Guys, we’re looking at an unprecedented meltdown now. ibid.
Three-quarters of the banking houses at this time are holding the same paper, and you are going to let Keller Zabel fail? ibid. Lou at Federal Reserve
What about Moral Hazard? ibid. Bretton
You’re pretty much fucked. You don’t know it yet but you are the Ninja generation: no income, no job, no assets: you’ve got a lot to live for too. ibid. Gekko’s lecture
Greed is good: now it seems it’s legal. ibid.
They’re WMDs: they’re weapons of mass destruction. ibid.
And the beauty of the deal: no-one is responsible. Because everybody is drinking the same Kool-Aid. ibid.
The mother of all evil is speculation, leveraged debt. ibid.
It’s a bankrupt business model: it won’t work. It’s systemic, malignant and it’s global, like cancer. ibid.
No-one else in this market has had the balls to commit suicide. ibid. Gekko to Jacob
Money’s a bitch that never sleeps. ibid.
You’re not doing her any favours. And you’re not preventing it from happening again. ibid. her to him
It was one of my co-conspirators who tipped off the Feds. And that pious piranha Bretton James – he had just enough money to sink me. ibid. Gekko to Jacob
This is the greatest bubble story of all time ... They called it Tulipomania. ibid.
Your firm knows subprimes are crap. ibid.
This is too big to fail ... There’s about seventy plus trillion out there in credit default swaps held by roughly seventeen banks, and we do not know where the bottom is. ibid. Bretton to Bill at Federal Reserve
Scare them. Tell them the truth ... In five days we’re all gone. ibid.
You are asking for the biggest bail-out in the history of this country. ibid. Bill to Federal Reserve
You are the worst kind of toxic debt the system is polluted with. ibid. Jacob to Bretton
Talk about an evil empire; it puts me to shame. ibid. Gekko to Jacob
Repeat the insanity till the next bubble blows. And that’ll be the one. The big one. ibid.
It’s not about money; it’s about the game, the game between people. ibid.
Sit down, Mr James. This is only a preliminary preceding but I want you to know you are under investigation on accusations of tax evasion and stock manipulation through among others an entity known as Locust Fund. ibid. Investigator
Human beings we got to give them a break. We’re all mixed bags. ibid. Gekko to Winnie & Jacob
The world of investing can be a jungle. Bulls. Bears. Danger at every turn. That’s why we at Stratton Oakmont pride ourselves on being the best. The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 starring Leonardo diCaprio & Jonah Hill & Margot Robbie & Matthew McConaughey & Kyle Chandler & Rob Reiner & Jonn Favreau & Jean Dujardin & Joanna Lumley & P J Byrne et al, director Martin Scorsese
Oh and I love drugs. ibid.
The key to success in this racket is this little baby right here – it’s called cocaine. ibid.
Equal parts – cocaine, testosterone and body fluids. ibid.
There is no nobility in poverty. ibid.
I want you to overcome your problems by being rich. ibid.
The summer of 1976 was one of the hottest on record. Berkeley Square in Mayfair became infested by a plague of caterpillars. They got everywhere even inside the Clermont Club. One of the few Clermont members left in London that summer was James Goldsmith … Goldsmith was suing the satirical magazine Private Eye. Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set III: Destroy the Technostructure, BBC 1999
He [Goldsmith] would be used as a battering ram to break down the old system of power that had ruled America for fifty years. The conscious shaping of society by a corporate and political elite would be destroyed by people like him and replaced by the blind force of the markets. ibid.
Ronald Reagan had come to power at a moment of economic crisis. But he promised a dramatic regeneration of the country’s fortunes. But not by government which he blamed had led America into the chaos. His solution was to give power away to Wall Street and to the financial markets. He wanted them to find a way to regenerate America. ibid.
Investors were falling over themselves to invest in junk bonds. But to [Michael] Milken they were more than just a way of raising money. Junk bonds were a powerful weapon with which to challenge the established power of Wall Street. ibid.
The big corporation was at the heart of American life. It was far more than just a way of making money. The idea of the corporation had been born fifty years before out of pressure from politicians. They had wanted to find a way of protecting America from the growing chaos of the free market. ibid.
Goldsmith and Milken now set out to take over the technostructure. They would do it by borrowing billions of dollars with the promise that they would repay vast interest. They were confident they could do this because hidden away within the giant corporations was fantastic wealth which they could unlock and sell off. ibid.
It was the reconstruction of America by the power of the market. ibid.
A patrician elite who had run America for fifty years. ibid.
Downsizing became one of the most important factors fuelling a boom in the American stock market. Every time the raiders sacked managers and workers their share price soared, and in turn that pushed the bull market even higher. As the takeover boom grew, millions of workers were downsized. Whole towns were decimated. ibid.
But Goldsmith was beginning to suffer from delusions of grandeur: he forgot that he was no more than a creature of the banks. And having taken over control of industry from the state, he decided he now had the power and the money to take over foreign policy as well. And the first thing he decided he would do was undermine the Soviet Union. Goldsmith believed that the growing anti-nuclear movement in the West was completely controlled by the Soviet Union; so he and a number of right-wing tycoons set up a private organisation to undermine the peace movement. Goldsmith was going to privatise Western Intelligence. Goldsmith’s main target was the World Peace Council, an innocuous and ineffectual organisation. ibid.
Goldsmith’s belief that he was powerful was a fantasy. The men who really had the power were the bankers. The men who really had the power were the bankers. They were using Goldsmith’s bullying nature as a weapon to break down the corporations. But the banks themselves were about to fall from grace. And Goldsmith would be left helpless and exposed. ibid.
The New York attorney [Giuliani] revealed that the takeover movement was riddled with corruption. ibid.
But the revelations of corruption started by Boesky kept growing. They now spread to Britain. As in America, the Guinness scandal exposed a network of illegal share-dealing, but unlike America, only four men were convicted. Evidence of a much wider system of corruption was quietly buried. ibid.
He [Clinton] had been persuaded to give away that power to the financial markets with the promise that this time they would create a new kind of stability. A new kind of democracy free of the corruption of elite politics. But it was now becoming clear that in reality America’s political power had just been transferred to another elite – the financiers of Wall Street. And when faced by a crisis, they had simply used that power to rescue themselves. Adam Curtis, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, BBC 2011
Super-quick computers and advanced mathematic formulas have largely taken over trading on the financial markets from human beings: algorithms, which seem to have a life of their own. The Wall Street Code, 2013
Haim Bodek is one such algorithm developer. After finding some strange wrongdoings he set out on a personal crusade against this elusive system. ibid.
Qants: mathematicians and physicists who are responsible for a technological revolution. ibid.
In the ‘’90s the Wall Street establishment realised it is falling behind in the technological revolution. ibid.
70% of trading now being automated, and 50% taking place within milliseconds. What’s called High Frequency Trading or HFT. ibid.
‘You just assume you’re being ripped off, unless you’re the one doing the ripping off.’ ibid. Qant
Exchanges have changed from places where companies attracted investors to data centres where wars are waged between algorithms that trade with each other at the speed of light. A hidden world. ibid.
‘Were we making the markets a better place?’ ibid.
‘The ISCC has not taken action.’ ibid.