Inside Job

A few days after it won the Oscar I got to see this film and I can see why it won. Not only is it of its time but it goes after the villains of the day and does so in a way that is accessible without being dumbed down and is indignant without ever becoming the sort of "bang the drum" anger of Michael Moore. There were a couple of quotes that hit home with me: "what can we believe in? There is nothing we can trust anymore" said one commentator on the feeling of the public when the collapses started and, in regards the aftermath of it all another said simply "the poorest, as always, pay the most". These two quotes stayed with me because this film is the type of one that will make you angry – angry at injustice, angry at how it could have been allowed to happen and angry that rules that apply to you and I somehow don't apply to those with money and power.

However I didn't feel angry and the reason I didn't is because the film is much better put together than that. Anger comes from emotion and I don't always like it when a documentary starts pulling emotional strings on me. Mostly Inside Job lets the facts speak for themselves and, in doing so it left me quite incredulous, so quite amazed at the scale of things that I couldn't get worked up – it was more a matter of "shock". The saying is safety in numbers and Inside Job very quickly lets us in on why that title was chosen – because there appears to be nobody here who is guilt free. While many of the players understandably refused to be interviewed for this film, Ferguson does make the most of the access he does get and uses these interviews to illustrate key things as the narrator (Matt Damon) unfolds events along the timelines.

So we of course get interviews that fill in the details but more tellingly we get people who unwittingly demonstrate the sort of apathy and self-interest that contributed towards the global crisis. Politics is in the target of course because the names just all seem to change seats every few years and, although one would love to believe that someone coming into politics can cut these conflict of interests, the film shows literally millions of reasons why this is not a realistic thing to expect. The film also adds a new target to the mix by looking at the relationship between the banks and funds and academia. Knowledgeable professors and the like are put on the spot and it is hard not to enjoy it while they squirm, get shifty, shirty or just plain look uncomfortable. I'm not sure if my favourite is the guy paid by Iceland to right a study on their economy (conclusion? It's awesome!) when it is pointed out that the title (Financial Stability in Iceland) is retrospectively titled "Instability" when it comes to his CV listing, or the guy who denies any conflict of interest with people being paid by the organisations they are writing independent studies or when he is asked a hypothetical about medical research & pharmaceutical companies and has to wrestle himself to avoid the phrase "conflict of interest" in his answer.

The footage behind and around the contributions (themselves well shot) is engaging as well and the film does look good. The editing down and use of all the footage is impressive – it makes its point, keeps things punchy without feeling like people are being cut off and only once or twice did I feel that the answers or statements were being perhaps a little unfairly edited. Despite this though all of it is engaging, enthralling and rather sickening. Those hoping for a happy ending should be praised for their naivety but warned of watching this, because this is an inside job – the poor will lose what little they have and the middle majority will continue to look up to those in charge telling us about change and reform while acquiring a greater and greater percentage of the world's wealth.

A very well put together documentary that engaged me to the point that I almost forgot how incredibly depressing it all is.

Charles Ferguson also directed the very good "No End In Sight" about the failures of the Bush administration with regard to Iraq and on how poorly thought-through their ideas were on that topic. His focus in this movie is also on the failure of power to prepare for what many could see was a nightmare in the making. Ferguson in this film traces the failure, and in many cases, the unwillingness of government, academic, and financial elites to make policy which ensures financial health for all. Ferguson made a lot of money as an Internet entrepreneur and can now make the film the way he wants, and it's caught on by word of mouth, by virtue of a little man named Oscar, and probably by the zeitgeist.

Ferguson tracks some of the key decisions which greased the rails for the meltdown-from the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which destroyed the division between investment and savings banks, to the destruction of the reputation of Brooksley Born who had desired to put derivatives under the regulation of the CFTC of which she was the head, to the laissez-faire attitude of Alan Greenspan during his tenure as Fed chief. He interviews academics whose imprimatur and intellectual reputation were made available at a price. Ferguson also notes the popularity of cocaine and prostitutes on Wall Street at the time of this boom.

Ferguson interviews some of the key movers and shakers. If they're unwilling to be interviewed for the film, a message saying that that person declined to be interviewed appears on the screen. This is nearly more damning than if they do participate as it suggests they have something to hide. Ferguson doesn't suffer fools lightly and if he feels that an interviewee is not being straight with him, he is not shy about noting this. This is to our benefit as viewers and ensures that we see who is responsible for what. The movie is paced well, Ferguson is an intelligent, detail-oriented director and Matt Damon narrates the film quite ably.

If you don't know what derivatives are, this is a good film to fill you in, in a substantive and adequate way, on all the key points you need to know in order to understand the crisis. If you have followed the economics news closely, this is an excellent summary of the crisis. This really should be required viewing for all in the US.

Inside Job belongs to a genre of new documentaries, like The Cove, Dear Zachary and Bowling For Columbine, that are not only made to document the background of a phenomenon but also to encourage people to do something about it. Dividing itself into five sections of a 'report', the film looks at the background and effect of the recession and its effect on politics, the world, society, the economy, public welfare, education, the present and the near and distant future.

Inside Job is undeniably motivational and does well to extract the hypocrisies and selfishness of the main perpetrators and other persons linked with the crisis. Indside Job depicts the global financial from only one perspective and does not give due weighting to the alternate point of view. Of course, it does not help that the main protagonists involved in the entire affair are obviously missing from this documentary, a fact that is rubbed on to the audience time and again.

