Inside Job - the movie.

[Kelowna]

<p>Last night we have seen the Oscar winning documentary - Inside Job.
I am absolutely mortified by the number of “top academics” involved in the collapse of the financial system. Mortified. These people were portrayed in the movie as greedy, interested only in their own gains, without regard for the citizens as a group.
Here is an article that Inside Job’s writer/director wrote about the greed of Larry Summer’s

Summers is unquestionably brilliant, as all who have dealt with him, including myself, quickly realize. And yet rarely has one individual embodied so much of what is wrong with economics, with academe, and indeed with the American economy. For the past two years, I have immersed myself in those worlds in order to make a film, Inside Job, that takes a sweeping look at the financial crisis. And I found Summers everywhere I turned.</p>

<p>Consider: As a rising economist at Harvard and at the World Bank, Summers argued for privatization and deregulation in many domains, including finance. Later, as deputy secretary of the treasury and then treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, he implemented those policies. Summers oversaw passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall, permitted the previously illegal merger that created Citigroup, and allowed further consolidation in the financial sector. He also successfully fought attempts by Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Clinton administration, to regulate the financial derivatives that would cause so much damage in the housing bubble and the 2008 economic crisis. He then oversaw passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of derivatives, including exempting them from state antigambling laws.</p>

<p>After Summers left the Clinton administration, his candidacy for president of Harvard was championed by his mentor Robert Rubin, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who was his boss and predecessor as treasury secretary. Rubin, after leaving the Treasury Department—where he championed the law that made Citigroup’s creation legal—became both vice chairman of Citigroup and a powerful member of Harvard’s governing board.</p>

<p>Over the past decade, Summers continued to advocate financial deregulation, both as president of Harvard and as a University Professor after being forced out of the presidency. During this time, Summers became wealthy through consulting and speaking engagements with financial firms. Between 2001 and his entry into the Obama administration, he made more than $20-million from the financial-services industry. (His 2009 federal financial-disclosure form listed his net worth as $17-million to $39-million.)

</p>

<p>[Larry</a> Summers’ inside job | SocialistWorker.org](<a href=“http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2010/10/05/larry-summers-inside-job]Larry”>http://socialistworker.org/blog/critical-reading/2010/10/05/larry-summers-inside-job)</p>

<p>I guess he can’t live on the Harvard’s economic professor salary ;)</p>

<p>It is a shameful, sad thing that we can’t trust those that are supposed to be our intellectual leaders…</p>

[dstark]

<p>I agree with you…</p>

<p>Professors teaching our kids bs…because they are getting paid by outsiders…</p>

[rockvillemom]

<p>How did you see it? Is it in the movie theaters yet? I also want to see it and it does not appear to be playing in our area yet.</p>

<p>Well I checked Fandango - and it is playing at one theater downtown. Hoping it will go into wider release.</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>Netflix - but no streaming, you have to get the disc.
I also think it is available for sale now - Costco has it in their flier.</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>I just checked and yes, it is available on DVD since March 8.</p>

[Pea]

<p>I saw the movie at least a year ago. I thought it was terrific, I hadn’t understood what caused the financial meltdown and I was glad to finally understand it to a point.</p>

<p>I was mostly outraged with the top executives who benefited so hugely from the crisis they created, the people on the front line. You could probably convince me that I should also be incensed with the academics, but that aspect of the story is a little too far removed for he to get a handle on it.</p>

<p>What stands out the most in my mind was they way the people who tried to stop this train wreck were squashed like bugs. It was very interesting to see how they took care of Eliot Spitzer.</p>

<p>It’s a must see movie.</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>One of the many interesting things the movie exposes is the fact that in 2006, just a few months before the collapse of the banks in Iceland, the beginnig of the meltdown, Summers and Mishkin (of Columbia) both wrote independent reports about the stablilty of the banking system in Oceland. The banks paid them over $120,000 each.
Funny thing - Mishkin later changed the title of his report from Financial Stability in Iceland to something like Financial Instability in Iceland ;)</p>

<p>Here is another reply by the movie’s director:</p>

<p>

Prof Mishkin writes in his article: “The filmmaker made insinuations that I didn’t disclose that I was compensated for the study – even though he learned the precise amount of the fee in 2006 from a public disclosure that I made.”</p>

<p>However, Prof Mishkin did not disclose in the report that he was paid to write it. Indeed, one of the most disturbing things I learned in making Inside Job, an issue discussed in the film, is that US universities do not require disclosure of financial conflicts of interest by faculty members, place no limits on the sources and size of professors’ outside income, and do not collect information on the size of this income. The only reason we now know of Prof Mishkin’s payment for the Iceland report is that he was later forced to disclose it when he was appointed to the US Federal Reserve Board.

