Gekko: Well, I appreciate the
opportunity you're giving me, Mr. Cromwell, as the single largest
shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're not
here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its
fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free
market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was
accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men
that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was
their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company!
All together, these men sitting up here
[Teldar
management] own less than 3 percent of the company. And where
does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar
stock; he owns less than 1 percent.
You own the company.
That's right -- you, the stockholder.
And you are all being royally screwed over by
these, these bureaucrats, with their steak lunches, their
hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden
parachutes.
Cromwell: This is an outrage!
You're out of line, Gekko!
Gekko: Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell,
Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200
thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing
what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do
know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and
I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and
forth between all these vice presidents.
The
new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the
unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get
eliminated.
In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5
million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars.
Thank you.
I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that 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.
And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only
save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the
USA.
