Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis

Don't believe a word of this crap. Oh, you can believe the part about how the world economy collapsed in 2008. Let's call that the forest fire that burned down the world economy. Now, how did the fire start? Camp fire? Lightening? No. It was deliberately set by arsonists. Now imagine all those arsonists getting together and talking about how bad the fire was. And how they saved so many of us from being engulfed by that fire. What balls...

The first match that was lit for this economic inferno was the passage of the Graham/Leach/Bliley Congressional Bill of 1999. You know who didn't suffer one penny during this financial meltdown? Bankers!!! This may not the the first time a bank robbery was committed by the BANK against citizens, but it sure was the biggest and most egregious. Make a documentary about that HBO!

"Panic: The Untold Story of the 20098 financial Crisis" (2018 release; 96 min.) is a documentary on the roots of the 2008 financial crisis, how the crisis itself unfolded, and most importantly, the unintended long-term consequences of it all. As the documentary opens, we are "September 11, 2018", as all of the main players from a decade earlier get together for a remembrance dinner. We then go back to "May 9, 2006", not long after Henk Paulson has joined the Bush administration as the Treasury Secretary, and the market is showing signs of a housing bubble. It sets into motion a financial crisis of unimaginable proportions. At this point we are 10 min. into the film.

Couple of comments: the film makers concentrate on the three main guys: then Treasury Secretary Henk Paulson, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner, and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke. These three band together as a triumvirate and rarely decide anything without consulting each other. Interestingly, all three make clear that they are motivated to do whatever it takes to avoid another Great Depression. Of course many others are featured as well. Several things are striking: (i) when facing calamity, the political leaders in Washington came together and acted in a bipartisan way that is simply and utterly unthinkable in today's climate; (ii) "we should've done a better job explaining to the public what we were doing", sighs Paulson, and he is right of course; mostly lost in the narrative of the financial industry's bailout is the inconvenient truth that all of the $700 billion TARP bailout money was repaid WITH INTEREST to the US government; (iii) perhaps most surprisingly, former President George W. Bush comes across as a calming yet resolute leader who lets the experts do their job (meaning, the complete opposite of the current POTUS).

The last 15 min. of the documentary are the most revealing, as it just "the straight line between the the financial crisis and the populism in today's politics, linked by the rise of the Tea Party starting in 2009. It is absolutely devastating to see how in just a single decade we are now living in a world of untruths, disinformation, lies, conspiracy theorists, the real v. imagined "deep state", and the shocking incompetence and complete lack of leadership coming from the current POTUS and his administration. Meanwhile, "Panic: The Untold Truth of the 2008 Financial Crisis" is a riveting documentary that contains a lot of valuable lessons to understand how we got where we are today.

I thought this documentary was a great re-telling and explanation of all the moving parts of the '08 financial crisis. Having the key players interviewed and explain their thought processes was a good way to tell the story.

The obligatory Holly-weird anti-Trump nonsense at the end of the film was wholly unnecessary and seemed beyond oddly out of place. But, what else can we expect from Holly-weird these days than to blame anything on Trump.

Aside from the absurd connection of Trump to the '08 financial crisis, the film was very good.

Looks like they funded this in part? Certainly appears to be slanted. Documentary?

First, the initial vote in Congress was on a 3-page plan and that's why it was rejected by angry congressmen who were willing to know how the money would be spend. There is no mentioning that the Congress requested Bernanke to present a detailed plan and a few days later it was accepted. Secondly, under Bernanke the treasury and SEC were doing virtually nothing to monitor financial institutions and to alarm the public. All of a sudden the credit rating agencies that failed to properly assess risks before announced a massive downgrade of 400+ companies at once, which triggered the huge panic. And finally, Paulson did very little to prevent a crisis in 2007 and could push much stronger to cap bonuses and CEO's salaries and did very little, nothing to be proud of. GWB proved his incompetence in selecting a treasure secretary as in almost everything else he did. Those "heroes" brought significant wealth to their friends among bankers and robbed millions.