(From Margin Call.  Again.)

JOHN TULD

When did you start feeling so sorry for yourself?  It’s unbearable.  What, so you think we might’ve put a few people out of business today?  That it’s all for nought?  You’ve been doing that everyday for almost 40 years, Sam.  And if this is all for nought, so is everything out there.

It’s just money.  It’s made up.  Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat.  It’s not wrong.  And its certainly no different today than its every been.  1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987, Jesus didn’t that fuck, fucked me up good, 92, 97, 2000, and whatever we want to call this.  It’s all just the same thing over and over, we can’t help ourselves.  And you and I can’t control it or stop it or even slow it or even so slightly alter it.  We just react.

We make a lot of money if we get it right and we get left on the side of the road if we get it wrong.  And there’ve always been and always will be the same percentage of winners and loosers, happy farts and sad sacks, fat cats and starving dogs in this world.  Yeah there may be more of us today than there’s ever been but the percentages, they stay exactly the same.