and that was ronald reagan s genius. he was able to link economic faith with faith in america. donaldson: no sitting president had ever visited the new york stock exchange before, but it seems safe to say that no recent president would ve beaten mr. reagan for the honor if a vote had been taken among the floor traders. they gave him round after round of cheer. we re going to turn the bull loose. auletta: the whole world from reagan s white house on was basically saying wall street is the engine of our economy. it represents growth, it represents opportunity, it represents the american dream. and so these guys were basically saying we re gonna go do it. brokaw: this is the big draw on wall street the smell of money. this is where the action is. this is the over-the-counter trading floor of shearson/lehman. more than 17,000 daily transactions involving millions of shares and millions of dollars made and lost here every day. and it s a game for young people. when you get home at the e
greed is good. greed is right. greed works. [ applause ] auletta: when michael douglas, in the movie, said, greed is good, i mean, it was a cartoon expression. but there s truth to it. there was a sense that it is okay to be greedy, it is okay to maximize your wealth. what i want to see above all is that this country remains a country where someone can always get rich. brokaw: big companies gobbling up little companies. little companies gobbling up big companies. eight years ago, there were 1,500 corporate takeovers. last year, there were 4,000, involving $200 billion. aug: this type of deal is called a leveraged buyout. the company borrows the money using its assets as collateral for the loan. in return the company issues ious. because the deal is so risky, those ious carry very high interest rates, and they re called junk bonds. now, you may not have heard of michael milken
the dow jones industrial average was down more than 500 points. this was a crash that people hadn t seen, frankly, since the great depression. no one had seen the stock market fall that quickly that fast. brokaw: paper losses more than $500 billion. october 19, 1987 wall street s black monday. mclean: that crash was one of the first signs of how dangerous this new era could be that what the market had given, the market could take away, and it could take it away really, really quickly. lefevre: there s only two emotions in wall street. one s fear, and the other s greed. usually, we have an excess of one or the other. we have now, i think, an excess of fear. i m currently out of the office. focusing on a little blue-sky thinking. i ll be taking meetings. with family and friends. and checking voicemail. as my activities permit. i ll connect with you. after reconnecting with me.
as you possibly could get. brokaw: who did shoot j.r.? we may never get the answer to that question. i mean, the people who produced that program are gonna keep us in suspense for as long as they possibly can. duffy: we shot j.r. and then we broke for the summer. then coincidentally, the actors went on strike and it delayed the resolution. and it just started to percolate through the world. i remember going on vacation to england that summer and that s all that people were talking about there. lovejoy: well we know you don t die. i mean, you couldn t die? you don t know that. well, how could you die? you couldn t come back next season. that s what i mean. i couldn t come back, but the show could still go. oh, but you wouldn t? what is that show without j.r.? well, that s what i figure. [ chuckles ] well, i guess if you don t know by now who shot j.r., you probably do not care. but last night, some 82 million americans did and they watched the much-touted dallas episode. it could beco
in the case of the temple of set and the church of satan, we have not had any problems with criminal behavior. yet when you hear story after story after story of people committing these wretched crimes, these violent crimes in the devil s name? troy: the more tension there is, the more conflict there is, the more violence there is, the more the ratings go up. and the american people love to complain about it, but they also love to watch. brokaw: geraldo rivera is back in a controversy tonight. rivera drew sharp criticism with his recent television special on devil worship. but today he found himself in a real free for all. i get sick and tired of seeing uncle tom here, sucking up, trying to be a white man. go ahead, troy, go ahead. now, let me tell you [ audience shouting ] sit down, man. hey! come on. no. you got it coming. you got it coming. dude. get up and get it. nah. hey, hold it! hold it! sit down! [ indistinct shouting ] brokaw: rivera suffered a broken nose but he says the s