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<p>and another charm:</p>

<p>

Some prominent academics have close ties to financial services yet neither their university employers nor the journals in which they publish require them to disclose their conflicts of interest, their financial positions, or the relationship between their financial interests and the policy positions they take.

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<p>[The</a> director of ‘Inside Job’ replies | Economists’ Forum | Economics blog from the Financial Times ? FT.com](<a href=“Financial Times”>Financial Times)</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>

It was very interesting to see how they took care of Eliot Spitzer

</p>

<p>Perfect point!</p>

<p>What is really scary in this movie is that is shows clearly that the whole scheme was organized and run to the end by a bunch of greedy, self assured people. Not even one has paid for it, not a penny, not a day in jail. They kept giving themselves bonuses while the majority of us were suffering huge loses…</p>

<p>But honestly, I do not know what to do about it. Congress was asking good questions, but it lead to nowhere.</p>

[Kelowna]

<p>Wake up people!
We have heated discussions here when it comes to Chinese vs American parenting, but mutes when we are cheated of our $$$$$$$ ???</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>One is within our control, the other is not.</p>

[mini]

<p>The corporate socialists do what they need to do, and they are good at it.</p>

[zapfino]

<p>Yep, Summers is bought.
[Larry</a> Summers and the Subversion of Economics - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Larry-Summersthe/124790/]Larry”>http://chronicle.com/article/Larry-Summersthe/124790/)</p>

[Pea]

<p>

Wake up people!
We have heated discussions here when it comes to Chinese vs American parenting, but mutes when we are cheated of our $$$$$$$ ???

</p>

<p>I’ve been pondering this since you posted it, Kelowna. Maybe the Chinese vs American parenting probably boils down to a philosophical difference in parenting styles. There is no right or wrong and many successful kids emerge from both styles. Common to both cultures is a fierce love for our kids. People do get very passionate about defending their positions because we so want to get things right as parents.</p>

<p>The financial scandal just made me sick. It is the sheer magnitude of the greed that I can’t get my head around. Why does anyone need $22 million dollars to live? The film answered that, to support a life style that involves personal jets and yachts and mansions and vacation homes that are also mansions. To achieve this goal competent officials who were committed to and good at their jobs were taken down, (Eliot Spitzer). Anyone who tried to do the right thing was gotten rid of.</p>

<p>All this took place while kids in this country don’t have enough to eat and every day more people are homeless. I don’t understand this unbridled greed in the face of the social problems this country faces. It speaks to the core of who we are as people. It goes to the core of our morality and it is too painful for me to contemplate. Maybe that is why this thread didn’t take hold. What happened is so unconscionable that I am not able to speak about it.</p>

[kjofkw]

<p>Can we find / discuss alternatives instead of being just horrified?
Some thoughts come to mind:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Is there a way to protest en masse? If Egyptians can bring down a government by a peaceful demonstration organized through social media, there must be a way to achieve similar common goals. Of course, the next steps in Egypt may be a painful process, and Wisconsin is having issues, but if the majority of the people feel strongly about the greed of a few, there must be something the majority can do to re-balance the equation. </p></li>
<li><p>Anyone familiar w/ what I call the “Ben&Jerry’s Philosophy”? When they owned the company (they no longer do), the paradigm was to pay the highest paid employee no more than 7x the lowest paid employee. For the sake of argument, lets make that 10x. That means if the administrative assistant makes $40k per year, the highest paid employee (incl. CEO’s) can only make $400,000. If the CEx’s want to make $600,000, the lowest paid salary rises to $60,000. If a company does extremely well ALL benefit. Not socialism, and still rewards those with greater responsibility and willingness to take risks. But it seems (to me) a much more reasonable spread of wealth. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Your thoughts?</p>

[BCEagle91]

<p>The people that you have to convince are the shareholders as they are the owners of the company. Usually shareholders don’t care when they are making a profit.</p>

[LongPrime]

<p>

@11

The corporate socialists do what they need to do, and they are good at it.

</p>

<p>Natural Selection and Devine Providence :)</p>