Inside Job Argumentative

“Inside Job” is an amazing documentary film that was made in 2011 that explains the who/what/when/where/why of the global financial crisis of 2008. Ending with a huge balance of $20 trillion dollars, the global financial crisis caused millions of people to lose their jobs AND homes in the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, not only crashing the market in the U. S but also markets globally.

The director, Charles Ferguson, uses research, interviews with important financial insiders, politicians, and journalists to explain the rise of an industry that has corrupted our politics and messed up the ways of regulation, till this day. Inside job, in my opinion, nicely lays out the reckless actions and serious ignorance of Wall Street that lead to the literal almost collapse of the financial sector. The film begins in Iceland where the deregulation of the countries financial system in 1990’s lead to three small town banks accumulating assets 10x Iceland’s gross domestic product, aka a HUGE problem.

Iceland I believe is a small example of globalization today and what has become a problem world wide. The three Icelandic banks described in the film, Islandsbanki, Kaupping,and Glitnir had been accumulating assets through faulty loans while rewarding themselves with big bonuses. The film is critical of Wall Street executives, credit agencies and especially regulatory agencies for the crisis. Ferguson lays out the come up of the banks from a small, largely local service in Iceland to the small town to an out of control industry relating this to issues in the market since the crash.

Ferguson criticizes every U. S. administration since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Ferguson argues that despite what most people think, there were many people warning of an impending crisis in the global financial markets. Heads of the Treasury department from Alan Greenspan to Ben Bernanke and then even the head of the treasury department after the financial crisis, Timothy Geithner, ignored various signs of impending doom probably because they were getting richer in the process.

Even the treasury secretary and coincidentally the former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson knew! Inside Job makes the very good argument (in my opinion) that the federal regulators in our government are as responsible for the breakdown of the system as the executives of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, etc. As the banks became more and more deregulated, the more “speculation” became a problem.

(As if speculation isn’t already a problem, taking high risks means that big fallouts are possible) During the crisis derivatives, credit default swaps, and complicated trading schemes are what caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Ferguson explains, sending shockwaves through financial centers all over the world. Big time credit agencies like “Moody’s and Standard and Poor” gave firms like “Bear Stearns”, the Lehman brothers, and Morgan Stanley a grade credit rating literally within weeks before they nearly collapsed!

The film explains that the “high risks that began with subprime lending were transferred from investors to other investors who, due to questionable rating practices, falsely believed that the investments were safe. ” Therefore, lenders, like the banks in Iceland, were pushing people and companies to sign up mortgages without any regard to risk. Some of them even favoring higher interest rate loans, since, once these mortgages were packaged together, the risk was disguised. Inside Job makes it clear that this problem isn’t because of the housing boom during President George Bush’s reign.

Inside Job simply is a story of bankers taking advantage of uneducated people for their own benefit when the really should be educating people providing them with a service they need. Towards the end of the film Ferguson notes, Wall Street has returned to it’s normal day to day actions with no federal prosecutions against any of the guilty. When watching the movie this moment was kind of like a “Damn.. ” moment for me. I feel like things in the future may not change, and that the old saying that the rich only get richer is extremely true.

How do we stop this form of radical globalization going on? How do we gain control of our market and redistribute this wealth so that the case of the richer getting richer doesn’t happen? How do we take away power from these CEO’s and heads of business that are just doing stuff in the favor of making more money for themselves? From my time spent in class I don’t have an answer for this yet and I sincerely don’t know have an idea on how to stop this corrupt globalization from taking place.

I would like to say that since the crisis people have educated themselves and This documentary explains how the people has always been a slave to the wealthy TNC’s and big banking businesses. True democracy, as the U. S. claims we are, cannot work in a system in which money is used to solve problems that money actually created. The film also illustrates how little has changed in the American financial world since the crisis, despite past president Obama’s efforts and honestly our President now, Donald Trump efforts.

If anything stuff is going to continue to stay the same because of our business mogul president Trump! Rather than being held accountable for their role in the collapse, many of its illustrators remain in positions of power and to this day are still getting richer and richer. Overall, the movie was very good at showing these actual scenario that can happen in our financial institutions and from it I better understand what’s going on… but now I’m upset just like Charles Ferguson said I’d be.