in money matters this morning, wall street, where leaping stocks have investors jumping. >> we're going to turn the bull loose. >> one of the great things about this nation is, we can seek profit. >> is money the number one goal? >> yes. >> we've had 29-year-olds making a million dollars a year. expecting to make $2 million a year after that. >> if you have plastic money, there's nothing holding you back. >> history will prove the bankers were honest people. >> insider trading could become wall street's watergate. >> what do we call greed the day before an indictment? >> i'm afraid recently we called it success. ♪

♪ the u.s. economy, which used to be the envy of the world, is in the most serious trouble since the great depression. inflation is rising, while the standard of living is declining. >> there was tremendous inflation, and not much growth. the country was not in a great depression in 1980, but the united states was in the dumps. >> on wall street, it was cold, gray, wet, and miserable.

there was in comfort to be found outside. and for investors, there was not much inside either. the tickers carried almost nothing but bad news. >> whoa had come off a terrible decade for investing. people were skeptical of the stock market. it was a very sleepy wall street back then. >> most economists expect a serious recession, with at least 2 million more americans losing their jobs. >> i regret to say we're in the worst economic mess since the great depression. >> literally from the first moments of his presidency on, president reagan let it be known that his top priority is the nation's economy. >> i put a freeze on pending regulations and set up a task force under vice president bush to review regulations with an eye toward getting rid of as many as possible. >> the philosophy behind deregulation is that it works better. than government controls. >> this bill represents the first step in our administration's comprehensive program of financial deregulation. >> introducing deregulation,

finance began to get much more creative and profitable. >> in money matters this morning, wall street, where leaping stocks have investors jumping. >> the dow jones industrial average will stand at its highest level ever. >> the past few months have been among the wildest in wall street's history. stock and bond prices soared in a frenzy of activity. optimists on wall street are talking about the beginnings of economic recovery. >> supporters of deregulation point to the soaring stock market as evidence that a deregulated economy makes money for everyone. >> the stock market took off like a rocket. and the public saw this happening, and they would read about it. and so all sorts of people who used to have nothing to do with this world started pouring their own money into it. and that's, in large part, also what drove prices to go even higher. >> the ronald reagan motorcade rolled onto wall street today to

the new york stock exchange. >> in the last five years, we've moved from malaise, to hope, confidence, and opportunity. the volume of shares traded hitting record highs, and more americans than ever before participating in the market. we're bullish on the american economy. [ cheers and applause ] >> when reagan shows up at the stock exchange, yelling "ronnie, ronnie," is a way of saying america's back. that was ronald reagan's genius. he was able to link economic faith to faith in america. >> no sitting president had ever visited the new york stock exchange before. it seems safe to say no recent president would have beaten mr. reagan for the honor had a vote been taken on the floor traders. they gave him round after round of cheers. >> we're going to turn the bull loose. >> 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. so these guys were basically

saying, we're going to go do it. >> 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 for 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 end of the week and you look back at what you've done, sitting in this desk, what gives you a sense of satisfaction? >> i guess making a lot of money. >> for yourself? or for the company? >> myself and for the firm. >> when the economy started to recover and become more vibrant, there was a great sense of exhilaration that we survived this miserable period. let's celebrate, let's party. we have money to spend. >> today the fad among young people is to have big salaries, fancy clothes and fast cars. and they're called yuppies. but who are these partiers,

these people with for tportfoli? >> a yuppy is a person who owns a mcintosh and drinks white wine and that's me. i'm having a great time here. >> a 29-year-old is making a million dollars a year, expecting to make $1.5 million next year and $2 million the year after that. >> for this generation, business is hip. capitalism is no sin, it's in. is money the number one goal? >> yes. ♪ all of the fun is waiting for you at the castle ♪ ♪ trump's castle >> in a world where mere millionaires are a dime a dozen, there's a new billionaire in town. he's 40 years old. his town is new york city and he's made his money mainly from manhattan real estate. >> he puts his name on almost everything he builds. he says it's a symbol of quality. but others say it's part of the hype. >> donald trump is the brand, and he is the symbol of a new swashbuckling approach to commerce, entrepreneurship and also to conspicuous consumption. >> we definitely do have people who have become celebrities just from being rich. i'll take the trumps as an example. their celebrity is generally

