Gordon Gekko

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Gordon Gekko, portrayed by Michael Douglas.

Gordon Gekko is a fictional character from the 1987 film Wall Street. Gekko was portrayed by actor-producer Michael Douglas, in a performance that won him an Oscar for Best Actor. In the film, naïve stock broker Bud Fox, played by Charlie Sheen, comes to work for the ultra-aggressive, power-hungry Gekko. Fox then double crosses Gekko and helps his rival Sir Lawrence Wildman. Fox is loosely based on the executive assistant Jackson McIntosh. He is also slated to return in the as-yet embryonic film Money Never Sleeps. He was raised on Long Island and went to City College.

Gekko is based loosely on arbitrageur Ivan Boesky who gave a speech on greed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 and real-life activist investor / corporate raider Carl Icahn. In 2002 Gordon Gekko was named one of the Fifteen Richest Fictional Characters according to Forbes who attributed him with 650 million dollars. In 2003, the AFI named him number 24 of the top 50 movie villains of all time.

Parallels can also be drawn with Michael Milken, the so-called “Junk Bond King” of the 1980s who traded high-yield bonds for Drexel Burnham Lambert. Like Gekko, Milken was regarded as an outsider and a quixotic obsessive genius who made gutsy investment decisions. During his time at DBL, Milken became engaged in a number of market abuses and traded on inside information gleaned from his junk bond underwriting. He also engaged in stock parking and manipulated the market to such an extent that regulators were misled. Comparable to Gekko, Milken was eventually indicted for his malpractices and in 1989 was charged with 98 counts of racketeering and fraud which resulted in a sentence of 10 years imprisonment, for which he served two.

1 Fashion
2 Cultural symbol
3 Representative quotes
4 External links

[edit] Fashion

Gekko's clothing selections were both a nod to 1980s corporate culture fashion trends and an innovator in those trends. The colorful suspenders, shiny shoulder-padded suits and permanently slicked-back hair became the official look of power and fortune. Much of his wardrobe was provided by Alan Flusser; his shirts were tailored by Alexander Kabbaz.^{[citation needed]}

GG's trouser braces were manufactured by Albert Thurston Ltd. The blue braces with singular white stripe that you see him wear are Eton College colours.

[edit] Cultural symbol

Gekko has become a symbol in popular culture for unrestrained greed (with the signature line, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good"), often in fields outside corporate finance. One prominent contemporary figure frequently compared to Gekko is sports agent Scott Boras, who had his client Alex Rodriguez void a contract with the New York Yankees worth over $24 million per year, claiming it was insufficient. [1][2]

[edit] Representative quotes

"It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another."
"This painting here, I bought it 10 years ago for $60,000, I can sell it today for 600 [$600,000]; the illusion, has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperate they want it—capitalism at its finest."
"Ah, you gotta be kiddin' me. Lunch is for wimps."
"Money never sleeps, pal."
"Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought."
"It's all about the bucks kid, the rest is conversation."
"And if you need a friend, get a dog."
"And I'm not talking about some four-hundred thousand dollar a year, working Wall Street stiff, flying first-class, being comfortable, I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet, rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred-million dollars Buddy, a player...or nothing."
"That's the thing about WASPs, they love animals, can't stand people."
"Just got on the board at the Bronx Zoo, cost me a mill."
"The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. 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 of a paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of a hat while everybody sits around wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naïve enough to think that we’re living in a democracy, are you, Buddy? It’s the free market, and you’re part of it."
"Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? Because they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered"
"The public's out there throwing darts at a board, kid, I don't throw darts at a board; I bet on sure things."
"You and I are the same Darian, we are smart enough not to buy into the oldest myth running: love. A fiction created by people to keep them from jumping out of windows."
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."
"First lesson in business, don't get emotional about a stock."
"What the hell is Cromwell doing giving a lecture tour when he's losing $60 million a quarter? Guess he's giving lectures in how to lose money. Jesus Christ, if this guy owned a funeral parlour no one would die!"
"This turkey is totally braindead!"
"The most valuable commodity I know of is 'information'"