Review - Inside Job

1. Here is a review of that Oscar-winning documentary by Charles Ferguson, Inside Job.

2. I recently received and viewed Inside Job from Netflix. Inside Job is about heads of high finance and government selling the world into the global financial crisis.

3. Inside Job is a documentary that uses charts, interviews, recording to explain the global financial crisis of 2008 by following a chain of cause and effect beginning in the 1970s.

I Click here to acquire Inside Job through Amazon or Netflix.

4. Now onto the review.

1) Opens with grippingly beautiful panoramic views of Iceland, which can play a nice contrast to the theme of Inside Job, that concerns finance, the city, skyscrapers, civilisation, game, deceit, business suits, and boardrooms, rather than what can be considered the relative truth, simplicity, and nakedness of the natural world.

The panaoramic view also opens the mind up to the point that these issues with global finance influence global society and the globe - the planet - the Earth itself, which can be useful for bringing civilization back down-to-earth, considering civilisation may be disconnected while in its armor known as the suit and its hierarchies in the tall cement buildings.

2) Matt Damon, a movie star, is narrating the film, which can give the position of a documentary greater credibility or authority than the documentary without movie stars.

Also, having a hollywood celebrity dictating the documentary can transfer fans of the star to support for the documentary's position.

This seems important because the documentary, in this case, is strongly presenting the world of high finance as antagonistic and guilty for the global financial crisis and the various forms of crises that it is entailing.

Suppose for example you were on a jury and a team was presenting their case to you.

Suppose further that someone of relative success and notoriety - someone you may support outside of the courtroom - played a major role on the team, would this significantly influence your analysis of the case being presented?

Matt Damon is a well-known celebrity whose films such as Good Will Hunting - which won an Academy Award and Golden Globe - Saving Private Ryan, the Ocean's Trilogy, and the Bourne Trilogy are quite popular.

I imagine having a star such as Matt Damon narrating Inside Job can be useful in gaining support for the film and although Matt Damon's role is miniscule compared to actual content of the film, it could have assisted in Inside Job winning its Oscar for best documentary.

Once again, Matt Damon's role in Inside Job can assist in attracting support for the film and, is miniscule compared to the actual content of the film, which we will now be looking into.

3) As previously mentioned, Inside Job's position is that the leaders of high finance and high government, are the antagonists in the global financial crisis and are most responsible for selling out the world to the insatiable specter of financial degeneration.

4) Inside Job features numerous interviews and recordings of important footage to add evidence from primary sources to its position.

Inside Job spreads the global financial crisis of 2008 - and further - over a timeline, beginning in the early 1970s, which can be useful for seeing a chain of cause and effect that brings understanding and can reveal a long pattern of deregulation in the financial sector that is presented as a principal cause of the global financial crisis.

5) Prior to viewing Inside Job, I was aware of the issues with unreasonable mortgage lending and had researched the topic, although was not clear on the subject.

Inside Job explained the mortgage lending fiasco in a way I understood, which is this:

1. In the contagious spirit of deregulation, the system of mortgage lending changed.

2. Mortgage lending now involved speculators, meaning investors could bet on mortgages being repaid and trade these mortgages like goods in the market.

Now being able to sell mortgages and earn a profit upfront, players in high finance would trade mortgages for the commission regardless of the likelihood that these mortgages would be repaid, which proved to be a likelihood that was generally extremely low.

3. This is a simplified explanation of the system - (1) Lenders would lend to homebuyers, (2) lenders would sell this mortgage to firms that mixed these debts with other types of debt such as car loans and consumer loans, creating a hodgepodge of debt, (3) these firms would sell portions of this hodgepodge of debt to investors, (4) investors would purchase insurance on these debts so if they were not repaid, the investors would be compensated.

4. Since the traders could earn profits from the initial sale and then be free from the debt-obligation, they could earn profits and then be free from the risk that the debt would not be repaid.

This risk-less system inspired lax lending and diminished concern for what would become of the debts.

Also, the larger the loan, the larger the commission; therefore, lenders lent excessively and everyone profited for trading the loans, until it came time for the loans to be repaid and there was not nearly enough money to repay them.

