s desire for big profits in a short period of time create a world which becomes unreal, hallucinatory, in the sense that no outside reference to Wall Street transactions occurs; it is an insulated world with its own "reality." This "reality" is made even more isolated from the external world by the fact that the transactions themselves are often irrational, and in any case are based not on products or services but rather on money, itself a symbol, itself removed from substantial reality. Speculation, the cause of much trouble and unethical behavior on Wall Street, is another factor which removes the participants further from non-Wall Street reality.
As Stone writes, "In any three-month period, stocks will rise or fall for many reasons, only one of which involves valuation. In that short time period, stocks will sell for what the crowd is willing to pay for them, and the driving factors may be fear and greed, not logic . . . . Some of the best minds in the country, therefore, were forced to become speculators, trying to make educated guesses on which stocks would rise or fall in the near future. Rather than buying cheap and selling dear, they were under pressure to outguess what everyone else would be selling or buying. It's as if they found themselves in a car race in which all the drivers watched each other instead of the track" (Stone, 1990, p. 86).
It is clear that under such circumstances, Wall Street is not a monastery. It is not a place where thoughtful individuals take much time and energy to consider the ethics of a certain situation and then take the ethical position or action. Such an individual would not be drawn to Wall Street in the first place. Wall Street is not a place where individuals go to work their ethical muscles; it is a place where people go to make money. And if such an individual were indeed drawn there for some reason, he would either be changed by the hectic greed of the place, or he would be...