MovieChat Forums > Defending Your Life (1991) Discussion > Investing in Casio Corporation

Investing in Casio Corporation

posted 13 years ago by jamesblair1976
15 replies | jump to latest

Okay, so everyone remember the scene where Albert Brook's character is being judged because he got some info that comes along 'once every 3 or 4 lifetimes' or something to that effect and decided against it? My question is...WHY DOES THIS CONSTITUTE A JUDGEMENT BASED ON FEAR???? Who knew back then that this little Japanese startup company called Casio would eventually become the 'largest manufacturer of timepieces in the universe?' It was just a mistake, nothing more. People who have money to invest get presented with deals by the day. They either invest in them or they don't.

There's an expression "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Is it possible that's what Brook's character was thinking?

"We're trying to entertain them, Chazz, not kill 'em!"

[–] alleister 13 years ago

Yes, I think you are right. There are a few instances in the movie where dumb decisions are spotlighted (such as the highlight real of him falling off the roof etc) I'm not sure why they went in that direction either, except that it's some comic relief and sets him up as a lovable idiot who for many reasons is unfit to "move on".

[–] jamesblair1976 13 years ago

I hope my example isn't misconstrued as one of his "dumb" decisions - it would seem he actually put thought into it when presented with the offer to invest. Only now, so many years into the future (and while he was being judged) did hindsight become 20/20. This example is not like when they showed him practicing to negotiate a salary for an upcoming job interview and then buckling immediately on the first offer - THAT was dumb!

"We're trying to entertain them, Chazz, not kill 'em!"

[–] Rockhound6165 13 years ago

The fear was that he was afraid to take a chance. His friend told him it was a can't miss opportunity but Daniel was afraid to invest in an unknown company and in the end he invested in something "safe" like cattle which backfired.

[–] jamesblair1976 13 years ago

What made his friend so clairvoyant so as to presume it was a can't-miss opportunity? what if we all jumped at every opportunity that our friends claimed were "can't miss?" You know what would happen? We'd all be BROKE! I'm just saying this is a bad example to show Daniel's "fear" - he was in fact quite lucid to his friend when explaining why he decided not to take the offer. With confidence, he merely suggested that Germany was a better country to have faith in when investing in electronic time pieces. It wasn't like he was hemming and hawing and going "uh, I'm not...I dunno, um...Christ, I...just...dahuminahuminahumina." He made a choice and learned to live with it. We can't all be stock market wizards. Didn't the dot.com bubble seem like a can't miss? didn't an assload of people lose their shirts?

"We're trying to entertain them, Chazz, not kill 'em!"

[–] techbox14 12 years ago

He should have been able to pick up on the guy's confidence.

The way he said, "That's going to change."

I guess there are times when people are giving us the right message and other times when we're being tricked.

Fear makes it hard to tell the two apart.

[–] e827 8 years ago

What made his friend so clairvoyant so as to presume it was a can't-miss opportunity?

He was the son of someone important at Casio.

That said, I agree with you that this didn't appear to be an example of Daniel being afraid. He had a gut instinct that the Japanese wouldn't be able to produce a good watch, and that was what led him to make the decision - not fear.

[–] HowYaLikeDemApplesWill 8 years ago

What made the gag so funny, especially in retrospect, is that Daniel was afraid to invest in a Japanese company for something high-tech or precisely manufactured, because they didn't have the reputation or experience.

Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] frogca 8 years ago

The baffling and funny thing to me was that the issue is fear, and the fact that basically at that point it would be insider trading which is a crime... is not alluded to in the film or by anyone in this thread, as far as I saw. It's all about fear... not ethics, law, or criminality. Just bizarre.

[–] HowYaLikeDemApplesWill 8 years ago

Good point....his college chum was the son of a senior executive at Casio, and was giving him non-public information about a product launch (watches) coming in three months, and to 'buy as much stock as you can'.
Of course Daniel didn't refuse on ethical grounds...he was indeed, afraid to take a risk on an innovative new company and product.

Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

[–] taxvictim 12 years ago

You're right, and that has always bugged me. His highly intelligent attorney should have pointed out that Daniel invested in a speculative cattle venture that failed, but it wasn't fear that stopped Daniel. In fact, Daniel was incredibly confident that Casio would go to three.

[–] Rockhound6165 12 years ago

The fact is, Daniel was afraid to jump in on this venture. Was it a poor example of fear? Sure it is. $10K was a lot of money at one time(and still is) so unless you had money to burn, the fear of losing $10K was great.

[–] e827 8 years ago

If I offered you a chance to invest a lot of money in something that you thought was a bad idea, and you turned it down, would that be a good example of you being cowardly?

No, of course not. Choosing to turn something down because you think it's a fool's errand isn't cowardice.

If the film had shown Daniel knowing that it was a good investment opportunity, but turning it down because he couldn't handle the risk - and then keeping the money in the bank instead - that would have been a good example of cowardice.

[–] mrmathexpert 9 years ago

$10,000 was a lot of money that time.

[–] UncleRuckis (2599) a year ago

Wholeheartedly agree that this was a poor example of fear on Daniels part.

I refuse to believe that every moron who pours his money into an MLM or Pyramid scheme all because some asshole told them it was a can't miss opportunity, is gonna be able to use their extreme stupidity as an example of being unafraid.

[–] Druff (1527) 3 months ago

I could have sworn the Lee Grant character said something to the effect that this particular incident was more about Daniel being stupid than fearful.

edit:

Never mind, this is totally about fear. Investing is all about risk, and that takes balls. Nobody who really wins big at investing knows how it's going to go. They throw their money in and they hope for the best. The big winners are not the ones who play it safe. I'm not saying you close your eyes and throw your money randomly. I'm saying you have to be able to throw your money somewhere where you might win big, knowing full well that you might lose big.

Specific to this case and with hindsight being 20/20, Daniel was simply wrong, very wrong. Japan had a rep for producing crummy junk products all the way up to WWII. Then they lost their military, and they basically had no choice but to step up their game and center their economy on manufacturing consumer goods. By the time Daniel was making his investment, Japan had long since proven to the entire world that they were excellent at designing and manufacturing very fine electronics, so it shouldn't have seemed like such an impossibility that they could produce excellent electronic time pieces. The investment was nowhere near as risky as Daniel saw it. His lack of balls essentially cost him tens of millions of dollars.