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Are securities regulators the savior against greed?
Conrad 2022-10-17 18:19:06
"We created a system of free enterprise under which anyone, no matter who he is, where he comes from, or what class he belongs to, has a good idea of something, and nothing can stop him from doing it. Try. However, I guess, I may be a generation late, because now, there is a system at work, under this system, once those dreamers and eccentrics are produced, some people laugh at them, but they may bring the world to the world in the future. Crazy ideas for revolutionary change are suppressed from top to bottom even before his idea has surfaced in their own minds, and they would rather kill a new idea than see it come out and make a mess. If Benjamin Franklin lives to this day, and he's probably going to jail for flying a kite without a license... If big business closes the door to the little guys who have some new ideas, then we're not just closing the door to progress, we It's also undermining everything we've fought for and everything that keeps this country going."
Extended Reading
Tucker: The Man and His Dream quotes
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Preston Tucker: [making his closing arguments to the jury] ... When I was a boy, I used to, uh... I used to read all about Edison, and the Wright brothers... Mr. Ford, they were, they were my heroes... 'rags to riches' that's not just the name of a book; that's, what this country was all about!... We invented the free enterprise system, where anybody, no matter who he was, where he came from, what class he belonged to... If he came up with a better idea, about ANYTHING, there's no limit to how far he could go... I grew up a generation too late I guess because now the way the system works... The loner; the dreamer; the CRACKPOT, who, comes up with some CRAZY IDEA that everybody LAUGHS at, that LATER, turns out to REVOLUTIONIZE THE WORLD... HE'S SQUASHED, FROM ABOVE, BEFORE HE EVEN GETS HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WATER, BECAUSE THE BUREAUCRATS, THEY'D RATHER KILL A NEW IDEA THAN LET IT ROCK THE BOAT!... IF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WERE ALIVE TODAY, HE'D BE THROWN IN JAIL FOR SAILING A KITE WITHOUT A LICENSE!
[jury laughs]
Preston Tucker: ... It's true!... We're all puffed up with ourselves now because we invented *the bomb*... Dropped the... Beat the daylights out of the Japanese; the Nazis... But if 'big business' closes the door on THE LITTLE GUY WITH A NEW IDEA, WE'RE NOT ONLY CLOSING THE DOOR ON PROGRESS, BUT WE'RE SABOTAGING EVERYTHING THAT WE FOUGHT FOR!... EVERYTHING THAT THE COUNTRY STANDS FOR! And one day, we're gonna find ourselves at the bottom of the heap, instead of king of the hill, having no idea how we got there; buying our radios and our cars from our former enemies!... I don't believe that's gonna happen; I *can't* believe it, cuz... if I ever, stop believing in plain old common horse-sense of the American people... there's no way I could get out of bed in the morning... Thank you.
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Abe: [after the trial outside the courthouse, with lots of spectators admiring Tucker's cars] They *love* the cars, the people! Drives me crazy, that the motor company's dead... They'll never be made!
Preston Tucker: We made 'em.
Abe: Fifty cars...
Preston Tucker: Aw, what's the difference - fifty or fifty million. That's only machinery!... It's the *idea* that counts, Abe... The dream...