The Glass Is Always Full When You Are Informed

Cited:

“Greed is good,” or so we were all told by the infamous character Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street, which at the time highlighted the high-flying lifestyle and work habits of this baron of billions plying his trade on the streets of New York’s financial district. Now, in a new effort to raise the public awareness of the problem of white collar crime and to dissuade those that might be considering it, the FBI has produced a 30 second video starring Michael Douglas, in which he references that character he played in the film back in 1987 but this time with a new message for the audience.

In the movie Gekko stood in front of a large crowd of shareholders in a paper company and addressed them with his philosophy on why he would be the right person to take over the company. The slick dressed, slickly coiffed, and slick tongued Gekko told everyone, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good,” and that became his defining moment; the quote that most people remember him for in that film. With that in mind, the FBI decided to use that well-entrenched line for its own purposes, the let the public know that white collar crime is on the rise and that it is not good.

Douglas appears on the FBI public service announcement and in referencing his line from Wall Street says, “The movie is fiction, but the problem is real.” He then goes on to ask people viewing the film to contact their local law enforcement officials if they suspect that someone is conducting financial crimes. FBI records show that just last year alone the federal agency investigated thousands of reports of financial crimes leading to 242 indictments and 241 convictions of corporate criminals. In doing so, the feds recovered or secured upwards of $2.4 billion in restitution from these corporate criminals while adding that they have increased convictions of securities and commodities fraud, health care fraud, mortgage fraud, insurance fraud, and money laundering operations.

As a large part of their efforts to keep corporate criminals in check the FBI has recently hired 250 new forensic accounting professionals to bolster the department that looks into what is commonly known as “white collar” crimes. Attorney General Eric Holder recently made a trip to New York City to deliver a strong reminder to everyone involved in the financial gears of the U.S. economy that the government is serious about white collar crime and that his department would continue to focus on this area to ensure that citizens are not preyed upon by those that would take advantage of their positions. He went on to cite the over 1400 people that were charged in 500 different cases of health care fraud in the U.S. in 2011.

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My take:

Sounds like a good idea by the FBI. Everyone can identify with the Gordon Gekko character; some acting like him and others loathing him and what he stood for. I doubt that any of the perpetrators of these crimes will be moved to change their ways by the commercial but perhaps alerting others to be on the lookout for white collar criminals and to report those that they find may very well be a deterrent.

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