10 Reasons You Should Not Waste Your Money On Film 'Inside Job'

IBD Editorials ^ | November 17, 2010 | PAUL SPERRY

[Kaslin]

'Inside Job" bills itself as "the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis." It exposes whoremongering Wall Street traders, economic consultants who lie on their resumes and Hank Paulson's conflicts.

But it doesn't answer what caused the crisis.

Of course, it thinks it does. "This is how it happened," the film confidently tells viewers before taking them, oddly enough, all the way back to the 1980s. Why then? Because the Reagan administration — "supported by economists and financial lobbyists" — started a 30-year regulatory vacation that fomented unparalleled "greed and immorality" on Wall Street.

"Progressive deregulation of the financial sector since the 1980s gave rise to an increasingly criminal industry," says director Charles H. Ferguson, who wants to see investment bankers, starting with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, cuffed and frog-marched down Wall Street.

These are "the men who plunged the world into crisis," the film claims. What about the men in Washington? They were corrupted by the crooks in pinstripe suits into looking the other way. Other than that, politicians had little to do with it.

Narrated by film star and Democratic activist Matt Damon, the "documentary" is almost 120 minutes of anti-market agitprop. Here are 10 more reasons not to waste your money:

[Spok]

The words “documentary” and “Matt Damon” were enough to keep me away.

[Fred Hayek]

The movie sounds like the spew from Mike Malloy and sometimes Thom Hartmann. No doubt it will be a big hit in Moonbatapolis.

[CutePuppy]

Excerpts from Movie Review: Inside Job - Misdirected Outrage - B, by Gene Epstein, 2010 October 23

< snip > ..... Consider just one howler -- it bears on the film's fatally lopsided view of the root causes of the meltdown. Rep. Barney Frank, addressing the camera, casts a disapproving eye on the practice of buying mortgages in the secondary market, rather than leaving them with the originator, an activity generally referred to as securitization. If securitization really is harmful, hearing Barney Frank denounce it as such is like suffering through a diatribe against Ponzi schemes delivered by Bernard Madoff.

In fact, contrary to the message of the film, securitization and the associated use of that now-anathematized investment instrument, derivatives, can be beneficial. For example, the activity of securitizing credit-card debt has been functioning for decades.

Barney Frank has left a long trail as an aggressive supporter of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, financial institutions that did not originate mortgages, but only bought them in the secondary market. The basic nature of the GSEs' business was therefore securitization, and increasingly of the subprime kind, which Frank extolled. ..... < snip >

< snip > ..... On the outsize role of the GSEs and other federal agencies in high-risk mortgages, figures compiled by former Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto show that as of mid-2008, more than 70% were accounted for by the federal government in one way or another, with nearly two-thirds of that held by Fannie and Freddie.

Pinto, who has written extensively on the housing bubble, told me he was interviewed twice by Ferguson and his researchers, but apparently offered nothing they felt they could use. ..... < snip >

Don't waste your money on this "documentary".

[XEHRpa]

> The words “documentary” and “Matt Damon” were enough to keep me away.

It gets worse then that. The following characters are portrayed as subject-matter experts in a sympathetic light: George Soros, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Barney Frank.

Nonetheless, there were very good points made in the documentary, if you can work your way past the leftist spin. Which is to say, there’s enough blood on many hands of both parties to go around.