that they are rich. >> donald trump has ventured into gambling and professional football and says he could negotiate a nuclear disarmament treaty with the soviet union. >> they say he's land hungry, money hungry, power hungry. >> the power is nonsense. i love the creative process. >> what about the name of trump city? trump tower we're sitting in. trump plaza. trump castle? >> it sells, mike. all i know is -- >> that's all it is? >> it has nothing to do with the ego. all i know is it sells. >> what do you do? >> security. >> we don't need security. we have people outside. >> leona helmsley was the wife of harry helmsley, one of the major -- much bigger than trump -- real estate developers in new york. >> i asked for something. i did not get it from you. i want it. >> you have nothing to do? >> l oechlt na helmsley, the queen of mean.

the idea was that she was so mean because she wanted you to have a great experience at one of her hotels. really? seems like she was just mean. >> oh, my. >> it's paradise. he stands here and he says, i'm taking inventory. i own this, i own this, i own this, and that one and that one and that one. >> he plays monopoly but with real buildings. >> with real buildings. >> they bought this connecticut estate a year ago, 26 acres, 28 rooms for just the two of them. and this building structure is what? >> tell them. >> it's the enclosure of the swimming pool. >> and up top? >> on top we're going to have, of course, a dance floor. ♪ dance in an old-fashioned way ♪ >> leona helmsley became a kind of symbol of the excesses of the '80s. >> am i comfortable? i make a living.

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this is the way we live now. nice, even temperature. no rain, no snow, no loud noises. music is playing. everything's perfect in the mall. >> in the 1980s, you have 16,000 malls popping up like mushrooms, and they become the high temples of the great american religion, shopping. >> pam and melissa, 15 years old, come to the mall almost every day. they call themselves mall rats. >> i love it. it's only $24. >> consumerism definitely took over in the '80s. people emerged from the '70s

from tough economic times and went wow, we can now spend. >> i want you to think about this also. >> that's what is going to set your eyes off. >> the economy started growing, and it was largely a consumer-driven growth. but the consumer economy was funded by debt. >> the national bankruptcy rate is soaring. greg and diana, annual income, $32,000. they had over $12,000 in unsecured debts, bought a new home. then they bought a washer, drier, oven and beta max tv recorder, then went bankrupt. >> i knew i didn't have money but if you've got plastic money, there's nothing holding you back. >> it was acceptable to have a credit card. more than acceptable to have debt. you wanted to pull it out of your wallet and use it.

>> live from tampa bay, florida, it's the home shopping club. >> every doodad and tchotchke. >> americans seemed utterly hooked on home shopping. >> i have you down for two of the plush musical bunnies. >> there are home shopping club parties. like-minded consumers gather together to do what comes naturally. >> i want four of those bird figurines. >> you don't have to leave your house and stuff will come to you. welcome to america. >> give us 300 more people to call on their credit card right now. >> if you and enough people will send me $100 immediately, i need some very quick money. >> go to the phone right now. now! quit talking about saying you believe in god without ever acting on his word. now. faith is an act! >> in all, there are 1,600 television ministers. of the $1.5 billion grossed annually, just three, pat robertson, jimmy swaggert and jim bakker took in $500 million. >> the primetime preachers say they need the money to stay on the air, and they need to stay on the air to raise money.

money for the kind of electronic equipment any network would be happy to own. >> i believe god wants us in the next 30 days to have every one of these bills paid in full, and ptl can live if we pay our bills. >> we can pay the bills if we would all just do something. >> as televangelism grows, jim bakker understands that preaching on television is not just about standing up and giving a fire and brimstone speech. he understands in the age of television, the johnny carson approach to televangelism, being more intimate, showing your lifestyle and your beautiful family is what brings people in. >> and here are jim and tammy! >> their appeal is powerful. last year, a million people responded to the bakkers' constant request for money. >> how many do you have right now? >> just about 30. >> 30 what? >> silver 7,000 clubs.

