Greed is good
The famous line delivered by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street is now haunting us. As the New York Times reports, “A world of big egos. A world where people love to roll the dice with borrowed money. A world of tightwire trading, propelled by computers..” is coming to an end.
Maybe lost virtues like thrift, sobriety, duty and self-control will see a revival, but I doubt it. These boring protestant virtues have not seen the light of day in a long time, but they are what created the biggest economic engine the world has ever known. What I expect is that with a $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street, the ordinary citizen will be encouraged to carry on, do their patriotic duty and go shopping. That’s because our system is based on consumption and not production. This was a historical change that emerged in the late nineteenth century. What matters is what you can buy not what you can create. We are eating our seed corn and leaving a famine for our children.