Sign in
Become a MarketWatch member today
Paul B. Farrell
March 16, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT · Recommend (7) · Post:
View all Paul B. Farrell "º
"¹ Previous Column
The rise and certain fall of the American Empire
First Take "º
China and Google -- what a smackdown
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, Oliver Stone is suddenly America's hottest market timer, as well as the voice of the inner "American Soul," warning investors of a collapse. Remember the Crash of 1987? One-day 23% drop. Happened just before his 1987 "Wall Street" film hit the theaters.
He says he can't predict the future. Don't believe him: Even if he's unaware of his "source," it's stirring again, rising from deep in what Carl Jung would call the "collective unconscious" of the "American Soul," warning us again of a collapse, using Stone as a stock trader's "alert."
Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd unveils details of a bill aimed at overhauling financial regulation. The News Hub discusses the impact on Wall Street. Plus, WSJ's Darren Everson joins the News Hub to discuss this year's brackets for the NCAA tournament and potential upsets in the making.
Wake up Wall Street: You're getting the biggest market timing signal of 2010!
Seriously, why now? Why after 23 years, did Stone decide to update the message of his famous 1987 movie. Great question: The interviewer was Michael Lewis, former Salomon trader, author of "Liar's Poker," a guy who understands Wall Street's soul.
Stone's answer is in "Greed Never Left," Lewis' Vanity Fair review of Stone's new movie, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Stone had to think about it: "Why did I go back?" Why? "Because it's important. It's the collapse of capitalism and the collapse of our society. It is. Our way of life is going to change."
The collapse of capitalism? Not just a stock market crash. He's predicting the "collapse of our society." Worse, Stone's predicting: "Our way of life is going to change." Is this really a market-timing signal? Hey, it was in 1987. Will history repeat? The odds say yes.
Remember Stone's predictions when you see the sequel, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Lewis says Stone's goal is not just to entertain you for a couple hours then send you back home to continue denying everything Wall Street's fat-cat bankers, the real Gordon Gekkos, are doing every day to destroy capitalism, destroy democracy, destroy your retirement portfolio.
No, Oliver Stone, the All-American filmmaker of "Born on the Fourth of July," "Platoon," "JFK," "Nixon," "W" and "World Trade Center" has a message ... wake up America, you're sleepwalking.
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.
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."
- TTolstoy | 11:25 p.m. March 15, 2010
Forget March Madness for a moment. A Kansas-Kentucky clash of the titans? It's child's play compared to the smackdown taking place between Google and China.
12:14 p.m. March 15, 2010 | Comments: 70
The Economist's Corner
Health-care reform math doesn't add up
ROI
Carlos Slim cashes in on the Times
Behavioral Economics
'Wall Street' sequel an omen of U.S. collapse
Tech Tales
Options backdating cases hitting more snags
Writing on the Wall
Chris Dodd's reform effort: his own legacy
On the Markets
It's called March Madness for a reason
Yuan ruckus doesn't stop China bull
Read Full Article »