>> that's $90,000. >> praise god. >> the bakkers have been criticized for their own lavish lifestyle. >> just because i'm a christian doesn't mean i don't like nice things. i love nice things, and jim and i work very, very hard for nice things. >> they say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. >> a fleet of luxury cars and a string of fancy homes from palm springs, california, to south carolina. >> they think by them living well and having rolls-royces, everyone will thing, ah, god is shining his countenance upon them and, thus, upon us. and ptl becomes the vehicle for their media empire, for their theme parks. >> if we are to be fishers of men, that's what the bible says, we are fishers of men, we've been using pretty lousy bait. we've just built better bait to reach people. >> you can have a lifetime partnership with ptl for a one-time gift of $1,000. four days and three nights every

year for the rest of your life. >> that mix of god and greed ends up derailing them and leading them to breaking the very rules that they're preaching about. >> television english elicvange bakker has stepped down as the head of the praise the lord or ptl ministry. >> it came because of a sexual encounter seven years ago. >> jessica hahn is to be paid monthly as long as she keeps quiet about the incident. >> it turns out jim bakker has been paying off this secretary, and that shakes the evangelical world. >> the evidence indicates that effort and money have been expended to cover moral failure. >> if jim bakker paid jessica hahn hush money, quote, unquote, what else has he been doing with the ptl money? >> do you worry about the investigation? >> not at all. history will prove the bakkers were honest people. >> we interrupt this program for an nbc news special report. >> jim bakker, the defrocked head of the ptl ministry, has been found guilty on all 24

counts of fraud and conspiracy by a jury in charlotte, north carolina. >> bakker kept selling lifetime partnerships at heritage usa, even though they were oversold. the heritage grand hotel could accommodate only 25,000 partnerships, but 65,000 were sold. and for the lower house bunk house partnerships, about 7,000 were sold for a building that had only eight rooms. >> jichl and tammy baker's ptl club was sent $15 a year. she thought that would ease the pain of her and her husband. >> i have made billionaires out of those people when i don't even have enough to live on. >> bakker could be sentenced to 120 years in prison and fined over $5 million. >> i would say i feel sad, but encouraged in god. >> tammy bakker said she can best describe her feelings in song. ♪ on christ the solid rock i stand ♪

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we that's why at xfinityic. we've been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. now with instant text and email updates you'll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels so you don't miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you're looking for. because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. today, we travel to the lone star state to visit tycoon, entrepreneur t. boone pickens, the highest paid ceo in the country.

even here, wall street is in charge. wall street being a parrot, green as in money. he reigns over an entry foyer that runs the entire length of the house. and at the end of that foyer, we find this morning boone pickens. good morning, sir, how are you? >> good morning, harry. >> why don't we go ahead and head into the trophy room, if you don't mind. >> sure. >> t. boone pickens was a texas oilman who became the original corporate raider. he would buy a bunch of stock in a company, talk about how the executives needed to be tossed out and make a play for the takeover of the company. >> the company is only 1/20th the size of phillips, buys 5.8% of the stock privately. now pickens lets it be known that he wants to buy another 15% from the shareholders and gain a seat on the corporate board. >> there's one thing i want to put in place is that stockholders own companies and management are employees. >> phillips agreed to buy back its stock from t. boone pickens

to stop his takeover bid. the profit to pickens and his partners, $89 million. >> it is no secret that you've made about $500 million through losing on your attempted takeovers. do you go into it anticipating the loss are still going to stand you very well? >> you never like to lose, but if you lose and make money, well, it makes it a little easier. >> i remember some place, and the guy got up and said, i have a question. he said, you're making a lot of money out of this. and i said the shareholders are, too. he said, yes, but you're a fast buck artist. fast buck artist? i said, who in the hell would want to be known as a slow buck artist? >> i see it as a free enterprise system working at its best. >> pickens was really the first major investor to realize how undervalued american companies were and what you could buy there. and it was his early tilt at all these famous deals that brought this new reality to the attention of other investors who

