An impressive doco that doesn't tell the whole story and treats some politicos and execs in either a too dark or too heroic light . Two examples:
1. It doesn't quite explain why government would have wanted to appoint/re-appoint the culprits. There was something more at work than just corruption, kickbacks and slack regulation. One has to remember that almost all the key players including Greenspan and three US Presidents thought that making housing within the reach of more people was good policy. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were quasi-governmental agencies charged precisely with raising the numbers of subprime mortgages. Stopping them at the time would have looked like political suicide, since the government policy was popular with voters. (The policy in fact goes back as far as President Roosevelt and the New Deal.)
Similarly, complex financial derivatives like CDOs and CD swaps were thought in fact to offer protection against catastrophic loss and systemic instability. So the "system" offered incentives and rewards including positions of political and financial influence. It's also quite normal business practice to "bet against" the financial product you're selling someone else. If you're going to play the derivatives market, this is something you learn at the outset. It's exactly what hedge funds are set up to do.
2. Congressman Barney Frank comes across in a fairly rosy light as a kind of whistleblower, and isn't subjected to the kinds of cross-examination most of the other "culprits" were.. The doco didn't dwell too long - if at all - on Frank's involvement in Fannie Mae etc., as one of the principal architects and benefiters of subprime mortgage securitization.
One day the whole fucking mess will collapse in on itself and real people with real needs will once again be on an equal footing with these blood suckers. It may take a long time, but it will happen.
Overall, a very good documentary. Too bad in the latter 40 minutes it lowers itself to the level of the common documentaries by asking bad (closed-ended) questions and ranting for 30 minutes about high bonuses without bringing up any arguments.
13 years ago
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Neville
An impressive doco that doesn't tell the whole story and treats some politicos and execs in either a too dark or too heroic light . Two examples:
1. It doesn't quite explain why government would have wanted to appoint/re-appoint the culprits. There was something more at work than just corruption, kickbacks and slack regulation. One has to remember that almost all the key players including Greenspan and three US Presidents thought that making housing within the reach of more people was good policy. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were quasi-governmental agencies charged precisely with raising the numbers of subprime mortgages. Stopping them at the time would have looked like political suicide, since the government policy was popular with voters. (The policy in fact goes back as far as President Roosevelt and the New Deal.)
Similarly, complex financial derivatives like CDOs and CD swaps were thought in fact to offer protection against catastrophic loss and systemic instability. So the "system" offered incentives and rewards including positions of political and financial influence. It's also quite normal business practice to "bet against" the financial product you're selling someone else. If you're going to play the derivatives market, this is something you learn at the outset. It's exactly what hedge funds are set up to do.
2. Congressman Barney Frank comes across in a fairly rosy light as a kind of whistleblower, and isn't subjected to the kinds of cross-examination most of the other "culprits" were.. The doco didn't dwell too long - if at all - on Frank's involvement in Fannie Mae etc., as one of the principal architects and benefiters of subprime mortgage securitization.
fkos
One day the whole fucking mess will collapse in on itself and real people with real needs will once again be on an equal footing with these blood suckers. It may take a long time, but it will happen.
TheMajor
Overall, a very good documentary.
Too bad in the latter 40 minutes it lowers itself to the level of the common documentaries by asking bad (closed-ended) questions and ranting for 30 minutes about high bonuses without bringing up any arguments.