Films like this come out all the time. They purportedly take us “inside” Wall Street and show us how it really works. We get introduced to the Gordon Gekkos [Milken, Boesky et al] who pull the strings behind the curtain. The idea being that if it weren’t for these greedy miscreants the “system” would work more equitably for all of us. And, sure, up to a point that is true. But rarely are we introduced to the other half of the equation…to the folks who play the “cronies” in “crony capitalism”. In other words, to the political ruling class in Washington. What folks like Marx and Engels referred to as our “political economy”.
BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
Directed by: Glenn Jordan
[b]Ross: I love this: “CEO F. Ross Johnson routinely presses $50 bills into the hands of wine stewards.” $50 bills! Jesus, it’s been years since I tipped that little.
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Ross: Every penny you think I’m pissin’ away here comes back to us dressed up as a nickel"
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Don: Renoir
Ross: Ballpark?
Don: $20 or $30 million.
Ross: Is that with the frame?
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Don: Monet.
Ross: Yeah, right, tons of it.
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Ross: I’ve never been a big fan of debt.
Kravis: Debt can be an asset. Debt tightens a company.
Ross: It does wonders for the sphincter, too.
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Ross: All we have to do is just stay cool until Ed gets the test results on Premiers. You just watch, those babies are gonna turn the whole company around.[/b]
To wit:
[b]Ross: Bottom line?
Scientist: Well of all the people we surveyed the results were just about uniform
Ross: Uh huh.
Ed: They all said they tasted like shit.
Ross: Like shit?
Scientist: Shit was the consensus, yes sir.
Ross: They all said that? Nobody liked them?
Scientist: Fewer than 5%
Ross: You said the results were gonna be terrific
Ed: Well there’s nothing wrong with 5%, Ross, I’ll take 5% of the market anytime of the week
Ross: How much are we into right now?
Scientist: Right now?
Ross: To date, to here, to now?
Scientist: Upwards of 350.
Ross: We’ve spent 350 million dollars and we come up with a turd with a tip? God almighty, Ed! We put enough technology in this project to send a cigarette to the moon and we come up with one that tastes like it took a dump?
Ed: We haven’t even talked about the smell.
Ross: Oh, what did they say that was like? A fart?
Ed: Yep.
Ross: Oh, you’re not serious! They really said that?
Scientist: We have an awful lot of fart figures.
Ross: Tastes like shit and smells like a fart! Got ourselves one hell of a product on our hands…it’s one unique advertising strategy I’ll tell ya that.
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Ross: How do we get them shitless?!!
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Ross: And what the hell is wrong with the draw?! You need an extra set of lungs just to take a drag!
Scientist: It’s a little difficult.
Ross: A little difficult?
Scientist: It’s what we call the hernia effect.
Ross. Is that what we call it? There’s another great billboard for you! What do we do, give a truss away with every pack? “Warning: This cigarette can tear your balls off!”
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Ross: Wherever you light one up you’re in the shithouse!
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Linda: You sure Ross, they’re that bad?
Ross: Trust me. We huffed and we puffed and we came up with a filtered Edsel. If I could, I’d burn everyone of them except you can’t set fire to the fuckers.
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Ross: If you’re not happy with the new brass, your sererance deal plus your 50,000 shares of Nabisco, you could walk away with 7 million bucks, maybe more. We’re not talking just “fuck you” money, we’re talking “walk everybody” money!
John: Fuck everybody, right Ross.
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Vernon: You don’t think the shares will get a big boost once we start selling Premiers?
Ross: Well, uh, they’re still a crap shoot.
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Kravis: Of all the people in the world, why Peter Cohen? Shearson has no real experience with leveraged buyouts. You sure don’t start with the biggest one ever.
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Peter: Trust me, in a week this is a done deal.
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Linda: Peter and Henry speak the same language.
Ross: Hell, I speak bullshit. I picked it up on my first day in New York.
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George: And what’s Ross’s deal, also somewhere between zero and one hundred percent?
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George: We’re just offering you a variety of options.
Peter: Well, you can stick that one up a variety of asses.
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Ross: Anyone in this crowd not worth at least nine figures and they think you’re on food stamps.
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Dick Cavett [on television]: You want to know what $20 billion could get you these days? How about, you could retire 1% of our national debt. Or you could buy your own B-1 bomber. You could buy each of the homeless and every single person on the planet a Big Mac, an order of fries and a coke. You could buy 80 million vowels on Wheel of Fortune or you could send Dan Quayle to the University of Indiana Law School for 6.8 million years.
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George: Sure glad you guys don’t make cigars.
Ed: Smoke bothers you?
George: Only if I am in the same city with it.
Ed: Fucking beautiful…
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Teddy: You’re meeting with Kravis now? That’s why we’ve been sitting around waiting, killin’ time, choking on those new shit cigarettes?
Ross: Where did you get a Premier?
Teddy: In the other office.
Ross: Nobody’s supposed to smoke those.
Teddy: I don’t think that’ll be a problem.
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Teddy: Ross, let’s stand at the gate and push the barbarians back!
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Caroline: Do you honestly and truly need Nabisco? Aren’t there any other companies that would make you just as happy?
Kravis: It’s not the company, it’s the credibility. My credibility. I just can’t sit on the bench and let other people play the game. Not my game…Not with their rules.
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George: We’ve got our own Deep Throat!
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Jim: Are they as bad as they said?
Ross: Premiers? I’ll level with you. When they were being tested some people suggested we roll them in toilet paper.
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Ross: Premiers. Perfect name I thought. Titanics would have been a better one.
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Linda: This town worships success. What it roots for is failure.
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Ross: And fuck you, Tom Brokaw.
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Ross: Jesus, this newspaper article makes me look like the greediest son of a bitch in the world!
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Ross: However it turns out, your opinion of me means an awful lot in my life, Charlie.
Charlie: We’re down to the numbers now, Ross, that’s all that matters [after Ross leaves the office] Now I know what the “F” in “F. Ross Johnson” stands for.
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Peter: I’m telling you we play right into Kravis’s hand if we don’t raise our bid. They’re laying low to clobber us. This is just a head fake. It’s a PR job.
Linda: Well, if it is it is a masterful one.
Peter: I don’t mind those once in a while. Just for a change.
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John [in the elevator]: Ross.
Ross: Do me one favor, John, don’t wish me luck.
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Kravis: We are not interested in open-end bidding.
Charlie: Give us just one hour.
Kravis: All right. You pay our expenses to date and we’ll wait.
Charlie: How much are we talking about?
Kravis: I’d say it comes to a hell of a lot more, but we’ll settle for $45 million.
Charlie: $45 million for one hour [pause] I think I can sell it.
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Charlie: In the end, the deciding factor…the one that made the Kravis offer more attractive…was the fact that you were not part of it. Nobody is going to deny there isn’t a fair amount of greed going around these days. I guess it’s just a question of how much greed is fair. This, yours, was over the top. It was simply too naked.
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Ross: I just dropped by to say thank you. For making me a hero with the stockholders. $25.7 billion dollars for the company. In their wettest dreams they never thought they’d get that rich.[/b]