followed in his wake and sought to imitate what he did. >> i freely admit, i am an investor and want to make money. i freely admit i'm not robinhood. >> it is not wrong to want a profit in capitalist america. it's fair. >> ivan boesky made a fortune buying into companies being taken over by takeover artists. he doesn't want to run those companies, just to profit in the run-up to those stock prices. >> "forbes" magazine lists boesky among the 400 richest people in america. estimating his wealth at well over $200 million. >> where's my share of the profits? >> ivan boesky gave the commencement speech in 1986 at berkeley. and he really became famous for one line in that speech. >> i urge you as a part of your mission, seek wealth. it's all right. >> a new film "wall street" used boseky's words as a bases of

some of the dialogue. >> greed is good. greed is right. greed works. >> when michael douglas in the movie said "greed is good," there's 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. >> 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. >> 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 it's so risky, those ious carry high interest rates, and they're called junk bonds. >> you may not have heard of michael milken of the investing

firm but this 40-year-old wall street whiz is said to be the most powerful financier in america. he brought respectability to low rated junk bonds and then used the money to finance corporate raids and takeovers. without mike milken, pickens couldn't have raided gulf, and phillips. >> he said if you really want to take over gulf, it's going to cost you $13 billion. i said, yeah, i get it. and he said, i can get the $13 billion. >> he's the guy that t. boone pickens goes to and most people haven't heard of him. >> that's the way he likes it. he doesn't care about publicity he doesn't care about pride. all he cares about is making money, doing deals and having power. >> he was this shadowy howard hughs like figure that those of us in the press never saw, you just heard. it's milken.

it was milken's genius that created an entire market and fueled this takeover phenomena. >> we romanticize these characters. the fact of the matter is, these are fat cats, first cousins to the financial manipulators, the robert barons in the late 19th century. >> these guys are out there, trying to make a buck doing nothing and are putting people out of work. >> economists agree that some unemployment, some hardship is unavoidable in the vital process of making the united states lean and mean again, what the takeover specialists call corporate restructuring. >> corporate america needs some kick now and then to become a little more efficient and less entrenched. and that will probably do our economy a lot of good. >> thursday, goodyear fended off a hostile takeover bid but victory didn't come cheap. >> goodyear won by buying back roughly half its stock and taking on a huge debt. plants were closed and workers laid off. the company pays $1 million a day in interest to 17 banks worldwide.

>> these fellows jump out of the closet, shout gotcha and buy up a company with its own assets, dismember it and erode the industrial base of this country. >> maybe we didn't understand how it all worked, but we saw a lot of people losing their jobs. and a few people getting super rich. and the vibe of the culture being, that's good. >> how much is enough? >> enough what? >> enough money, enough power, enough influence, enough takeovers? >> this is my work. this is what i do. let me do what i do. it's not a question of how much. hey, it's me, your dry skin. i'm craving something we're missing. the ceramides in cerave. they help restore my natural barrier, so i can lock in moisture and keep us protected. we've got to have each other's backs and fronts. cerave. what your skin craves.

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it was a week to remember. banker's hours posted on the doors of savings and loan institutions in ohio didn't mean a thing. the doors were locked. >> the run on ohio savings and loans began when home state savings bank were besieged by depositors who owned their money. >> i don't have a lot of money and i need that. >> i made a decision after weighing several options we had to close all 71 of the privately insured savings and loan institutions. >> they're faced with the dilemma of solving the worst financial crisis in ohio history, the situation that's being called the worst banking crisis in the u.s. since the depression. >> in a deregulatory climate in

the '80s, savings and loans which had traditionally invested in only mortgages, were free to invest in pretty much anything they wanted. >> basically what happened was the entire s & l industry got taken over by a bunch of entrepreneurs who saw them as piggy banks. >> vernon savings was shut down and saddled with $1.3 billion in bad loans. the owner lived a life of private jets, yachts and mansions. >> they took risks that should have been untenable for a banker. when it all went blewy, the entire industry ultimately went belly up. >> quiet down! >> i'm going to disperse the whole bunch of you. >> this was the third day of the run on the old court savings and loan corporation. >> the only thing i can do at this point i have no choice. we have to close. >> i don't think it's right. it's our money. this year, a record 260 banks will go bust. that's almost 800 in the past five years. bad loans to the third world.

bad loans to the oil industry. bad loans to real estate developers. >> one of the reasons bankers made outrageous loans was because of federal deposit insurance. if the loan went well, you rake in the profit. if the loan went poorly, then the federal government picks up the tab. >> with deregulation, the s&ls got into that commercial real estate market and lost their shirt. >> all over the united states, people were building projects for which there were no buyers, mile after mile of these partially completed condos. and they're all on the s&l's books. >> there's something wrong about the savings and loan industry today, and it isn't me. >> charles keating was a lawyer who got into banking and was able to buy a savings and loan. >> when keating bought lincoln savings and loan of irvine, california, he used it as a private piggy bank for his own ambitions, like the venetian hotel, which cost $500,000 per room to build.

