IN Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece Wall Street there is a striking moment of screenplay between the characters Lou Mannheim and Bud Fox, played by the film’s star Charlie Sheen.

“Man looks into the abyss and there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment man finds his character and that’s what keeps him out of the abyss,” profers the sage Mannheim moments before Fox walks into his office and is arrested as a result of his activities having come to the attentions of the Securities and Exchange Commission.