Too Big to Fail

[meta-agnostic]

I know subscribing to HBO puts one in what might be considered a compromising position, but finding a way to see this should be worth the trouble considering it appears to be happening again on a global scale at this very moment. It premiered last night and should be running a lot for a month or more.

Too Big to Fail chronicles the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the surrounding events of the financial crisis of 2008 with an all-star cast. If you know anyone who kind of thinks they know what happened but doesn't really, or if you yourself have trouble getting past the broad strokes, this does a compelling and entertaining job of summing it up in 1 hour 40 minutes. If only it were as simple as just letting the old economy fail so we could build a new one...

_http://www.hbo.com/#/movies/too-big-to-fail

 

[NewOrleans]

I saw the movie last night and then portions of it again today. More than anything I was surprised at how little culpability there was.As if the speeding locomotive of the American Economy simply derailed all on its own. This was one of those fairy tales meant to explain to the "average Joe" their rewrite of the Wall Street Meltdown, where bankers are just good guys in a bad spot and the U.S. Treasury is just surprised and shocked at the evolving financial mess. Shocked and surprised! And very concerned facial expressions. They do give some glimpses of the actual financial deregulations spanning the presidencies of Reagan, Clinton, and Bush, but all that seems remote compared to the fretting and wringing of hands at the brink of disaster. The avoidance of the true story: the greed of investment bankers, none of whom went to jail over the biggest bank robbery of the economy, is a staggering achievement. And in the end they blamed the little homeowners for risky bad loans as everything tumbled down on the poor rich folks. So much for truth and accuracy.

Like the cop at a traffic accident says: move along folks, nothing to see here...

 

[NewOrleans]

Charles Ferguson's film "Inside Job" is a much better documentary about the financial crises. Furguson holds a B.A. from U. C. Berkeley, a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, and is the author of four books on various policy issues.

 

[Ca.]

"Inside Job" (though covered on a another thread) as well is another perspective, and a view of the predatory practices of white collar crime, and psychopathic behavior of the economic elite.

Watch them during the interviews, twitch, there facial contortion's, movement of the postions, the anger of being found out and confronted in there protecting the secret in their complicity. One of the biggest Wall Street thefts and the beginning down fall of the world economy. Fueled by lies, corruption, and greed, that continues to this day, unabated.

"Why should a financial engineer be paid four times to 100 times more than a real engineer? A real engineer build bridges. A financial engineer build dreams. And, you know, when those dreams turn out to be nightmares, other people pay for it"

Andrew Sheng:Chief Advisor, China Banking Regulatory Commission

“Addressing Obama and, quote, ‘regulatory reform’ – my response, if it was one word, would be ‘ha!’ There’s very little reform… It’s a Wall Street government.”

-
Robert Gnaizda, Greenlining Institute

“The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself. “ –

Christine Lagarde, French Minister for Economy, Industry and Employment

INSIDE JOB: (Whistle Blowers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Bgeu2XicA

Inside Job - Charles Ferguson - Variety Interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WxxFvHmvM&feature=player_embedded

Inside Job part 1/8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFfTcAcGjcU

 

[NewOrleans]

c.a., thanks for the extra links! These guys scare me more than Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein put together.....

 

[Ca.]

Charles Ferguson's film "Inside Job" is a much better documentary about the financial crises. Furguson holds a B.A. from U. C. Berkeley, a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, and is the author of four books on various policy issues.

Hi NewOrleans, It seems i waded of into the deep end bit (got a little tunnel vision "not good" ) and by passed your impute, moving into the current of the thread. Excuse me for my over sight.

And yes i would have to agree with your thoughts of this documentary, the director has all the right questions. He also was able to get to the usual suspects, to ask some hard hitting questions, that were never really entertained by opposing party's to admit to the truth of there complicity. Sort of like, don't look at me i didn't do it, i just went along for the ride, and stole a lot of money in the process.

These guys scare me more than Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein put together.....

And yes, James Cayne, the former boss of Bear Stearns, ( the last picture) truly has the look of evil, and brings a hole new meaning to the term "Financial blood sucker".

 

[WhiteBear]

“The financial industry is a service industry. It should serve others before it serves itself. “ –

Christine Lagarde, French Minister for Economy, Industry and Employment

Lagarde is possibly going to be the new leader of the IMF. Should be interesting to see if she can follow her own words.
_http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110520/ap_on_bi_ge/imf_future

 

[meta-agnostic]

I don't disagree with any of the criticism of this movie. It does do a little too much to paint Paulson as the hero without doing enough to show how he and the others shared in responsibility for the problem. I wouldn't expect much more from the Hollywood machine. Clearly "Inside Job" is the better choice for an accurate take on the crisis, but I don't think they are made for the exact same audiences. I still think it is possible for someone to watch TBTF, get into a conversation about it, and be presented with, "Well, if you liked that, you should really check out Inside Job" and so on.

Could there have been some overall goal with TBTF of presenting the players involved in a more apologetic light? Paul Giamatti had a great quote that was something like, "We tried to show their humanity. Whether they deserve it, I'm not so sure." Considering how much the average person may have forgotten what exactly happened in the last three years to make things the way they are, if they even knew in the first place, I still think this movie could be useful in raising awareness. Mainly as a stepping stone with those empty words "compelling and entertaining" I used to describe it above.