I've been truly amazed at the depth of the kowtowing. The richest and most powerful seem almost eager to bow down. Seriously--Columbia University, e.g., is so rich in real estate holdings. Can't they afford to lose some federal funding? Paul Weiss? I used to think it was conspiracy theory think to believe there was a cabal among the peop…
I've been truly amazed at the depth of the kowtowing. The richest and most powerful seem almost eager to bow down. Seriously--Columbia University, e.g., is so rich in real estate holdings. Can't they afford to lose some federal funding? Paul Weiss? I used to think it was conspiracy theory think to believe there was a cabal among the people at the top of the food chain, but it's now clear to me that it's true.
My wife and I watched the The Big Short for the first time last night. It came out in 2015, and so was written and filmed earlier than that, prior to the golden escalator. I was shocked at how much of the crisis and those that precipitated and participated was brought about and fueled by the same failings at play today. Whether it was an institutional investor, a credit rating agency, a banker, a SEC official, or even a journalist, they all had the same excuses we have been hearing for a decade and continue to hear this day.
I acknowledge that it was a movie and doesn't represent 100% historical accuracy, especially the dialogue; but nonetheless, the dialogue was so precisely how humans behave that the movie might as well have been about the collapse of the Republican Party and it's destruction of the US up until this very day.
A sampling of quotes:
S&P Ratings Official on their fraudulent ratings of risky investments: "That's right. It's a conflict of interest. But it's not just that. The agencies are under pressure to give high ratings to these mortgage-backed securities. **If they don't, the banks will just take their business elsewhere."**
On how people are shitty by nature and never learn (including those of us that didn't know it was all a lie): "We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even baseball... What bothers me isn't that fraud is not nice. Or that fraud is mean. **For fifteen thousand years, fraud and short sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once. Eventually you get caught, things go south. When the hell did we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really did.**"
On how the rich and powerful escape consequences, which are ultimately borne by you and me:
"And as fun as it is seeing pompous dumb Wall Streeters be wildly wrong, and you are *wrong*, sir. **I just know that at the end of the day regular people are going to pay for all of this. Because they always, always do.**"
"I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people."
Moments later...
"""
['Rockin' in the Free World' by Neil Young plays]
In the years that followed, hundreds of bankers and rating agency's executives went to jail. The SEC was completely overhauled, and Congress had no choice but to break up the big banks and regulate the mortgage and derivatives industries.
[Music stops, with a glass breaking sound]
Just kidding. Banks took the money the American people gave them, and they used it to pay themselves huge bonuses, and lobby the Congress to kill big reform. And then they blamed immigrants and poor people, and this time even teachers. And when all was said and done, only one single banker went to jail: this poor schmuck, Kareem Serageldin from Credit Suisse
He hid a few billion in mortgage bond losses, something most of the big banks did on a good day during the crisis.
"""
On fatal optimism, willful ignorance, and failure of imagination:
"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry."
"People hate to think about bad things happening so they always underestimate their likelihood."
"""
Goldman Sachs Quant: Why? Those bonds only fail if millions of Americans don't pay their mortgages. **That's never happened in history.** If you'll forgive me, Dr. Burry, it seems like a foolish investment.
Michael Burry: Well, based on prevailing sentiment, the market, the banks and popular culture, yes, it's a foolish investment. But, everyone's wrong.
"""
WSJ Reporter on why he couldn't write a piece exposing the fraud and impending economic collapse:
"""
[Charlie and Jamie just explained the situation to Casey, their college friend, and junior finance reporter.]
Casey: What am I supposed to do? Write a piece called "We're all fucked"?
Charlie Geller: Yes! That's a perfect title!
Jamie: Casey, right now every bank in town is unloading these shit bonds on unsuspecting customers. They won’t devalue them until they unload them. This is the biggest fraud in banking history.
Casey: ***It took years to build my relationships on Wall Street!*** No bank or ratings agency is going to confirm a story like this just because two guys in a garage-band hedge-fund thinks it’s the apocalypse.
"""
I could go on and on with this. I did not expect, going into that movie, that I would keep seeing parallels to our current drama. In the end, people are people and history rhymes. We really shouldn't have been surprised by any of this, just as we shouldn't be surprised by some foreseeable event in the future that we'll ultimately be surprised by.
If you read Michael Lewis's book, you'll find the dialog in the movie is much closer to what he recorded during interviews than you might want to believe.
And the Margot Robbie in a bubble bath scene is still one of my favorite examples of how to introduce exposition into a movie. :D
Also, Too Big to Fail is fascinating (if detailed) if you are oddly into learning about financial crises like I am. Reading that book and The Big Short oddly convinced me to do a 180 and get my MBA in finance several years later.
Our values as a society have degraded to the point that everyone looks out for their own self interest and there is no longer an attempt to even pay lip service to the common good.
The thing about rich people is they never, ever want to spend money. Seeing numbers go down for any reason is anathema to them. Money isn't a tool for them, it is life. They literally see $$$ as their health bar. The only goal is to earn more money, so they can find new ways to get more money. Why? To get more money.
Well, if the number goes down they won’t keep their “earned” status. Of course for some it might also mean (in their minds) that the divine favor they had before has gone away. Such is the way when our values and priorities are confused.
