Ashley Williams – Heather Burke — Margin Call (film)

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat. Now, I dont cheat. And although I like to think we have some pretty smart people in this building, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be first."

"Please, speak as you might to a young child or a Golden Retriever. It wasnt brains that got me here, I can assure you that."

"I run Risk Management. I dont really see how thats a natural place to start cutting jobs."

"So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That its all for naught. Youve been doing that every day for almost forty years, Sam. And if this is all for naught, then so is everything out there. [points to the skyline of New York City] Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we dont have to kill each other just to get something to eat. Its not wrong. And its certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987—Jesus, didnt that fucker fuck me up good—92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. Its all just the same thing over and over; we cant help ourselves. And you and I cant control it or stop it, or even slow it, or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot of money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers, happy fuckers and sad suckers, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than theres ever been, but the percentages—they stay exactly the same."

"Thank you all for coming in a little early this morning. I know yesterday was pretty bad, and I wish I could say that today is going to be less so, but that isnt going to be the case. Now, Im supposed to read this statement to you all here, but why dont you just read it on your own time, and Ill just tell you what the fuck is going on here. Ive been here all night, meeting with the Executive Committee, and the decision has been made to unwind a considerable position of the firms holdings in several key asset classes. The crux of it is, in the firms thinking, the partys over as of this morning. Theres going to be considerable turmoil in markets for the foreseeable future, and they believe it is better that this turmoil begins with us. As a result, the firm has decided to liquidate its majority position of fixed-income MBS … today. These are your packets; you will see what accounts youre responsible for today. Im sure it hasnt taken you long to understand the implications of this sale on your relationships with your counterparties and, as a result, on your careers. I have expressed this reality to the Executive Committee, and they understand. As a result, if you achieve a 93% sale of your assets, you will receive a $1.4 million one-off bonus. If the floor, as a whole, achieves a 93% sale, you will get an additional $1.3 million apiece. For those of you who have never been through this before, this is what the beginning of a fire sale looks like. I cannot begin to tell you how important the first hour and a half is going to be. I want you to hit every bite you can find: dealers, brokers, clients, your mother if shes buying. And no swaps; its outgoing only, today. Obviously, this is not going down the way that any of us would have hoped, but … the ground is shifting below our feet. And, apparently, theres no other way out."

"Do you know I built a bridge once? ... I was an engineer by trade... It went from Dilles Bottom, Ohio to Moundsville, West Virginia. It spanned nine hundred and twelve feet above the Ohio River. Twelve thousand people used this thing a day. And it cut out thirty-five miles of driving each way between Wheeling and New Martinsville. Thats a combined 847,000 miles of driving a day. Or 25,410,000 miles a month. And 304,920,000 miles a year. Saved. Now I completed that project in 1986, thats twenty-two years ago. So over the life of that one bridge, thats 6,708,240,000 miles that havent had to be driven. At, what, lets say fifty miles an hour. So thats, what, 134,165,800 hours, or 559,020 days. So that one little bridge has saved the people of those communities a combined 1,531 years of their lives not wasted in a fucking car. One thousand five hundred and thirty-one years."