bear_mkt's  Instablog

 "Inside Job" is a documentary about the US financial crisis from the pre-subprime era, about 2004-5 to 2010. Charles Ferguson, the director, was interviewed on Bloomberg Radio. I was able to catch it in New York. The movie has won several awards and gotten good reviews.
 
The movie blows up the myth spun by regulators (like Greenspan), experts and Congress  that "nobody could see it coming" by interviewing officials, authors and fund managers who did see it coming and published papers about it.

One recurrent theme is "It's a Wall Street Government." Director Ferguson shows the revolving door between government and Wall Street. Both political parties are criticized for ties to the Street.
 
The movie is fairly fast-paced, with interviews with many of  the those involved in the financial crisis plus authors and journalists, mixed in with graphics and sound track that includes "Takin' Care of Business."  Soros, Roubini, Ackman, top officials from Singapore, France and China appear. (Greenspan, Geithner and Paulson wisely decided not to appear.)  There are easy to understand graphics explaining financial products like CDO's and CDS's and concepts like securitization of subprime.

One surprising disclosure is Wall Street money has influenced academics such as economics and business school professors as much as Congress and the regulators. Many studies written by academics are not  independent but are actually funded by Wall Street, like those phony drug studies. One study praising Iceland, whose economy soon collapsed, was paid for by its Chamber of Commerce. 
  
One of the takeaway points for me is not "who did what in 2008", but that nothing by way of regulation has been done since then.  The casino is still open. The big players are bigger still. .So when the next crisis comes, it will be much bigger.

Just my opinion

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Trailer
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/
 
 NY Times review
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/movies/08inside.html?scp=1&sq=inside job&st=cse

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