>> that hotel is a magnificent investment for savings and loans dollars, no question about it. >> the real problem is when our appraisers looked at it, it said it's worth $200 million, not $300 million. >> bill black was one of the federal regulators who really spearheaded going after keating. >> we discovered likely fraud. just really basic things that no honest banker would do. the examiners looked at 52 real estate loans lincoln made. there were no credit reports on the borrowers in all 52. >> on top of that, charles keating has lincoln savings sell uninsured junk bonds, and he targets the widows and the retirement community. >> there were 23,000 customers who would buy $250 million of these bonds. >> we had sold our home in sherman oaks. my husband had a stroke. we moved down here, went to lincoln savings.

>> how much? >> you really want to know? >> yes. >> it was $30,000 and for us, that was quite a bit. >> capitalize on this, the bond salesman were told. the weak, meek, and ignorant are always good targets. >> the regulators were looking at us saying, this guy is a disaster. we have got to stop this. but by that time, keating had a construction company in arizona. he had thrifts in california. his tentacles spread out to several states. so he was able to call on congressmen and senators and say, hey, get these dogs off my back. >> this morning, the s&l crisis goes to capitol hill. the senate ethics committee is looking into charges against five senators accused of intervening with federal banking officials on behalf of charles keating. the so-called keating five are

john mccain and democrats alan canston, john glenn, donald riegele and den nis deconcini. they reportedly received a total of $1.3 million in donations. edwin gray says the senators tried to subvert the regulatory process. >> i was told to come alone. i did. >> did you find that unusual? >> absolutely. never happened before. the whole time i was in washington, i never saw that. >> no witnesses? >> no, no witnesses. deniability. perfectly built into the meeting. >> they said they wanted us to not take the enforcement action against lincoln savings. the only thing that got them to back off is when we finally said, we're making criminal referrals. you're going to bat for criminals. >> now awaiting trial on charges of criminal fraud, keating has refused to testify to the senate. >> was there something wrong with five senators meeting? yes, it's a bad appearance. but the real question is, did

john mccain abuse his office? the evidence indicates clearly no. >> the keating five became a symbol of the '80s because it's a group of distinguished u.s. senators accused of taking bribe money. they get off the hook eventually, but it really rocked the country because it showed not only was corporate america corrupt, but the u.s. senate seemed to be a beehive of bribery. >> one question, whether to do with whether my financial support influenced several political figures who took up my cause. i want to say, in the most forceful way that i can, i certainly hope so. ♪

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a financial scandal causing increasing concern involves investors who make killings on wall street to the because of luck or skill but because of insider information not available to anyone else. >> this coded document might be a secret earnings report showing disastrous losses or a confidential assessment of future profits. if you are 1 of the 32 million americans who own stock, such

information can either cost you money or earn you money, perhaps millions of dollars if you find it out first. in either case, it is illegal. >> the single biggest currency on wall street has always been information. and in the '80s, that information was trading back and forth. and investors were talking to their buddies. they went to business school and law school with who were working on these deals to find out. it was pervasive. >> the security and exchange commission, which monitors potential abuses, says currently potential abuses says currently penalties aren't strict enough. >> this is a serious course of misconduct and at present, the sanction is simply akin to asking someone to put the cookies back in the cookie jar. >> in tonight's money matters, the biggest insider stock trading case ever. >> investment banker dennis levine collected $12.5 million in illegal profits by gaining advanced knowledge of 54 pending takeovers. then from a phone booth, he'd call an accomplice in the bahamas who would buy stocks in the names of two dummy

