October 9, 2009

Today's guest host was Amanda Lang.

It's Friday, October 9th.

Oliver Stone is working on a sequel to his 1987 movie Wall Street.

Currently, you will notice how much has changed in the 22 years since the film portrayed the finance industry as being run by soulless greed-driven sociopaths.
For example: cell phones. Definitely smaller.

This is the Current.

Paul Martin

Six years ago, after years as finance minister in the government of Jean Chretien, Paul Martin became leader of the Liberal and the Prime Minister of Canada. A lot of history has happened in the last half-dozen years. A long and bloody war in Afghanistan, the near collapse of the entire world economy and a couple of new Liberal leaders as well. To talk about Canada and the world is Canada's 21st Prime Minister Paul Martin. He was in Toronto.

Greed is Good - Panel

We started this segment with a clip of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's 1987 movie Wall Street. It's an iconic speech from a time when stock-brokers were making money hand-over-fist while scandals rocked the real Wall Street and Americans marveled at what was being called a culture of greed.

Oliver Stone is now hard at work filming Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. In the movie Gordon Gekko -- the smooth talking corporate raider -- is out of jail and back on the loose. Given everything that has happened on the real Wall Street over the last couple of years ... it seems like a good time to re-visit Gordon Gekko's mantra and ask the question: is greed, in actual fact, good.

To help us with that, we were joined by three people. Edward Hudgins is a Senior Scholar with the Atlas Society, an organization that subscribes to the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. He was in Washington. Nancy Folbre teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts. She's also the author of the forthcoming book, Greed, Lust and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas. She was in Amherst, Massachusetts. And Doug Henwood is the Editor of The Left Business Observer and the author of a book called Wall Street. He was in New York City.

Greed is Good - Velshi

Now an old friend of mine will be part of the Hollywood hooplah when Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps opens next year. Ali Velshi started his journalism career in Canada. He's now CNN's Chief Business Correspondent. And he's got a role in this new Oliver Stone film.

Suncor NEP- George

The bitterness has faded over the years ... at least a little bit. But even 30 years later, the National Energy Program is still a sore point for Albertans. So you have to think that Rick George is a pretty brave man. He's the CEO of Suncor, Canada's largest energy company and a pioneer in the oil sands industry. And this week, he's calling for a new National Energy Program. Rick George was in Toronto this morning to tell us about it.

Suncor NEP - Tertzakian

Now for some people, the idea of private companies driving public policy is a problem. But Peter Tertzakian says it's a good way to develop new ideas that can then be incorporated into the rest of the industry. Peter Tertzakian is the Chief Energy Economist with ARC Financial. He's also the author of The End of Energy Obesity: Breaking Today's Energy Addiction for a Prosperous and Secure Tomorrow. He was in Calgary.

Last Word - Bomb the Moon

We ended the program today with a thought about the moon and water. Later today, NASA plans to send a spent booster rocket crashing into a crater near the moon's south pole at about 9,000 kilometres an hour to find out if there is ice mixed in the soil. Scientists think there may be billions of gallons of water on the moon.

And in an interesting example of synchronicity, Guy Laliberte -- the founder of Cirque du Soleil who is now wrapping up his 12-day stay aboard the International Space Station -- will be starring tonight in Moving Stars and Earth for Water. It's a 14-city, multi-media celebration to raise awareness about the precarious state of the water on this planet.

And with that theme in mind, the last word goes to Mos Def with New World Water from his album Black on Both Sides.

Music

Artist: Mos Def
Cd: Black on Both Sides
Cut: 9, New World Water
Label: Rawkus