"It was caused by an out of control industry"
"Inside Job" is a documentary that recently won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It's narrated by Matt Damon and his interviews are often very confrontational and effective. It is very slickly made and produced and features film from around the globe and interviews with TONS of insiders. Its focus is the financial meltdown in 2008 and how mega-banks are responsible for this.
I am glad that a film like "Inside Job" was made, as we desperately need to learn from our recent financial meltdown. Times have become hard and people SHOULD be asking questions and looking to stop this from happening again (which, unfortunately, is inevitable). However, while "Inside Job" has many good points about banking, derivatives and greed and is very slickly made, it suffers from a sort of tunnel vision, as it only focuses on a part of the problem and gives the viewer a false sense of the seriousness of the problem. The film seems to blame ALL the recent financial problems on greedy investment bankers and some government insiders. While this is a part of the problem, it also tries to boil a complex problem down to a single cause. However, the government** (such as Congress and the President) is also a huge and probably larger part of the problem. Politicians who were in charge of regulating the banks and financial system now talk about 'those evil banks'--even though THEY oversaw these banks* and wrote the rules for the banks! Plus, no mention is made about government overspending across the globe--creating unfundable pension plans as well as defense and social spending that are GREATER than the gross national product in many cases! Another part of the equation is the public--a public who votes for these thieves and want TONS of government-supplied perks that cannot be paid for except by printing more money and more deficit spending. I am sure the equation is even larger--these are just a few of the problems apart from just investment banks. But to blame it all on just bankers is disingenuous and overly simplistic.
*The most frustrating of all the interviews in this film were with Barney Frank who talked about the evil banks. He was the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee for years and took $42,350 from groups like Fannie Mae. Where is his shame? How is it also not his fault?! In fact MANY politicians were heavily involved in causing the problem yet get a free pass in "Inside Job". Additionally, the sub-prime loans were all blamed on banks, but in many cases US government laws made it almost impossible NOT to make these sort of loans to folks who could not afford to repay them. Again, a case where BOTH government and banks share blame. Until a documentary looks at the whole picture, then we aren't getting serious about the financial system.
**While government was mostly given a pass in this film, it did take a few jabs at the recent administrations. However, not enough emphasis was placed on prior administrators and no mention of government spending was mentioned--just a need for more regulation. Again, this is addressing a part of the problem but only part.
"Inside Job" is a documentary that recently won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It's narrated by Matt Damon and his interviews are often very confrontational and effective. It is very slickly made and produced and features film from around the globe and interviews with TONS of insiders. Its focus is the financial meltdown in 2008 and how mega-banks are responsible for this.
I am glad that a film like "Inside Job" was made, as we desperately need to learn from our recent financial meltdown. Times have become hard and people SHOULD be asking questions and looking to stop this from happening again (which, unfortunately, is inevitable). However, while "Inside Job" has many good points about banking, derivatives and greed and is very slickly made, it suffers from a sort of tunnel vision, as it only focuses on a part of the problem and gives the viewer a false sense of the seriousness of the problem. The film seems to blame ALL the recent financial problems on greedy investment bankers and some government insiders. While this is a part of the problem, it also tries to boil a complex problem down to a single cause. However, the government** (such as Congress and the President) is also a huge and probably larger part of the problem. Politicians who were in charge of regulating the banks and financial system now talk about 'those evil banks'--even though THEY oversaw these banks* and wrote the rules for the banks! Plus, no mention is made about government overspending across the globe--creating unfundable pension plans as well as defense and social spending that are GREATER than the gross national product in many cases! Another part of the equation is the public--a public who votes for these thieves and want TONS of government-supplied perks that cannot be paid for except by printing more money and more deficit spending. I am sure the equation is even larger--these are just a few of the problems apart from just investment banks. But to blame it all on just bankers is disingenuous and overly simplistic.
*The most frustrating of all the interviews in this film were with Barney Frank who talked about the evil banks. He was the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee for years and took $42,350 from groups like Fannie Mae. Where is his shame? How is it also not his fault?! In fact MANY politicians were heavily involved in causing the problem yet get a free pass in "Inside Job". Additionally, the sub-prime loans were all blamed on banks, but in many cases US government laws made it almost impossible NOT to make these sort of loans to folks who could not afford to repay them. Again, a case where BOTH government and banks share blame. Until a documentary looks at the whole picture, then we aren't getting serious about the financial system.
**While government was mostly given a pass in this film, it did take a few jabs at the recent administrations. However, not enough emphasis was placed on prior administrators and no mention of government spending was mentioned--just a need for more regulation. Again, this is addressing a part of the problem but only part.