corporations in panama. >> it was the first time the s.e.c. has been able to nail down insider trader. somebody with a million dollar a year salary which apparently wasn't enough. >> insider trading could become wall street's watergate. >> plea bargaining is now under way with dennis levine. authorities might be able to develop a list of new suspects. >> we start the investigation, and once his lawyer advised him that his interest to cooperate, he would give you the information. to him, it was just another deal. >> i think the judge made it clear that he would have given a heavier sentence except for the cooperation. >> dennis levine was one guy doing insider trading and that's not something that's new. but what dennis levine did is what led to ivan boesky. >> ivan boesky has been fined the largest penalty ever for insider trading and has been

barred from the industry. >> he did what he claimed he would ever do, use insider information to buy huge blocks of stock in companies secretly involved in takeover deals. >> ivan boesky was a crook. handing bags of cash to people who would give him inside information. >> if we had capital punishment for white collar crimes, i would say he would be a prime candidate. >> ivan boesky arrived in court to hear himself described as a man whose arrogance has been stripped away. there's no doubt he's become a symbol of what's wrong with wall street. >> the news of the boesky indictment was like the bombshell on wall street. >> what do we call greed the day before an indictment is filed? if you get my meaning? >> i'm afraid recently we call it success. people who have been engaged in such activity, such as ivan boesky, were being hailed as heroes at the peak of their careers.

>> many of america's small investors have been appalled. >> i think they should put them in jail. >> more than 48 cases of insider trading brought by new york's u.s. attorney rudolph guiliani. >> he had the aura of being the best man in law enforcement to do it. >> maybe we can't catch all of them but we can deliver a message. if you do get caught, you are going to lose your liberty and go to prison. >> today as the prospect of a much wider scandal seems certain, the market was off more than 40 points. this after it was learned that ivan boesky was talking, and then some. >> as one former s.e.c. put it, this is like arresting the madame of a brothel and finding her private book of clients. >> this guy boesky takes a fall and all over wall street, they're practically jumping out windows. it comes out he's been taping his phone calls and maybe private talks for three months. and wall street big shots begin wetting their -- well, you get the idea. >> of course, boesky was guilty. there was going to be no defense. all he had was bargaining power.

who could he deliver? >> let me ask you this. levine was a fish, boesky was a shark. who is the whale they're going to catch? >> i don't know. >> drexel burnham? >> well, that's possible. >> in the middle of all this is drexel burnham lambert. until a few years ago, a little-known wall street firm. then it shot to the top of this high-stakes world by specializing in so-called junk bonds. high interest but also high risk. >> drexel and the head of its junk bond department michael milken made a deal with ivan boesky to make millions of dollars illegally. >> for example, california company wicks came to milken's firm and said it was planning a takeover. he then whispered that secret to boesky in new york. boesky bought the stock before it went up, shared the profits with milkens firm, but milken betrayed his client, charged a million-dollar fee and secretly earned $6.5 million more at the clients' expense. >> authorities are worried that

further disclosures resulting from the boesky affair may weaken public confidence in financial markets and weaken the markets themselves. >> just came from inside. it looks like a mad house. >> i guess the bull market's over. >> it's a blood bath down there. >> they're calling it the monday massacre. the worst drop in history. >> i call it the nearest thing to a meltdown i ever want to see. >> by the closing bell, the dow jones industrial average was down more than 500 points. >> this is a crash people hadn't seen, frankly, since the great depression. no one had seen the stock market fall that quickly, that fast. >> paper losses of more than $500 billion. october 19th, 1987, wall street's black monday. >> 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 take it away really, really quickly. >> there's only two emotions on

wall street. someone fear and the other is greed. usually we have an excess of one or the other. i think we have now an excess of fear. brought to you by 1200 workers in boston -- we're proud of giving you our best. gillette. the best a man can get.