On the flip side, economics, being a head scratcher for several budding commerce students by nature, the spoken narrative of figures and key personnel could perhaps have been better explained with a clearer use of graphics. However since the film makers are not lecturers it would be too much to expect them to be aware of the concepts of pedagogy.

Well crafted and edited, Inside Job is a good introduction to the cause and effect of the financial crisis, it falls just short of being the definitive version. It is a good watch nevertheless and provides sufficient food for thought and plenty of opportunity for future cocktail party discussion.

It was the last thing I wanted to see as the holiday Season sets off: A documentary explaining the World wide economic depression. But it was probably something I should have put before, say, "Burlesque." This is a serious film that has no particular political axe to grind in terms of "Republican" vs. "Democrat" since each successive administration beginning with Ronald Reagan is thrashed for bowing down to Wall Street rather than protecting American citizens from the most immoral graft and greed, that I can remember in my 60 years as a U.S. Citizen. While it's true that "deregulation" is the hue and cry of one particular political party, what occurs with investment and banking firms is so entwined with our national representatives, that it does no good whatsoever to point fingers at one party.

The film opens with the simplest explanation of the impact of investment banking firms in the tiny country of Iceland. When investors move in and create a financial "bubble" for the sole purpose of letting it burst while taking off with enormous profits for themselves, the opening credits then start and introduce us to the players who would come to power with Reagan (Volker and Greenspan) and remove restrictions that had been put in place—we should all remember for good reason; regulations were set up because people had abused an open market—we see the rise and fall of the U.S. economy which became based on nothing but investment since all our "production" had been poorly managed and sent abroad, i.e. steel, automobiles, etc. What was left was goods and services and a tiny, though prosperous, "information technology." When Reagan gutted regulation and regulatory agencies, a system of credit developed where finance agencies sold risky loans to entities, and at the same time "bet" on those loans to fail, setting up a situation that the more risky the loan, the bigger the profit for lender. Various "talking heads" and bar graphs come across the screen, and they're all helpful in explaining what happened. But it's the deeply amoral points of view that get stated by people who were or are still in control of the financial banks and markets of this country that really appall.

And we're left with a sense of outrage and not more than a little sense of futility because there's nowhere to go for either compensation or redress. At the end of the film "Fair Game" about another kind of government takeover, we're given a civic's speech about how the country belongs to the people and it's up to us to make it work. Here, in "Inside Job" there's nothing anyone can do. We elected a president who was sent to prevent the problem from happening again, but instead he appoints many of the same people who set up the situation and profited from the first round.

I didn't find the small section of the film describing the "type A" personality of the players involved who use prostitutes and drugs to be either relevant or convincing. We see a former call girl allude to many in the financial world, but so what? There's a small dig at Elliot Spitzer, but he offers it himself. As well, we're given a psychiatrist who "can't reveal names" but can say for certain many in the financial industry are addicted to drugs and prostitutes, but so are many outside that world. It came across as a cheap shot in a film that brings forward many significant players (and names many who refused to appear in the film) and exposes them for what they are. They need no further tarnishing.

I did see one area that could be addressed as a beginning of reform. Various economic professors who are brought from institutions of higher learning to "advise" the government and then return to their teaching jobs aren't—for baffling reasons—prohibited from making profit off the policies they recommend. That needs to be stopped. In most disciplines, university professors can't use their research and publications for personal gain. Those in the field of economics need the same kinds of restrictions. And students should demand it.

We should all demand a lot more than we're getting from our government, but I guess we hope we're going to be one of the few to reap those enormous profits (which is a real sucker's bet). It's baffling and infuriating to watch this film and walk out into the light of day where the practices on display are still going on.

"If a bank forecloses on you, don't move and demand they produce a copy of your mortgage. In many cases, they can't." Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)

In the course of the angry and benignly biased documentary, Inside Job, Marcy Kaptur predicts what is happening right now: Banks are being forced to halt foreclosures because of faulty paperwork. But such mistakes are only a symptom Charles Ferguson reveals of the 2008 world-wide financial crisis, which involves high-ranking government officials like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner increasing their power while the policies they make cause certain harm to the people like us who have trusted them.

Like Fergusin's No End in Sight about the Iraq War, but more interesting and dramatic, Inside Job lays out logically the participation also of George Bush and Barack Obama in the global meltdown. Dispiriting are the derivative dispersal and shameful sub-prime lending that directly led to the breakdown of middle-class wealth while the purveyors of this massacre walked away with billions and no indictments. The Ponzi schemes of Kenneth Lay, Bernie Madoff, and their ilk are but small components of the charade that drew millions of hard-working, well-meaning citizens into debt and financial ruin as the value of their most cherished retirement vehicle, home value, dissipated right in front of their eyes.

Ferguson's documentary style is to remain behind the camera while letting the notables indict themselves. Unlike Michael Moore, he cares not to intrude or make a character of himself, something like Citizen Kane's reporter Thompson. Except when in a moment of profound pique he challenges the disaffection of Frederic Mishkin, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors: "I'm sorry, I'm sure that your textbook is important and widely read, but didn't you think that more important things were going on in the world?"

Unlike the recent screed of Davis Guggenheim against organized education in Waiting for Superman, in which teachers' unions could do no right and charter schools no wrong, Ferguson seems more honest in presenting only the facts. As I demanded of him to present the other side of the financial crisis, I couldn't think of what he could say to counter the welter of facts indicting those in front of his camera.

One of the most telling moments is that of Bush's Chief Economic Adviser, Glenn Hubbard: "You have three more minutes. Give it your best shot!" That arrogance informs the documentary and our grim lives for the foreseeable future.