The+Great+Gatsby

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In the Great Gatsby it showed how Gatsby went from a poor boy to a rich man. That is true today. If someone is willing to work hard they can gain success. One of the greatest things about America is everyone's opportunity to move up in life and pursue their dreams. However, many people today are similar to Tom in Daisy in that they are given everything. The newer generations have come to expect everything to be given to them and they forget that the luxuries in their life were earned through the hard work of their parents and ancestors. They are willing to go into debt because they fill they are entitled to get everything they want. They don't care who has to pay off their debt. They are just like Tom and Daisy only thinking about themselves. Through "Greed is Good" the audience is persuaded that greed is a necessary part of success. This idea is also shown in "The Great Gatsby" from Gatsby earning his money illegally. Both sources are trying to show that morals have to be sacrificed for success. While I do not agree that morals have to sacrificed, I do believe that sacrifices have to be made to reach a dream. Ehrenreich writes a story of a girl who can only get minimum wage jobs because of her laziness. Gatsby didn't gain his fortune because he was lazy. In order to achieve something you have to put effort into what you want. The Miners in Chile were trapped for a long time down in the mines.They wanted to get out quick, but it took time. Gatsby wanted Daisy as soon as he possibly could get her. He waited for years before he was finally able to see her again at Nick's house. All dreams take time to achieve. The housing bubble burst was a devastation for many American families. Many had been stupid enough to get mortgages that they knew they would never be able to pay off. While they temporarily achieved their dream of having a nice house it was not permanent and quickly let to misery.Gatsby thought Daisy would be waiting for him when he came back from serving the country, but soon found this was not the case seeing as Daisy was married not. Gatsby and the families going through fore-closer both failed at their attempt at achieving their dream the first time. Failure is part of the process in perusing a dream. Failure isn't a bad thing. It's your reaction to failure that is important. Does failure keep you down, or motivate you to pursue your dream harder? Goldman Sacs took a lot of risky moves. They were dealing with money that didn't really exist and they knew their actions could cause a problem in the future. They took risks that most people would consider insane. Gatsby was similar to this in his pursuit of Daisy. She was a married woman with a daughter, yet he wanted to marry her and call her his own. It was a long shot, but Gatsby was crazy enough to want her. Sometimes dreams aren't realistic or even possible, but people still peruse them.
 * Initial Thoughts**
 * Gordon Gekko: "Greed is Good"**
 * Barbara Ehrenreich: "Serving in Florida"**
 * Miners saved by capitalism - Wall Street Journal**
 * "Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope" - Fortune**
 * In Goldman Sacs We Trust**
 * Gordon Gekko: “Greed is Good” []
 * Barbara Ehrenreich: “Serving in Florida”[]
 * Miners saved by capitalism-Wall Street Journal[]
 * “Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope”-Fortune[]
 * [[image:http://www.wikispaces.com/i/mime/32/application/pdf.png width="32" height="32" link="http://english3ap.wikispaces.com/file/view/In+Goldman+Sachs+We+Trust.pdf"]][|In Goldman Sachs We Trust.pdf]


 * GATSBY BLOG: BIGGEST SACRIFICE**

The biggest sacrifice made in __The Great Gatsby__ was the sacrifice of integrity. Tom, Myrtle, Daisy, Gatsby, Jordan, Wilson, and even Nick, all sacrificed their integrity. Integrity is the moral character, and honesty of a person. Tom and Myrtle had a secret affair together destroying their moral virtue and honesty to their spouses. Daisy and Gatsby also had a relationship together while Daisy was married. If Daisy had kept her integrity she would have remained loyal to Tom, but she chose to sacrifice it instead. Although Gatsby was not married and therefore was not cheating on anybody, he gave up his integrity by having a relationship with a married woman who even had a child. He would have gladly seen Daisy divorce Tom and gave no thought to how that would affect Daisy's daughter. He became very focused on getting what he wanted and didn't really think about right and wrong or how his actions would affect others. Jordan was obsessed with being the best. She was willing to lie to get the number one golf title. The way others viewed her success was more important than her morality. Wilson started out with integrity. He was honest, hardworking, and loyal to his wife, but Myrtle's death was his breaking point. Seeing his wife's dead body filled him with revenge and he abandoned his moral ways. Murder was the only way to fulfill his revenge therefore he killed Gatsby's. He then had nothing to live for and shot himself. Lastly we have Nick. Nick in general is seen as one of the more moral characters in the story. He even states that he is the most honest man he knows. However, I question his reasoning. Would an honest man just stand by and watch the people around him indulge in affairs? When Nick met Myrtle he knew she was the woman Tom was having an affair with, but he chose not to tell Daisy. When he realized Gatsby and Daisy had an intimate relationship he didn't tell Tom. In fact, he helped keep Tom away at Gatsby's party so that Gatsby and Daisy could sneak away. I wouldn't consider that integrity. All of the characters mentioned sacrificed integrity at some point throughout the story.

