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IPFS News Link • Criminal Justice System

Oliver Stone: Meet Friedrich Hayek

• fee.org

Gordon Gekko, the legendary character portrayed by Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone's Wall Street, is listed 24th in the American Film Institute's 100 greatest heroes and villains. If it weren't for the fact that Ivan Boesky, one of the infamous convicted insider traders of the late 1980s, inspired the character, such a ranking wouldn't be significant.

Unfortunately, Gekko's place on the list represents what people think about insiders: individuals who trade on the basis of nonpublic information.

The idea that some people in the corporate world — the insiders — can make profits or avoid losses "simply" by trading on information not available to the general public often leads to emotional reactions. For example, when Federal District Court Judge Richard J. Holwell sentenced Raj Rajaratnam to 11 years in jail for insider trading, he said, "Insider trading is an assault on the free markets," adding that "his crimes reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated."


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