Knowledge is freedom. While ignorance is slavery and misery
Knowledge means freedom. You will not be naive enough to believe that we live in a democracy : right, Buddy ?
Wanting to know what is happening around us, to understand its intrinsic reasons, has always been the key to progress.
Passively assimilating, accepting without questioning what is more or less imposed by others is instead the fastest path to decline and poverty.
Curiosity, the desire to learn, to rise above mediocrity, has always been the engine of social, cultural and material progress.
Knowledge is freedom.
While ignorance is slavery and misery.
“You’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy ?”
This is the main reason why I am still in the financial sector after more than twenty years.
I have never thought primarily about the ultimate profit.
But about understanding everything that moves the markets, the economy.
In short, our civilization, our history, our customs and traditions.
“The richest 1% of the country owns half the country’s wealth, $5 trillion.
A third of that came from hard work, 2/3 from inherited wealth, interest on interest accumulated by widows and idiot children, and from my job, securities mortgage speculation.
That’s bullshit, there are 90% of Americans out there who are nothing or almost nothing.
I don’t create anything, I own”.
And, of course, I soon realized that the so-called “club” only wanted to manipulate the markets.
Not only with bribes, but mostly with borderline legal (if not illegal) financial transactions like cornering, insider trading, naked short selling.
On the other hand, the “Club” is omnipotent.
“We make the rules: the news, wars, peace, famines, riots, the price of a pin.
We pull rabbits out of our hats while others sit back and wonder how the hell we did it”.
No one is ever really prosecuted.
That’s why we have to be ourselves, always figuring out in advance what’s going on around us.
“Do you know why fund managers never beat the S&P 500 index?
Because they are sheep.
And sheep get slaughtered”.
Throughout the movie, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) spouts “philosophy” at the drop of a hat.
A movie (one of the few) where the dialog is really more important than the pictures.
Still very relevant today, even though 37 years have passed.
