THE BIG SHORT | Paramount | December 23, 2015 | Adam McKay directing | Pitt, Bale, Gosling, Carelll

[Dementeleus]

Or, more to the point, they didn't really give a shit what happened as long as they were raking in the money by deliberately re-packaging lousy bonds as AAA, and as long as they fobbed things off on some other loser and weren't on the hook. But yeah, no one really bothered to investigate anything or really think too much about what they were doing because there was too much money to be made. 

 

In terms of having no idea what's actually happening or how (a truly scary concept), that's the subject of Lewis's latest book, FLASH BOYS. 

[The Futurist]

Make no mistakes though, the insanity continues.

 

Bubbles everywhere, debt, central banks going batshit crazy, you name it.

 

 

 

 

[Hatebox]

20 minutes ago, The Futurist said:

They knew what they were doing, please.

 

Morgan Stanley certainly didn't when it all resulted in the single biggest trading loss in history.

 

Of course, the Big Banks never suffer for very long.

[MinaTakla]

LOVED this.

One of my top 10 of the year and the biggest challenger for SPOTLIGHT at the Oscars

[AniNate]

6 hours ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

Or, more to the point, they didn't really give a shit what happened as long as they were raking in the money by deliberately re-packaging lousy bonds as AAA, and as long as they fobbed things off on some other loser and weren't on the hook. But yeah, no one really bothered to investigate anything or really think too much about what they were doing because there was too much money to be made. 

 

In terms of having no idea what's actually happening or how (a truly scary concept), that's the subject of Lewis's latest book, FLASH BOYS. 

 

I did like how the ending indicated that the main characters were just doing the same things the banks were doing on a smaller scale, but since the movie spends so much time broadly demonizing the big banks there's still a sense that it's letting them off the hook. I wanted a movie that dug deeper into the moral consequences of "betting against the American economy"

[The Futurist]

The betting against the american economy was NOT the reason for the crash, it had little to no effects.

 

Problems were (ARE) far more bigger, complex & structural than guys who suspected a crash was imminent and beat on this.

 

 

[AniNate]

They had the exact same mentality that the banks did is what I meant (who cares if others are going to suffer, we'll be rich!). I wanted to see more of that side of the story

[The Futurist]

They all have the same mentality everywhere in the financial world, all scavengers, all vampires, all have the same amount of soul as the average serial killer.

[MrPink]

6 hours ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

Or, more to the point, they didn't really give a shit what happened as long as they were raking in the money by deliberately re-packaging lousy bonds as AAA, and as long as they fobbed things off on some other loser and weren't on the hook. But yeah, no one really bothered to investigate anything or really think too much about what they were doing because there was too much money to be made. 

 

In terms of having no idea what's actually happening or how (a truly scary concept), that's the subject of Lewis's latest book, FLASH BOYS. 

 

On top of that, with the exception of Lehman Brothers, the banks were so large that even in the event of a collapse, they'd be bailed out by the government because they were all too big to fail at that point. That places a lot of consequence on taxpayers rather than the companies. That lesson was learned back in the 80s. 

[Hatebox]

32 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

 

I did like how the ending indicated that the main characters were just doing the same things the banks were doing on a smaller scale, but since the movie spends so much time broadly demonizing the big banks there's still a sense that it's letting them off the hook. I wanted a movie that dug deeper into the moral consequences of "betting against the American economy"

 

In the book (can't speak for the movie), Bale and Carrell's characters spend a lot of time trying to tell anyone who'll listen that this is a deck of cards waiting to collapse, but of course their warnings aren't heeded. They're not traditional heroes, but it's all relative.

[The Panda]

Except the fraud the big banks were doing was The primary reason for the crash.  You can't make a truthful movie trying to educate the public about the situation and not demonize the big banks to an extent, because what they were doing WAS stupid and illegal and it WAS coming from a standpoint of greed.  There's no other way to put it.

 

It also reveals a major practice in most businesses, and it's that the CEOs tend to only look short term.  They realize they can milk something for all its worth and then high tail out of there (avoiding the consequences the workers or others might face) once things go south.

 

The movie was intended to be an educational piece, the betting against the American economy aspect was just a hook/angle to tell the story and inform.  It definitely displayed the consequences for the characters (not all of them bad, actually most werent, which kind of adds to the punch), and Brad Pitt's ending line actually had a lot of depth on that subject.  

