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By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
GREED IS STILL GOOD
Freed from the confines of the federal penitentiary where he has spent the past 22 years serving time for securities fraud, Gordon Gekko is delighted to see that his views on greed have spawned a growth industry. No longer must he endure criticism when he preaches that greed is good; his concept has in fact gained acceptance at the highest reaches of commerce. Even better, the United States government has taken the view that on the rare occasions when greed goes bad, the taxpayer will be there to pick up the tab.
To be sure, Mr. Gekko is sorry to have missed out on the billions he could have made during the subprime mortgage boom. But he recognizes that his exit from prison is perfectly timed in another way. In the aftermath of the credit bubble, 17,000-square-foot mansions in Greenwich, Conn., go begging, Gulfstream jets can be bought on the cheap and prestigious golf clubs no longer have years-long waiting lists.
Because he went to jail for securities fraud and probably agreed to sanctions in the case, Mr. Gekko is barred from working for a financial firm or becoming a registered investment adviser. Still there are other possibilities: starting a hedge fund that accepts only a handful of wealthy and sophisticated clients, for example. Based in the Cayman Islands, the Gekko Insider Insights Fund will almost certainly specialize in high-frequency trading, the investment strategy du jour. Just as certain: investors, eager to hire a manager of such notoriety and business acumen, will throw billions Mr. Gekko’s way. GRETCHEN MORGENSON
BUD FOX SEEKS REDEMPTION
A small village in Indonesia. Onetime stockbroker Bud Fox, trying to absolve himself from the morally foul deals he made for the Wall Street shark Gordon Gekko, is working in microfinance, giving $12 loans to impoverished local women so they can start their own businesses. For reasons he cannot fathom, their line of woven glassware is not selling. Bud is therefore amazed when one of his clients walks in, puts down the entire $12, and tells him she doesn’t need him anymore.
“I sell ancient house on stilts which has been in family for many centuries for big bucks to forward-thinking American businessman better looking than you — though his face looking kinda pinched,” the woman says. “He offer me $200 for crummy old teak house on stilts, less demo costs to be determined later. What his name? Gordon Lizard? Gordon Snake? Give me a minute . ...!!!
Bud Fox leaps to his feet. “Gordon Gekko!” he yells. “You cannot make that deal!”
“Too late,” the woman says. “I have $30 in cold hard cash in my authentic made in China Marc Jacobs bag and I am off to L.A. to seek my fortune as a cleaning lady.”
Bud hotfoots it to the woman’s former property where Gordon Gekko, now in his 60’s and still a sharp dresser, is seated on a bulldozer, a long path of razed old-growth forest, homeless children, and an entire Habitat for Humanity team strewn pitifully behind him.
“Gordon,” Bud hollers. “Why are you wrecking this house?”
“Because it’s wreckable,” Gordon says.
“But it’s part of the history of these native peoples,” Bud says. “Their parents were born in these houses. The teak floor boards and walls come from old-growth forest. Old-growth teak is a rare commodity.”
“You’re telling me,” Gordon says. “$30 a board foot.”
Bud does a quick calculation. “So that house is worth — my God — $140,000.”
Gordon smiles. “You got it,“ he says. “Environmentalists, preservationists, slow-growth jerks, they go crazy for it. Sure, there might be a few whiners: ‘But it came from somebody’s house.’ ‘It used to be a temple.’ Tough. How do I put this. Green is good.”
Bud’s heart is racing.
“And those women at the bank; they all live in houses like this,” Bud says.
“And they pray at a temple that must be made of really, really old wood. How do I get in?”
“Go out and bag me an elephant,” Gordon says. “The rent on this bulldozer is killing me.”JOYCE WADLER
GOING GREEN AND LOVING IT
A scrum of paparazzi and reporters greet Gordon Gekko as he exits the federal penitentiary, and he amiably stops for a few questions, confirming that, yes — it’s true — one of Wall Street’s most notorious ex-cons will commence a series of ethics lectures at business schools across the country. “Nobody knows the perils of the dark side like I do,” he says with a knowing, repentant smile.
In between lectures to future M.B.A.’s, Gekko preaches about the hazards of a warming planet to anyone who will listen. Weaning ourselves from oil is not just good for the planet, he explains, it’s good for the economy. And he sets out to prove it by creating his own wind power company, American Breeze. “The Nation’s Most Improbable Farmer” reads the cover of Newsweek, with a photo of Gekko amid a row of wind towers. The government chips in with stimulus money; private backers line up.
American Breeze creates an immense and thriving secondary market in energy credits. Gekko is hailed as the “Al Gore of Commerce.”
It’s all a charade. In prison, Gekko had noticed that not one of the top executives at the top, or near the top, of any of the financial firms that gave us the Great Recession has been indicted, let alone sent to prison.
“Greed is legal,” he says during a private moment, updating his most famous epigram.
American Breeze is mostly a fraud; seven of its wind farms are nothing more than a collection of unloaded semi-trucks with steel beams. But Gekko earns a fortune selling energy credits to notorious polluters.
He might retire rich and acclaimed — if he can win over Bud Fox, his former protégé. Fox, a successful software executive, never bought the idea of the “reformed” Gekko, and his latest computer program penetrated the scam that is American Breeze’s books. Will Gekko once again persuade Fox to ignore his moral compunctions and partake of the booty? If yes, will Fox then have another crisis of conscience and turn again on Gekko?
Guess. DAVID SEGAL
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/we...ekko&st=Search