Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. And so it was that 49-year-old corporate raider Ivan Boesky, looking tanned and self-confident, strode to podium. My advice to this investor is the same that I give to the young investors in my classes Devote the same earnest attention to investing that $50,000 as you devoted to earning it. When people start going to jail, get hauled off in handcuffs or become disgraced, it's a sign the pendulum has swung, greed has fewer champions and pressure for reform builds, as Toplin's argument goes. The cycle again may be playing out now, Toplin says, though he notes there is more resistance to business reform and regulation in American culture now than in the past. By 1986 he'd amassed a fortune, estimated at $2 billion, largely by betting on stock price fluctuations in corporate takeovers that he either predicted or precipitated. That's the challenge, to make sure this system of competitiveness works for everybody and provides no unfair advantages to those who are in privileged positions. With that, the audience erupted in cheers and applause. The cycles show that what's good for the few can work against the common good — which includes the fates of average investors, workers, the economy and honest businesspeople. he says "The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.", This entire soliloquy, and Ivan Boesky's commencement address at Cal, have been rendered simply as "Greed is good," a process called "bumper-stickering." And when the comment was echoed a couple of years later by the infamous "Greed … is good" line in "Wall Street," moviegoers flocked to the film. "I think there's such a thing in the business world as a fair profit and … fair competition in which everybody in the business community is profiting, rather than one particular business sort of gobbling up all of the interests of others," says W. Michael Hoffman, executive director of the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.". And not only in America. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.". In fact, the current crises may show unrestrained greed can be bad even for the greedy, as fake earnings and artificial stock inflation can lead to stock crashes and bankruptcy — while less greedy companies may have more solid underpinnings to survive in the long term. The moral of the story in "Wall Street" -- and Ivan Boesky's life -- is that greed is bad, which is also a sentiment found in most of the great philosophies of the world, and in the Bible. But in the intervening years — following a high-tech stock bubble gone bust and amid a wave of corporate accounting scandals — "greed" has become a bug nobody wants to catch. Even in boom times, open advocates for "greed" are rare, ethicists say. Michael Douglas never actually says the line “greed is good” in Wall Street, the seminal stockbroking drama that Oliver Stone deposited in theaters 30 years ago this December. And maybe it could explain why Boesky reportedly drew applause and laughter during his 1985 commencement speech at the University of California-Berkeley's School of Business Administration when he said, "Greed is all right, by the way. Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. After all, it is one of the traditional seven deadly sins. The moral of the story in "Wall Street" -- and Ivan Boesky's life -- is that greed is bad, which is also a sentiment found in most of the great philosophies of the world, and in the Bible. "If you have an unregulated arena, cheaters win," says Michael Josephson, a radio commentator and president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina del Rey, Calif. "But if you have a civil society, which we do, with a series of checks and balances, by all means the honest people can win. It happened as '80s excesses became ridiculed or unmasked in books like best-selling "Den of Thieves.". It's a loss. The following year, as Boesky's stunning fall from grace was taking place, the sentiment he expressed in Berkeley was expanded upon by the fictionalized Gordon Gekko in the Hollywood hit "Wall Street." You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself. Success implies billions of dollars in profits for companies and individuals who succeed. And in this case, Boesky's original words would convey a literal truth behind them. These scientists' quest is driven by a complicated set of reasons that include altruism, ambition, competitiveness, and intellectual curiosity. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Greed in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. Commencement speakers are like political conventions (which are also in pandemic-induced jeopardy) in this way: Although they generate almost no suspense, the words and atmospherics surrounding them tell us a lot about the ever-changing society we live in. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. Discover Ivan Boesky famous and rare quotes. ", 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. "Greed is all right, by the way," he said at one point in his talk, pausing for effect. He’s due back any day now from Florence, where friends say he spent the summer immersing himself in courses on the Italian language and culture.