| October 01, 2008 | Wednesday | Shawwal 1, 1429 |
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Show me the colour of money
As I was marking some sections from Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The God delusion’ for the column I planned to write about the decline of faith in England, I made the mistake of glancing at the TV guide. To my delight, I noted that BBC1 was showing ‘The colour of money’ later in the evening. So my piece on religious belief had to be postponed for the pleasure of watching Paul Newman in a movie I had missed when it was released some 25 years ago.
The news of the iconic American actor’s death last week was the lead story in most news bulletins in the UK. More than his charm, good looks and immense talent, he was remembered by commentators for his courageous political stance, his efforts at addressing green issues, and his philanthropy. Mostly as a joke, he established a brand of pasta sauces and salad dressings called ‘Paul Newman’s Own’, but as the business took off, mostly thanks to those bright blue eyes on the label, he expanded it and donated all the profits ($250 million) to charity.
Despite his enormous worldwide popularity, he did not allow his fame to go to his head. With movies like ‘Hud’, ‘Cool Hand Luke’, ‘The Sting’ and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, his was perhaps the most instantly recognised face in the world. Fortunately, most of these films came to Pakistan in the Sixties and Seventies when it was still possible to watch them in long-forgotten cinema houses like Rex, Palace and Bambino. And more to the point, there was still enough of a market for good films to encourage distributors to import the latest hits from the West. Now we have to watch them at home on pirated DVDs.
But a movie buff’s gotta do what he has to do, so if that’s what it takes, I suggest you ask your local video guy to get you a copy of ‘The colour of money’. Directed by Martin Scorsese, this portrait of Fast Eddie, an ageing pool hustler (Paul Newman) who decides to manage and guide Vince, a talented young pool player (Tom Cruise) is sharp, funny and keenly observed. Eddie has a hard time curbing Vince’s flamboyance, his cockiness and his determination to win. He explains patiently to the young neophyte that in order to hustle players, he has to deliberately lose some games, otherwise nobody would take his bets. But Vince struggles to master this aspect of the money game, much to his mentor’s frustration.
The turning point comes when Eddie is himself hustled by a young player (Forest Whittaker). He tells Vince that he’s on his own; begins practising seriously; and finally enters in a regional pool championship in Atlantic City. Not surprisingly, Vince is there as well, and the two meet in the quarter-finals which Eddie wins by a very close margin. That night, Vince comes to his room with an envelope containing $8,000, and explains that this money is Eddie’s share from the bribe he had accepted from a gambler to throw the game. The disciple had learned the lesson of the money game all too well.
Stunned by the knowledge that he did not win fairly, Eddie forfeits the next match, and challenges Vince to a straight game. The younger player replies that he will beat him every time. And in a touching and rousing end, Eddie says that in that case, he will just keep going on, and try to win. Despite the film’s cynicism, there is a bright element of hope and redemption that provides a wonderful vehicle for Paul Newman’s sunny disposition.
Speaking of gambling, I doubt there has ever been a bigger bet attempted than throwing $700 billion at the troubled banks on Wall Street in the hope that this will wipe their balance sheets clean, restoring sanity to the markets. Thus far, a majority of American legislators have said “Thanks, but no thanks” when the bailout package was placed before them on Monday. But I suspect they will buckle under pressure when the bill comes before them again later this week, as surely it will. There is just too much at stake for the Bush administration for it to walk away from this mess. In George Bush’s memorable words, without the bailout package, “this sucker will go down.”
And if it does, many of the world’s financial markets will go down with it. Too much of the toxic sub-prime mortgage debt has been injected into the veins of the global system by major American banks for the ripple effects not to bring it to its knees. For over a decade, de-regulation has been credited with the huge boom in the markets, with 30-year-old bankers pulling in million-dollar salaries and bonuses.
What American legislators and taxpayers are seething about is the fact that when these fat cats were paying themselves obscene salary packages and share options, none of the government regulators saw fit to look into the books of their highflying banks. But now that their monumental greed has got them into trouble, average Americans are being asked to pay for their bailout.
To add to this sense of outrage is the fact that thus far, not a single official from the regulatory bodies has resigned or been sacked. The Bush administration has not accepted any of the blame from the ongoing financial meltdown, and Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, seems to show no sign of contrition as he flits from one TV studio to the next. When leaving an investment bank to join the Treasury Department, he negotiated a tax break that was worth $200 million to his financial wellbeing. Clearly, he will not be joining the queue of unemployed bankers on the dole any time soon. Perhaps it would be no bad thing to let the markets find their own levels without state intervention. That would eliminate the weakest banks, and not put the taxpayers at risk. The problem with this approach is that a virtual collapse of the banking system would bring huge pain to the rest of the economy. Already, sound businesses are experiencing liquidity problems as banks are increasingly reluctant to lend. Everybody wants to hang on to their cash, and as depositors begin to worry about their savings, dark memories of the Crash of 1929 are being revived in TV talk shows and financial columns. Is this the end of the world as we know it?