5. When it did come time for the debts to be repaid, many of these trading firms had debts that were many times larger than their available funds and were heading for bankruptcy.

Many of these firms were then labeled as too big to fail, because they managed magnificent percentages of money in the global financial system - if these firms fell, the global financial system would fall as well, it was said - and thus, many of these firms were bailed out by the government - using the people's money, in the form of taxation or money creation (hidden taxation known as inflation) - amounting in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

6) While the majority of the system from the upper blocks to the most fundamental blocks, was crumbling from the debt-bets-gone-bad, numerous individuals at the very tip of these radical firms were able to place the profits from their bets into their pockets and walk away with their money.

Although many employees of these firms and others in the financial sector were devastated by the dominion of finance, before the time came for debts to repaid, they were also able to line their pockets with the initial commissions.

7) The mortgage lending issue, which led to what is known as the 'housing bubble', is a useful example of the type of issues that Inside Job covers.

In a word, Inside Job shows how people with power over high finance have used their power and control of other people's money, to deceive the global financial system into self-sabotage.

8) For example, in addition to making loans that were obviously not likely to be repaid, regulators in the financial sector would give a rating to these loans that is sterling, if the highest possible.

Since I, as a leader in high finance, could make a bet with your money and earn a commission regardless of what happens with your money, I can make unreasonable bets and be subsequently compensated.

Further, the larger and often more unreasonable the bet, the greater my compensation, therefore, I have an opportunity to put your money and your life into a lottery and walk away with my own personal winnings.

This risk-less type of system in the financial sector brought about massive selling out of other people and of the system as a whole for the prospect of incredible personal gain - a system that seems destined to breed conflict given human nature.

9) Another example from Inside Job of leaders of high finance deceiving investors, and the mass of accounts that their money is connected to, is of the financial advisors within these firms, investing their clients' money into investments that they personally thought would lose their clients' money.

Often in these cases, it was not merely the advisors' opinion that the investments would lose money, it was their knowledge - based on research and consultation with other advisors.

10) A final example of selling out that Inside Job covers, is of various heads of firms in the financial sector selling their stock in the company shortly before the company collapsed, because they knew the company was collapsing and they could cash out before collapse.

11) Again, the main premise of Inside Job is that the global financial crisis has been caused by the leaders of high finance and high government, who have control over the global financial system, and sold out the global financial system - siphoning all of the materials and valuables from the ship and leaving before the entire ship crashes due to lack of supplies.

10) Imagine I come to you with a proposition. An incredible proposition.

A life changing proposition.

Imagine I come to you and offer you the opportunity to become a god.

There are various degrees of godliness, so you are not omnipotent in the strict sense, yet you are a god and are omnipotent by comparison to many others.

This offer is a trade.

In order to receive your evolution to godliness, you must take energy from others and transfer it into yourself. You must take a piece of godliness from others and transfer it into yourself.

Remember, you become a god by making this transfer.

Do you accept?

10) If you answered, 'yes', then if you were in the position that the individuals and their counterparts in the financial and political sector that Inside Job features were in, then perhaps you would have earned an incredible commission for selling out the global financial system.

11) In a word, Inside Job covers deregulation in the global financial system - recklessness in finance, dominion of finance, and selling the world for personal gain by leaders in high finance and high government - the heads in the inner circles of finance and government working together to sell out the rest, hence the title 'Inside Job'.

Those responsible for protecting society, used their position to attack society.

12) Now, let us look into some of the no's and yes's of Inside Job.

13) No:

1.The soundtrack. The music at the entrance seemed a bit dated and raised my antennae, although I got used to it. Throughout the documentary I was often getting the feeling of a television sitcom when listening to the music.

2. There is a heavy emphasis on the financial services industry and the government, particularly the high-level managers, as bearing responsibility for the global financial crisis.

It would have been interesting to see what the people on the other side of the transaction were thinking during this period, such as the borrowers who took out the absurd loans and the lower-level employees in the financial sector and government that played a more passive role.

3. More focus on the role government played in deregulation. Inside Job shows many scenes of politicians making vastly inaccurate speeches regarding national financial conditions and the intentions of financial provisions.

