The Big Short
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This movie might be well worth watching
http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2016/jan/19/steve-carell-the-big-short-video-interview
A review of the Big Shorthttp://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34451-how-the-big-short-shorts-audiences-hoping-to-understand-the-2008-financial-crisis
Quote:the film largely blames the crisis on the fraud and corruption of the big banks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the ratings agencies – thus missing that the crisis was rooted in the fundamental irrationalities of capitalism, and specifically the contradictions of the neoliberal restructuring of the past 30 years. The problem, in other words, is not "corruption" that upset the normally harmonious functioning of capitalism, but rather that crisis is an irresolvable part of capitalism.Went to see it last night: it's a very good attempt to analyse the 2008 crash. yes, it does appear to blame greed and corruption by big banks (strangely making the people who actuially made shit loads of money out of the crash 'heroes' because they saw it coming).It starts from the creation of mortgage bundle bonds, which were given top rating by the credit agencies. these were a safe and secure investment, based on bundling the small returns on lots of mortgages in order to make a concentrated big return. Naturally, since this brought in lots of money, the banks piled into this market, and started being less fussy about selling mortgages, and also packaging (and mixing and repackaging) their poroer quality loans into the mix.It covers the conflict of interest between the fund managers and the banks, and between the banks and the credit agencies.What it misses, is why:1) The bottom fell out of the housing market (why couldn't people go on paying for or taking out mortgages.2) Why banks would start to go into these riskier investment areas in the frist place.i.e. it misess out the real economy. The reason why banking was boring and staid in the '70s was that thre were safe and valuable returns to be made from an expanding economy.The time it goes and talks to mortgage holders (i.e, ordinary working peopel) it's a stripper who has been encouraged to speculate in buying multiple houses based on dodgey mortgages she was told she could just roll over, i.e. someone else engaged in speculation. So, effectively, it seals off any relation to wages, income or real econonomic activity.
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