WHAT IS THE COST OF PURSUING A DREAM? Logical Reasoning A dream is something you can continually pursue, each step brings you closer to the ultimate goal, but as you take each step they become harder and harder. When you reach a certain point, it becomes unrealistic to achieve your dream because dreams grow and the importance often becomes more significant. There comes a time when dreams can't be obtained but you continue to pursue them anyway.

Gatsby goes after Daisy, but the logic behind this is not sound. She is a married woman and has a child. They had a relationship in the past, but Gatsby is unwilling to accept that Daisy has a new life now. Gatsby is fantasizing and pursing an unrealistic dream, but he doesn't realize that his dream isn't realistic. In his own mind, Gatsby is trapped in a false reality that unfortunately is not obtainable.
 * The Great Gatsby**

The concepts that relates- The bankers dream is to become wealthy. The borrower's dream is to have a house. So the banker gives a loan to the borrower and makes a profit off of the interest, and the borrower uses the money to buy a home, and both dreams come true. This works for a while, but then the banker decides to give loans to more and more people, even to people that might not even pay it back, because with each loan they give they make a profit. This continues until the banker loans all of the money he has. Then what? It would seem logical to stop lending money considering there was not any left, but instead the banker loans money that they don't have to continue making a profit. Not only that, but now basically anyone can get a loan. People dreaming of a home will take loans they know they will never be able to pay back, because they are so focused on obtianing a home. As a result of these illogical actions the economy is suffering because people continue to spend money that they don't have and take loans they know there not ever going to be able to payback.
 * Inside Job**

In the excerpt __Nickel and Dimed__, Barbara Ehrenreich gives an example of a young girl and her dreams. The girl dreams of getting a job that pays well and becoming rich quick, but she did not go to college. She figured she didn't need college to get a high paying job right off the bat. This is where logic has failed her, she has a great image of a future, but doesn't think through the logical way to get there. It takes hard work and perseverance to become successful, but she says herself, "mostly out of laziness I decide to start my low-wage life..."
 * Nickel and Dimed**

The __Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope__ is similar to __Inside Job__ because they both discuss the catastrofic housing bubble burst. It explains how the bankers kept giving out more and more loans. With each loan they gave they would get more money fullfilling thier dream of gaining an increasing fortune. However it came to the point where they didn't have any money to give, but they still wanted to make money. So instead of being logical and realizing that they couldn't give away any loans until they actually had money, they went after their dream of becoming rich and loaned out money that they didn't actually have. "This issue, which is backed by ultra-risky second-mortgage loans, contains all the elements that facilitated the housing bubble and bust."
 * Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope**

A dream is something you can continually pursue, each step brings you closer to the ultimate goal, but as you take each step they become harder and harder. When you reach a certain point, it becomes unrealistic to achieve your dream because dreams grow and the importance often becomes more significant. There comes a time when dreams can't be obtained but you continue to pursue them anyway.

The phrase __Greed is Good__ is an illogical statement in itself. To achieve his dream Gekko rationalizes that greed is good. The definition of greedy according to the Webster dictionary is "desiring more than one needs or deserves".
 * Greed is Good**

The Goldman Sacs Companies dream was to make their stocks look good. To do this "the Trading Corporation was buying heavily of its own securities." They made the stocks look like they were doing better than they were by purchasing their own stocks. This caused the stock prices to rise, yet the company was not actually making money since they were the ones purchasing the stocks. While it made their dream temporarialy come true their dreams turned into a nightmare when reality kicked in. They were not making a profit and the "good" stocks were crahsing. It was not logical to buy their own stocks. Ehrenreich, Barbara. //Serving in Florida// 2001 <[]> Web. 8 November 2011
 * In Goldman Sacs We Trust**

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. The great Gatsby. Harmondsworth (Royaume Uni): Penguin Books, 1950. Print.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. //In Goldman Sachs We Trust//. Library of America: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997. Print.

Inside Job. Dir. Charles Ferguson. Perf. Matt Damon. Sony Pictures Classics, 2010. DVD.

Sloan, Alan. //Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope// 16 October 2007 <[]> Web. 8 November 2011