Arguably the most memorable view in the movie is a talk by Gekko to a shareholders’ gathering of Teldar Paper, a business he is designing to take over. Stone values this view to give Gekko, and by elongation, the Wall Street raiders he personifies, the possibility to support their activities, which he memorably does, pointing out the slothfulness and waste that business America built up through the postwar years and from which he sees himself as a "liberator". The inspiration for the "Greed is good" talk appears to have arrive from two sources. The first part, where Gekko deplores that the company’s administration owns less than three per hundred of its supply, and that it has too numerous vice leaders, is taken from alike talks and remarks made by Carl Icahn about businesses he was endeavouring to take over. The protecting against of greed is a paraphrase of the May 18, 1986 commencement address at the UC Berkeley’s School of Business Administration, consigned by arbitrageur Ivan Boesky (who himself was subsequent convicted of insider-trading charges), in which he said, "Greed is adequate, by the way. I desire you to understand that. I believe greed is healthy. You can be hungry and still seem good about yourself". (When Greed Became Good On ‘Wall Street’, 2008)
Ultimately the "Greed is Good" talk could be glimpsed as associated to what Adam Smith resolved about human nature. Smith accepted that, in general, dependable persons set free to chase their own interest would fare better than they would under a scheme that determined what was "good". In the method, individuals chasing their own concerns would eradicate inefficiencies and assign products where they would advantage the larger society. Wall Street is not a wholesale condemnation of the capitalist scheme, but of the cynical, quick-buck heritage of the 1980s. The "good" individual characteristics in the movie are themselves capitalists, but in a more stable, hardworking sense. In one view, Gekko scoffs at Bud Fox’s inquiry as to the lesson worth of hard work, citing the demonstration of his (Gekko’s) dad, who worked hard his whole life and past away in relation mediocrity. Fox’s stockbroker overseer (played by Hal Holbrook) as an archetype vintage man mentor, states early in the movie, that "good things occasionally take time", mentioning to IBM and Hilton – in compare, Gekko’s "Greed is Good" credo typifies the short-term outlook common in the 80s. (When Greed Became Good On ‘Wall Street’, 2008)
