Today’s Quotes: Wall Street

“The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. [It’s more now.} One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you, buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around, pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you.”
— Gordon Gekko, from Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street” (1987).

“When psychopaths rule a society, it will exhibit their traits. Generally it will be heavily corrupted. But because deception is a primary trait of the psychopath, it will appear humane. Its traits can be observed from the highest level of government down to the street level. If you wanted to witness the madness of a civilization under psychopathic rule, you need not visit the state capital or a major city, because even the smallest village will exhibit these traits.”
— From “The Psychopathic Influence,” May 17, 2001

“Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.”
— Benjamin Graham

“Wall Street sees a social fabric or social contract as inefficiencies, which need to be removed.”
— David Korten

“The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States.

“Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there is no God.”
— Logan Pearsall Smith

“All my businesses are scrupulously legal. Not because I have any moral problems with crime. It just makes my life easier to obey the law. Crime is for poor people; you don’t need to rob the bank if you own it.”
— Josh Lieb, “I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President” (2009).

“The greatest crimes are caused by surfeit, not by want.”
— Aristotle, “Politics”.

“In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, “The Great Shark Hunt” (1979).

“Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find — nothing.”
— Aesop (c. 555 BCE)