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>> a little present for the new president. >> presidents always seem to manage to get that as their gift after the inaugurals. >> i promise you, when congress tries to raise taxes, i'll say no. they'll try one more time and i'll say no. and if they try a third time, i'll stare them right in the eye. and i'm going to say to them, read my lips, no new taxes. >> in 1988, george h.w. bush is running to take on the reagan mantle. read my lips, no new taxes. >> when reagan left the white house in january, he left george bush holding the bag, filled with an assortment of staggering problems. >> when the president calls, some come running. all agree the savings and loan crisis an urgent problem. >> could the s&ls be bailed out without a tax increase? is there any way to do it? >> i don't think there is, and

that's the conclusion of most people. >> bush had to fill this smoking hole left by reagan for him. the only way to do that is pass new legislation because now we had to start dipping into taxpayer money. >> the only bailout is for depositors, not bad bankers. >> no one needs to worry about one nickel of their money in those institutions. >> this legislation says to tens of millions of s&l depositors, you will not be the victim of other's mistakes. thank you all very much. and now i'm proud to sign this monster. >> essentially, george bush is covering the biggest overdraft in history. >> bush caves. he raises taxes. that kills him politically, but saves america economically. >> listen carefully to this number. $500 billion. that's the latest estimate of what the failure of hundreds of federally insured savings and loans will eventually cost

american taxpayers. >> mr. keating, can you make bail? >> no questions. >> the once rapid growth of keating's failed lincoln savings and loan in california, the had uninsured and worthless bonds. the majority bought by seniors, many losing their life savings. >> charles keating was convicted in two trials, but both of those verdicts were overturned, and then he pled guilty to avoid a retrial and was allowed out for time served. >> the climate had gone from celebrating the excesses of wall street to condemning them pretty quickly. >> mr. milken? >> tonight's headline, milken pleads guilty in what may be the largest individual case of fraud ever to rock wall street. the case which ended in a plea bargain with the government.

>> judge kimble wood said milken's crimes merited his removal from society, sentencing him to ten years in prison. >> he didn't serve anywhere near that. he did go to jail for just under two years. i'm confident when he left, he was hat a minimum a billionaire, and quite possibly a multibillionaire. >> the game of monopoly could have been invented for donald trump. but monopoly is a tricky game. when you borrow $2 billion and the economy goes into a tailspin and you can't pay the interest on your loans, the bankers move in. donald's $100 million yacht goes to the boston safe deposit and trust company. his half-interest in the grand hyatt hotel goes to banker's trust. his trump shuttle goes to northwest airlines. the man who was the darling of the '80s is seen as a man in trouble, and he knows it. >> insofar as we can say that the '80s was a period of

hedonism and access, the end of the decade was the hangover. >> it's more like the rich are taking a tumble now. >> leona and harry helmsley, one of the richest couples in the world, were treated as criminals, booked for tax evasion and extortion, charging that they renovated their $11 million estate and wrote the cost off as a business expen expense. >> a former housekeeper said mrs. helmsley told her, we don't pay taxes, only little people pay taxes. >> she was sentenced to four years in prison, given a $7 million fine and ordered to serve 750 hours of community service. for some, the sentence was too light. >> i have done nothing wrong. i'm innocent. my only crime is that i'm leona helmsley. >> no matter how many white collar thieves get sent away, no matter how long they're locked up, the public will still be paying for this long after they're out.

>> so, what did the 1980s add up to? we put that question to a fair number of people and more than 95% of them said simply it was the decade of greed. >> we learned that greed may be good. but too much greed is bad. and that sometimes people on wall street get a little too greedy but they learn their lesson and they would never do it again. >> some argue that today's bright spotlight on unethical behavior has exaggerated the problem. but there's no denying the problem is real. and if we excuse unethical conduct by saying, well, everyone does it, or it's really okay unless you get caught or it's not against the law, we miss the point of why it's important we not do it, period. the point may be no less of national survival, as a people who can live together honorably. if we let lying, cheating, and stealing become an accepted way of life, it's not just a few dollars that will be lost, but the spirit of the country that

will be lost. the decision is ours. it's a time of enormous turmoil. >> the '60s are over, dad. >> a foul on eloy. good. >> we intend to cover all of the news all the time. we won't be signing off until the world ends. >> isn't that special? >> any tool for human expression will bring out the best and the worst in us. and television has been there. >> they don't pay me enough to deal with animals like this. >> people are no longer embarrassed to say they watch television. >> we have seen the news, and it is us.