts would cause a depression now. So, what is left? Collapse!
quote
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
Von Mises
If you don't like what you are reading from Ferrell or on the media, then read the government reports.
It's over, it's just that the fat lady hasn't sung yet.
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