Oliver Stone: Free Speech is the Real Problem; Not Wall Street Solvency

Think the market has been a rough ride the last few years? Well, it scares Oliver Stone, and contrary to what you might think, it has nothing to do with insolvent banks. Free speech is the problem! Stone explains in a CNN interview yesterday about his new film: "Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps." Some excerpts are below.

I think it was a great -- and that was -- we have Federal Reverse board meetings, we have the fall of Bear Stearns, the idea of rumors being floated that can hurt a firm. I mean, there's three rumor montages in the movie that sort of show you the power of the Internet and the power of rumor, and frankly malicious gossip to hurt a company. And by the way, I think you know well that Jimmy Cayne (ph) at Bear Stearns went to Washington and he said he thought rumors might have had a very big role in the fall of Bear Stearns. He thinks somebody was betting against him going short.

...

What I found out, what shocked me back in 2009, was that Goldman Sachs and those type of banks were really going long and short at the same time and were actually selling out on their clients. I thought that was shocking information to me, as well as the power of rumor, which, amazing. We show the power of that and how it can destroy a company.

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Oh, yes. I think that's what the Internet and the television coverage -- I mean, when we did the original "Wall Street," we didn't have back-to-back business coverage that you have now. So, everybody's talking, and I think sometimes too much, and they get overheated.

And the business news has grown into like sports or movie news. It's just nonstop.

I'm not so sure that's good for the system, although it's more transparent. But it does lead to circles of viciousness and rumor and hype.

And a stock, as you know, drops. I mean, look at what happened a few months ago, right? The market just crashed. So what's going to happen?

It does scare me, and I think it's the nature of the modern world, I suppose.

There you go, "rumor" mentioned as a causative factor 4 or 5 times; insolvency/leverage? Zero. Those poor, poor Wall Street banks -- they're victims, you know.