Some major players in the global financial crisis, such as the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, were appointed to advisory positions in the US government, and many players were appointed to advisory positions in the Obama administration.

It would have been interesting to see interviews with government officials who oversaw this team effort between the government and investment firms. After all, the government is officially meant to determine regulations for the benefit of society and the maintenance of order, not for the benefit of the few and the propagation of crisis.

Further, Mussolini would say that the government teaming with the corporations can be considered fascism, which is contrary to the official political system of the United States.

It would have been interesting to see government officials and politics researchers speak on these issues in the same way that we saw executives in the financial sector and global finance researchers speak on these issues.

14) Yes:

1. Focusing on Wall Street. Rather than taking a macroeconomic perspective or a global perspective, Inside Job focuses most on Wall Street, moving right into the offices of the individuals leading the ship. This focus is useful because it gives the viewer a look into the control tower of these firms, to a greater extent than a look into the global society or a more wide-angled view.

2. Many people are interested in seeing interviews in documentaries of controversial subjects when the interviewee shows discomfort when asked a difficult question or a question that may reveal a degree of guilt or corruption.

Inside Job features plenty of interviews with members of either the financial sector or a sector that has relations with the financial sector, such as academia, during which the interviewee either expresses discomfort, suspicious aloofness, or obviously shields the truth.

For example, there are frequent scenes of Charles Ferguson interviewing Scott Talbot, a chief lobbyist in the global financial system.

A lobbyist works to influence legislators with money and other gifts on behalf someone who stands to directly benefit from certain legislation.

An analogy to a lobbyist would be a pharmaceutical sales agent working on behalf of a pharmaceutical company, who treats the head of a hospital with lunch and gifts in order to persuade the hospital to use the agent's pharmaceuticals - in this case the sales agent is the lobbyist.

During these interview scenes between Ferguson and Talbott, Talbott, whose purpose to do the bidding of the heads of high finance, responds to Ferguson's questions with answers that can be seen as quite funny.

For example, Ferguson asks Talbott if he as an issue with many of the firms he represents being involved in large scale criminal activity, such as fraud - that many members of the financial sector have gone to jail for - and Talbott responds, "You'll have to be specific."

In addition to many of their heads going to jail, numerous firms have been fined in hundreds of millions of dollars due to fraud.

Talbott says, "When you're this large...mistakes happen."

Regarding corporate bonuses ranging from single-digit millions to over one hundred millions, when asked about these “very high” compensation packages, Talbott responds, 'I think we have to take caution when we say 'very high'...it's all relative.'

One great example of an interesting scene of questioning is when Senator Carl Levin is questions Daniel Sparks of Goldman Sachs.

Levin cites an email in which the firm's sales executives were saying that a particular investment was bad and after the sales executives say this, the managers then tell them that the top priority to sell is that bad investment.

Levin asks Sparks:

"If you have an adverse interest to you client, do you have a duty to disclose that to your client - to tell that client of your adverse interest?"

To which Sparks responds, “I am just trying to understand your question.”

3. Inside Job ends with the narrator affirming:

"They will tell us that we need them, and that what they do is too complicated for us to understand. They will tell us it won’t happen again."

These particular words seem relevant and typical when one party is seeking to protect their position from potentially damaging analysis from another party.

Knowing these words can be useful because when the heads in high finance and politics do use the words, their truer meaning can be known and the intentions they represent can be exposed, rather than followed – at least in theory.

15) In conclusion, Inside Job is informative and entertaining. Inside Job seems best suited for the individual who is interested in fraudulent high finance and the role that Wall Street has played in the global financial crisis.

Inside Job also focuses more on specific individuals than the system as a whole or global society.

Therefore, (1) if you are seeking a documentary of the pain that the global financial crisis is bringing on the people – the workers, then perhaps a documentary such as Let’s Make Money by Erwin Wagenhofer is better suited for you; (2) if you are seeking a documentary specifically of the US financial system, from an academic point of view, then perhaps a documentary such as IOUSA is better suited for you; and (3) if you are seeking a documentary of high finance and the role specific individuals have played in the global financial crisis, then perhaps Inside Job is better suited for you.

On behalf of The Global FC Zone,

Crisis to Profit.

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