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The Independent Investor: How Will Wall Street II Play on Main Street?

Bill Schmick

"Greed is good. Now it seems its legal."
Gordon Gekko, 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'

The Oliver Stone-directed sequel to the 1987 film "Wall Street" starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf and Josh Brolin, opens Friday in the aftermath of two years of financial crisis that almost sank the global financial structure and put 9.9 percent of Americans on the bread line. Will this new film heighten or lessen Main Street's disenchantment with Wall Street? I'm betting the former.

The story opens with the nefarious Gekko, older and supposedly chastened, getting out of jail to regain his place within the financial power structure. I can't help but think how the victims of the convicted Ponzi schemer, Bernie Madoff, or the half-dozen other crooks that were indicted over the last two years will feel about that. Will we wonder if someday we'll see the same justice system release convicted culprits of this decade's financial crimes