 

Looking at the movies intentions, it absolutely does what it's trying to do, that is wake up the audience on what happens behind their backs.  Throughout the film I heard people in my theater gasp at things, hear a small audible "no way", there were laughs where funny things happened, and whenever McKay wanted to audience to pay attention the packed room was dead silent in an attentive manner.  The number one thing I heard people say as they left the theater, "I can't believe that actually happened," or, "I had no idea this was happening!"

 

I don't really have flaws with this film, and if I did, I'd forgive them.  Most Americans won't watch (actually) important documentaries or educate themselves about subjects like these.  I have a lot of respect for McKay making a film that will reach out to a number of people and inform them on information that actually is important.  This is a rare case where Id say a movie actually is an important viewing, especially if you're clueless about the crash in 2008.

[AniNate]

I guess having already seen Inside Job this just didn't feel particularly new to me.

[The Futurist]

9 minutes ago, MrPink said:

 

On top of that, with the exception of Lehman Brothers, the banks were so large that even in the event of a collapse, they'd be bailed out by the government because they were all too big to fail at that point. That places a lot of consequence on taxpayers rather than the companies. That lesson was learned back in the 80s. 

 

Nobody knows why Lehman wasn't bailed out.

 

The simplest answer would be that the douchebag in charge of the bailout was a Goldmanite & it was a competitor killed for him.

 

 

[75Live]

2 minutes ago, The Futurist said:

 

Nobody knows why Lehman wasn't bailed out.

 

The simplest answer would be that the douchebag in charge of the bailout was a Goldmanite & it was a competitor killed for him.

 

 

 

according to the book and movie, "too big to fail", they thought they were setting a precedent that not bailing Lehman out would send a message to other places that the government isn't just there to fix their screw ups.  At first, the news outlets and such lauded the idea and thought it was great.  Boy, did that change obviously as time went on.

[Dementeleus]

47 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

 

I did like how the ending indicated that the main characters were just doing the same things the banks were doing on a smaller scale, but since the movie spends so much time broadly demonizing the big banks there's still a sense that it's letting them off the hook. I wanted a movie that dug deeper into the moral consequences of "betting against the American economy"

 

Why, though? I suppose you could argue that both the banks and the main characters were trying to make money, but the comparison ends there. The guys found an inequality in the system that nobody cared about fixing, but exploiting that is a far cry from the active fraud and lack of oversight that literally all other entities were dealing in. In fact, what's ironic is the guys still believed in the system to behave as it should when in fact it was so rancid and corrupt that it wasn't even a balanced system at all. 

 

What the guys did was legal and not morally questionable (IMO); what the system was doing was immoral at best and illegal most of the time. 

 

If you're talking more about the karmic drain of your humanity when you're in that business, then I agree with you, and I think the movie showed that well.

[The Futurist]

Just now, 75live said:

 

according to the book and movie, "too big to fail", they thought they were setting a precedent that not bailing Lehman out would send a message to other places that the government isn't just there to fix their screw ups.  At first, the news outlets and such lauded the idea and thought it was great.  Boy, did that change obviously as time went on.

 

In any war, History is told by the Winners.

 

Don't believe any word of it.

 

 

[AniNate]

If you're talking more about the karmic drain of your humanity when you're in that business, then I agree with you, and I think the movie showed that well.

They show it, but I still feel like there's an imbalance there. Maybe I would've liked it if they expanded on that Chase lender's role a little more. She became more sympathetic later in the film and hinted at the traces of humanity that were still present in the system. I mean, surely some bankers have mouths to feed too and have understandable reasons for overlooking the illegality of the orders of their superiors

[Dementeleus]

I guess what I took away was not an indictment against specific people (though many, many of them contributed to the systemic problem out of sheer greed), but an indictment against the whole damn system. 

 

FLASH BOYS has a sympathetic (and honest!) banker as one of its main characters. But of course he's Canadian.  

[The Panda]

26 minutes ago, tribefan695 said:

I guess having already seen Inside Job this just didn't feel particularly new to me.

 

I already knew most of everything the movie was going to tell me, but there were plenty of people that didn't.  And even as somebody who already knew about the situation (not really the guys betting against the American economy part, but the specifics of the fraud of the big banks), it still hit it home and hit hard (for me) at the very end.

[Avatree]

I hope this actually gets a wide release here.