Inside Job

One of the films I saw on the plane on the way to Bangkok was Charles Ferguson's fascinating documentary about the 2008 global financial crisis, Inside Job. I felt it was a great companion piece to Michael Lewis's equally excellent analysis of the same events in his book, The Big Short. I liked how Ferguson mixed background footage, music, interviews, and explanatory charts and graphs to maintain viewer attention to the overall narrative. It could have come across turgid like Oliver Stone's latest Wall Street film or over reliant on talking head interviews. Overall, it was illuminating and a thought provoking response to the volatile financial crisis. That being said, it led me to listen to the Slate Audio Book Club podcast on Lewis' book, which was also equally engaging. One interesting observation from that discussion pointed out that the housing bubble of the early 2000s (largely 2001-2005) took place when many jobs were being outsourced overseas and all the jobs that related to the housing bubble were US jobs by definition. One commenter was making a stretch in trying to give a defense of the sub prime debacle. Another commenter points out that these financial engineers create nothing useful to society and compared them to the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century and can access that they left rail systems and other improvement to society in their wake. Furthermore, many of them were philanthropists and had legacies of building institutions for public good. This cannot be said for the investment bankers of our current age.