Trabalho Interno

There is no possible way that all of the contributors to the financial meltdown can get adequate attention in a two-hour documentary. There were many factors involved, and some get short shrift in the film to focus on what would be easily comprehensible by most viewers, and, one can safely assume, to fit the biases of the producers, director, writers, etc. It's their movie, after all, and no documentary can avoid the bias trap. None that I have seen anyway.

Think of the film as a departure point. If one is really interested, they will dig deeper into the question through other documentaries and books on the subject. There will be plenty in the years ahead. More evidence will come to light, and more questions will be answered.

Let it be said that this film will make you angry. It will also make you a more informed individual and a better citizen.

It is not easy to get through two hours of discussion on why the financial meltdown occurred, but this film is probably the most painless way to do it. and it did it very well.

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.

This film portrayed a horrific set of circumstances in a measured and brilliantly illustrated manner. The economic issues were explained by clear, understandable graphs. Many major players appeared on camera to their detriment. The few that didn't appear were shown through press clips.

The most awful scene to me was the footage of the tent city with unemployed, lost and bewildered American workers, their jobs lost directly because of the antics of the Wall Street monsters. It could easily happen here in Godzone.

Highly recommended.

Charles Ferguson's "Inside Job" is strong, fair, and rational. The director tries mightily to untangle the complex architecture of the financial meltdown that has cost millions their jobs, their homes, and their savings. If you consider skipping it because it sounds boring, please think again. My blood is still boiling.

Why does this documentary leave us sunk in despair? Because it confirms the certainty that there is no one left we can trust. The fact that much of what brought the economy to its knees was legal, not criminal, signals a financial sector run by ethical nihilists who will pursue every legal loophole to enrich themselves. Human nature, you say? Then bring back the stringent regulation that gave the industry forty years of reasonable corporate success before Reagan era deregulation. The schoolyard bullies need supervision.

America's bubble of private gain and public loss was pierced by the collapse of Lehman Bros. and AIG. Banks merged into "too big to fail" behemoths; safeguards were overturned; regulation of derivatives was banned; This vacuum quickly filled with money laundering, defrauding of customers, cooking the books, and stuffing of the pockets of top officers with money. Larry Summers took 20 million as adviser to a hedge fund. Lehman's CEO took 485 million, the CEO of the failing AIG 315 million. Fired by Merrill, CEO Stan O'Neal departed with a severance bonus of 161 million.

When Mortgages were bundled and sold to the bloated investment banks, lenders no longer cared if they were repaid. Goldman, Lehman, and Merrill were all players. Summers, Bernanke, and Geithner all stood against corrective measures and would play pivotal roles in the Obama administration.

Absent limits on the impulsive risk takers, Wall Street plunged into personal pleasure. There was never enough: penthouses on Park, private jets (six for Lehman alone), vacation homes, art collections, drivers, private elevators, drugs, alcohol, strip bars, and prostitution - one private supplier within spitting distance of the stock exchange counted 10,000 men among her customers..

Three ratings agencies made fortunes bestowing unwarranted ratings right up to two days before Lehman failed, later testifying before congress that these were merely "opinions", not guides for investors. The crowning disgrace is the corruption of the universities. Business school professors consult with companies. Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, takes $250,000 as a board member of Met Life. Larry Summers, back at Harvard, continues to rake in consulting and lecture fees.

The presidents of Harvard and Columbia refused comment. You will appreciate the honesty of Raghuram Rajan who wrote strong warnings and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who spoke with disgust of the debacle.

It used to be that respected academics could be counted on to be the conscience of democracy. Now they are reduced to being interchangeable components in the conflict of interest chain that links business/government/university. Credit Charles Ferguson with a superb investigation and give thanks that we still have a free investigative press to wake the sleeping citizenry.

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.