 | I saw Inside Job. Both critics and viewers have rated it highly (A- on Yahoo, 97% and 86% on Rotten Tomatoes). It is nominated for Best Documentary at the next Academy Awards.
It is described on Yahoo as: "A comprehensive analysis exposing the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, the documentary traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia."
Calling it "comprehensive" is absurd. The movie blames Wall Street for the crisis totally. Wall Street corrupts politics and never the reverse. It is silent about government intervention in the mortgage market, the Federal Reserve's easy money, people who got mortgages they couldn't afford, and the people on Main Street who sold the mortgages. It is soft on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and doesn't even say they were created by government and heavily controlled by it.
Political leftist actor Matt Damon narrates. Somebody else -- I don't know who, and he is heard but not seen -- interviews several people mostly with hostile questions. Barney Frank appears briefly. The interviewer has no hostile questions for him. The film does not show Barney Frank defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, declaring them "financially sound" and wanting them "to roll the dice some more." Elliot Spitzer is shown complaining about the lack of regulation. Part is about Wall Street people and prostitutes, but nothing is said about Elliot Spitzer's use of prostitutes.
Brooksley Born, who chaired the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton presidency and proposed to extend regulation to swaps, is painted as a "savior crucified" in 1998 by Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Lawrence Summers. By innuendo the later calamity with credit default swaps and maybe other debt securitizations would have been avoided. Malarkey. Obviously, her target was interest rate swaps. Credit default swaps barely existed at the time. See the graph here. If Brooksley Born had gotten what she wanted, I suspect the regulators would have been as effective as the SEC was with Bernie Madoff.
Amid all the glowing reviews the general public will hear few dissenting opinions such as mine. I could not remain silent.
|