I've been truly amazed at the depth of the kowtowing. The richest and most powerful seem almost eager to bow down. Seriously--Columbia University, e.g., is so rich in real estate holdings. Can't they afford to lose some federal funding? Paul Weiss? I used to think it was conspiracy theory think to believe there was a cabal among the people at the top of the food chain, but it's now clear to me that it's true.
My wife and I watched the The Big Short for the first time last night. It came out in 2015, and so was written and filmed earlier than that, prior to the golden escalator. I was shocked at how much of the crisis and those that precipitated and participated was brought about and fueled by the same failings at play today. Whether it was an institutional investor, a credit rating agency, a banker, a SEC official, or even a journalist, they all had the same excuses we have been hearing for a decade and continue to hear this day.
There's greed, opportunism, flimsy justifications, scapegoating, corruption...
I acknowledge that it was a movie and doesn't represent 100% historical accuracy, especially the dialogue; but nonetheless, the dialogue was so precisely how humans behave that the movie might as well have been about the collapse of the Republican Party and it's destruction of the US up until this very day.
A sampling of quotes:
S&P Ratings Official on their fraudulent ratings of risky investments: "That's right. It's a conflict of interest. But it's not just that. The agencies are under pressure to give high ratings to these mortgage-backed securities. **If they don't, the banks will just take their business elsewhere."**
On how people are shitty by nature and never learn (including those of us that didn't know it was all a lie): "We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even baseball... What bothers me isn't that fraud is not nice. Or that fraud is mean. **For fifteen thousand years, fraud and short sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once. Eventually you get caught, things go south. When the hell did we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really did.**"
On how the rich and powerful escape consequences, which are ultimately borne by you and me:
"And as fun as it is seeing pompous dumb Wall Streeters be wildly wrong, and you are *wrong*, sir. **I just know that at the end of the day regular people are going to pay for all of this. Because they always, always do.**"
"I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people."
Moments later...
"""
['Rockin' in the Free World' by Neil Young plays]
In the years that followed, hundreds of bankers and rating agency's executives went to jail. The SEC was completely overhauled, and Congress had no choice but to break up the big banks and regulate the mortgage and derivatives industries.
[Music stops, with a glass breaking sound]
Just kidding. Banks took the money the American people gave them, and they used it to pay themselves huge bonuses, and lobby the Congress to kill big reform. And then they blamed immigrants and poor people, and this time even teachers. And when all was said and done, only one single banker went to jail: this poor schmuck, Kareem Serageldin from Credit Suisse
He hid a few billion in mortgage bond losses, something most of the big banks did on a good day during the crisis.
"""
On fatal optimism, willful ignorance, and failure of imagination:
"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry."
"People hate to think about bad things happening so they always underestimate their likelihood."
"""
Goldman Sachs Quant: Why? Those bonds only fail if millions of Americans don't pay their mortgages. **That's never happened in history.** If you'll forgive me, Dr. Burry, it seems like a foolish investment.
Michael Burry: Well, based on prevailing sentiment, the market, the banks and popular culture, yes, it's a foolish investment. But, everyone's wrong.
"""
WSJ Reporter on why he couldn't write a piece exposing the fraud and impending economic collapse:
"""
[Charlie and Jamie just explained the situation to Casey, their college friend, and junior finance reporter.]
Casey: What am I supposed to do? Write a piece called "We're all fucked"?
Charlie Geller: Yes! That's a perfect title!
Jamie: Casey, right now every bank in town is unloading these shit bonds on unsuspecting customers. They won’t devalue them until they unload them. This is the biggest fraud in banking history.
Casey: ***It took years to build my relationships on Wall Street!*** No bank or ratings agency is going to confirm a story like this just because two guys in a garage-band hedge-fund thinks it’s the apocalypse.
"""
I could go on and on with this. I did not expect, going into that movie, that I would keep seeing parallels to our current drama. In the end, people are people and history rhymes. We really shouldn't have been surprised by any of this, just as we shouldn't be surprised by some foreseeable event in the future that we'll ultimately be surprised by.
If you read Michael Lewis's book, you'll find the dialog in the movie is much closer to what he recorded during interviews than you might want to believe.
And the Margot Robbie in a bubble bath scene is still one of my favorite examples of how to introduce exposition into a movie. :D
Also, Too Big to Fail is fascinating (if detailed) if you are oddly into learning about financial crises like I am. Reading that book and The Big Short oddly convinced me to do a 180 and get my MBA in finance several years later.
Columbia has an endowment of $14.8 billion. Cowardice, capitulation...mere understatements.
Our values as a society have degraded to the point that everyone looks out for their own self interest and there is no longer an attempt to even pay lip service to the common good.
The thing about rich people is they never, ever want to spend money. Seeing numbers go down for any reason is anathema to them. Money isn't a tool for them, it is life. They literally see $$$ as their health bar. The only goal is to earn more money, so they can find new ways to get more money. Why? To get more money.
As someone who has never had that kind of money, I find it baffling.
Well, if the number goes down they won’t keep their “earned” status. Of course for some it might also mean (in their minds) that the divine favor they had before has gone away. Such is the way when our values and priorities are confused.
agreed. what the actual f??