Julie Roberts can be seen here with a dollar note for a head. With the reported fees she commands for her films, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to suggest the money has gone to her head would it?

Here, it is difficult to tell if Mr. Bean looks excited or shocked. Perhaps he is a combination of the two. He is on the front of a Filipino peso note after all.

‘King of cool’ Steve Mcqueen is doing what he does best in this mashup. Star of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was once the highest paid actor in the world; No wonder he looks so at home on the front of a note!

A slighter younger Brad Pitt here, with a $50 wedge for a jaw-line. Nowadays, Pitt possesses a similar scruffy beard. A sign of things to come maybe?

]]> http://www.moneystand.co.uk/2010/03/31/celebrity-money-mash-ups/feed/ 1 http://www.moneystand.co.uk/2010/03/31/a-new-generation-of-gordon-gekkos/ http://www.moneystand.co.uk/2010/03/31/a-new-generation-of-gordon-gekkos/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:10:13 +0000 cashmachine http://www.moneystand.co.uk/?p=299

With the world financial crisis smoke still wafting through much of the western world, it is almost with impeccable timing that a man whom some blame for the igniting of the financial disaster flame will be returning to the big screen; Michael Douglas.

Okay, so really we mean Michael Douglas’s infamous character Gordon Gekko, a lead character whom in perhaps in retrospect, inspired thousands of city bankers around the world to subscribe to his belief that “greed is good”.

Gordon Gekko, from Oliver Stone’s 1987 movie Wall Street, was based upon real life characters that stalked the financial markets at the time, making millions on daring strategies.

Some others believed he was based on a combination of scandalous real-life businessman Ivan Boesky, corporate raider Carl Icahn and junk bond king Michael Milken, who were all facing a growing public backlash for accusations of immortality, of seeing companies as targets not employers, with assets for stripping and not growing.

Stone decided to try and tap into these feelings in Wall Street. Douglas was cast as Gekko, a finance manager without conscience, and Charlie Sheen as a young stock broker who sets out with good intentions but gradually abandons them as he is seduced by Gekko’s beliefs.

Douglas was so convincing and compelling he earned an Oscar for his efforts. However, instead of the film/character turning people off the idea of playing the markets with a black heart, Douglas’s charismatic, powerful performance made him the poster boy for stockbrokers.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said after the banking collapse: “It is perhaps time now to admit that we did not learn the full lessons of the greed-is-good ideology. And today we are still cleaning up the mess of the 21^st century children of Gordon Gekko.”

Stone has promised the Gekko character is a reformed man, but with the sequel due for release later this year, many hope Stone and Douglas really do get their message across this time.

An IVA will certainly give you a degree of control over what happens in the event of serious financial difficulty.

When compared to Bankruptcy, there isn’t anywhere near the same level of intrusion into your life and financial history. You provide your practitioner with the information requested, including a breakdown of income and expenditure, so affordability can be determined. Bankruptcy results in a full and compulsory analysis of your accounts and can lead to a Bankruptcy Restriction Order (BRO). This would mean that you can be held accountable for up to 15 years in the event of unnecessary risk or fraudulent activity.

Another appealing factor for many is that you can protect your professional status of employment (lawyer, accountant, police etc) and family home within an IVA. You will still be expected to re mortgage at the end of year 4, but only if this is affordable and sufficient equity exists.

Your IVA will not be advertised in the local press so nobody will be made aware, although it will be recorded on the insolvency register. There are also new debt solutions such as the Debt Relief Order (DRO) released in April 2009 which could be an option for you. But of course, it will largely depend on your financial situation as to what debt solution is best for you.