Wall Street

Wall Street

(The Movie)

1- What are Bud Fox’s positive characteristics? What do you admire about him?

He is an ambitious young man that is willing to sacrifice himself to become successful in what he does. Also he is very persistent which helps him to reach for the opportunity of his lifetime, when he decided to call Mr. Gekko for more than 50 straight days, until he meets him. Another positive characteristic is the sense of family that he has, how important is for him to meet with his father every ones in a while, and also how he tries to protect him not telling Mr. Gekko that his father was the one who gave him the information about Bluestar. Finally how a hard worker he is, even though that he is not doing well at the beginning he still works hard to find this “elephant” that is going to help him succeed in Wall Street.

2- If you were Bud Fox, what, if anything would you have done differently? Why?

First of all I wouldn’t have told Mr. Gekko about the internal Bluestar information, because it was illegal and I could get in trouble, second I could get my family in trouble if somebody fins out that my father was the one responsible of giving out internal company information. Then I wouldn’t have done the spying job Mr. Gekko sends him to do, because obviously it was for unethical purposes.

3- At What point in the movie would you have done it?

At the beginning of the movie, because that’s when all started, I would have taken the advice of the old guy from the office, because at the end he was right, sooner or later the truth will prevail, and glory doesn’t lasts forever. If not at the beginning I would have done it when Mr. Gekko was testing Bud and lets him out of his car, when Bud finds out the illegal stuff Gekko does to get money, because he knew it was unethical.

4- What lesson, if any, did you learn from this movie?

The most important one was that no matter how careful you are, ir you do something unethical or illegal, the truth would get out on the open at some time. It doesn’t matter how tempting it looks, the money is not all, and if you want to make good money, you have to work hard to get it. The easy money always has a catch, that’s why you have to stay true to your values, mostly the ones that where taught by your parents, like in the case of Bud Fox with his father, when he looks in his eyes and tells him that the has this particular look, in the bar.

5- You were given three readings (Integrity and Management, How Unethical Are You? and Why Good Managers Make Bad Decisions). Briefly describe how these readings can help you understand Bud’s behavior.

In the reading Integrity and Management it mentions the compromised integrity, that means that one of the greatest risks of professional life is the day-to-day pressures will lead to a gradual erosion of integrity. This we can see it in the movie, when Bud Fox needed to borrow some money from his father since his salary was not enough to cover for all his expenses. This pressure was one of the key factors that pushed him to pass on illegal information to Mr. Gekko.

On the other hand we have the reading called How Unethical are you? This mentions the conflict of interests, and how this could conduct to a corrupt behavior. Regarding Dub Fox the conflict of interests came when Mr. Gekko manipulates him telling him that if he does these unethical and illegal things, he’s going to be rewarded with a lot of money, which could help him to capture Darien’s attention, a trophy blonde, interior decorator.

Finally we have the reading why Good Managers Make Bad Decisions, on which it mentions the four rationalizations on which managers, incur. One of these rationalizations is that people think that they are never

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