FBI tells Wall Street that greed is not good


Stephen Foley
Stephen Foley is Associate Business Editor of The Independent, based in New York. In a decade at the paper, he has covered personal finance, the UK stock market and the pharmaceuticals industry, and been the Business section's share tipster. And since arriving with three suitcases in Manhattan in January 2006, he has witnessed and reported on a great economic boom turning spectacularly to bust. In March 2009, he was named Business and Finance Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards.
New York
Tuesday 28 February 2012
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Fed up with hearing Wall Street bankers telling him Gordon Gekko was an inspiration to them, Michael Douglas, pictured in character, has teamed up with the FBI to launch a campaign against insider trading and investment fraud.
In a public information film unveiled yesterday, the FBI shows Gekko's famous line in the movie Wall Street that "greed ... is good" and then cuts to a stern-faced Mr Douglas who intoned that "the movie was fiction, but the problem is real".
The actor tells viewers how to tip off investigators if they suspect insider trading, and says: "Our economy is increasingly dependent on the success and the integrity of the financial markets. If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is."
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