Prayer for the Dead …
I remember when I first saw the Gregory Peck and Danny Devito movie Other People’s Money (OPM). It was an amazing thing.
I was of course rooting for Andrew Jorgenson (Gregory Peck) and his lawyer/step daughter Kate Sullivan (Penelope Ann Miller) who did an absolutely wonderful job in this movie.
Throughout the movie, I couldn’t help hoping that Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator” Garfield (Danny Devito) would do the right thing and turn out to be the good person you could see he actually could be — because Danny Devito did such a fantastic job as Lawrence Garfield — you couldn’t help but love him and hate him at the same time. I so wanted him to wake up and be the good person inside. I wanted him to miraculously change overnight and let the REAL golden rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you) run his life instead of the NEW golden rules (Do unto others before they can do unto you and those with the gold make the rules). But maybe it’s just not in him I began to think. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there really are evil people with charismatic personalities.
If you haven’t seen this movie from 1991, please do yourself a favor and take a peak at it. You just have to see how Gregory Peck’s daughter helped with that (but only because Lawrence fell in love with Kate) … Too late to save New England Wire & Cables corporate takeover … But maybe not too late to help the community’s need for the jobs provided by New England Wire & Cable’s…
In the movie, New England Wire & Cable had provided much needed jobs for a community that desperately needed them to continue to do so. But they had a problem. They were a company doing well, positive equity and no loans…in this day and age, they were a company that was in the black!
Larry the Liquidator was right about one thing, fiber optics would eventually do them in…but not now. Even so, he took matters into his own hands, and forced the stockholders to look at the “last buggy whip” theory before the need was even there so he could have what he wanted.
And of course New England Wire & Cable was perfectly ripe — for a corporate takeover.
Enter, ‘stockholder’ Lawrence Garfield (Danny Devito). He was terrific in this movie! And he gave a very compelling and very profitable (to him and the stockholders) speech that cost the patriarchal founder of that company all he had worked for for many years (there was a little more to it than that, but that’s the nuts and bolts) and would have cost the community as well if “Larry the Liquidator” had his way. Enter Kate.
The Founder of New England Wire and Cable had underestimated the power of money in the hands of those who do not know the true meaning of the word loyalty or the REAL golden rule. He still believed in the “American Dream.”
But there are those who only know the meaning of the words profit or loss…theirs, and theirs of the stockholders that they have to sway in order to get what they want). That was the reason for investing in the first place wasn’t it?
Dividends: an increasing share of the revenue of the corporation(s) you buy stock in. The corporation gets to play with your money (from buying stock) to benefit you as stockholder through the dividends and the value of the stock in your portfolio.
I know this is a touchy subject since many who worked hard their whole life and have limited pensions made use of the stock market for their retirement fund. But please look beyond your own situation and look at the bigger picture … just for a few minutes.
Enter the other side of Other People’s Money: Alternet‘s Meet a Billionaire with a Lower Tax Rate Than You [VIDEO]. Dialup users don’t feel left out, the meat of the video in there in blog form as well.
The video is presented by WarOnGreed.org
From the beginning of Alternet’s blog entry:
Henry Kravis is a billionaire, the 57th richest person in America. He acquired this wealth by purchasing public companies with borrowed money. To pay off the debt, he cuts benefits at the company, sells its assets, and lays off employees.
Henry Kravis makes — get this — $51,369 PER DAY according to the video.
KKR, Henry Kravis’ cartel, has revenue that exceeds Coca Cola, Microsoft and Disney combined — again from the video.
How much did you make last year?
The Alternet blog entry states that the original post, written by Robert Greenwald, appeared on Brave New Films
Going back to Other People’s Money (OPM) the movie … Does Kravis’ story sound a little bit familiar now? He and others like him at the top of the food chain, are spitting images of Larry the Liquidator. Saying Amen. Amen. And Amen. … to the Prayer for the Dead. The rest of us.
How true do you think this conversation is between Kate and Lawrence “Larry the Liquidator:”
Kate Sullivan: Someday, we’ll smarten up, change some laws, and put you OUT OF BUSINESS.
Lawrence Garfield: You can change all the laws you want. You can’t stop the game. I’ll still be here. I adapt.
Or an even scarier one by “Larry the Liquidator:”
Lawrence Garfield: I love money. I love money more than the things it can buy. There’s only one thing I love more than money. You know what that is? OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.
And he has Carmen (his computer and the Internet) helping him keep tabs on his and Other People’s Money. That movie was done in 1991. How much more accurately do you think this can this be done today?
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