Too Big to Fail Film Review

The outbreak and spread of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 have caused the most of countries into severe economic difficulties and also created an adverse impact on the global economy. The beginning of the financial crisis is defaults in the subprime mortgage market in the USA. Although the global economy seems to recover since 2009, the impacts of the crisis still affect many countries until now. This essay focuses on the background and impacts of financial crisis, and the learning from the movie The Big Short.

In Frontline’s The Meltdown, the causes of the stock market crash of 2008 came into discussion. The topics regarding Bear Stearns, the Lehman Brothers’ and their collapse, and the huge bailout made in results to the market crash. There were great points being made on the mistakes Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke did not view from their perspective, which in turns were the problems that made up the crash.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense was one of many books to be published in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis of 2007. After seeing the global economy stall in the face of massive losses in word financial markets, many Americans sought to better understand the crisis and its causes. This book, written from the perspective of a financial market insider, provides a glimpse into the world of global finance and also seeks to explain how the players in this world were involved in the crisis. In the words of the author Lawrence McDonald, “My objective in writing A Colossal Failure of Common Sense was twofold. First, to provide … a close-up, inside view of how markets really work…..And, second, to give… as crystal clear an explanation as possible about the real reasons why the legendary Lehman Brothers met with such a swift end”1. By writing about his personal experience at Lehman Brothers and recounting stories from within the famous investment banking firm, Mr. McDonald largely succeeds at his first goal. However, the elements of personal biography and the chronological order of the book make it difficult for the reader to fully appreciate all of the varied causes of the financial crash. I believe that the main value of reading this book is in understanding these causes, with Lehman Brothers acting as a microcosm of the greater financial universe. As such, in this review I have isolated elements from Mr. McDonald’s book which highlight how the crisis

The great recession of the year 2007-2009 had a substantial adverse impact on the US Economy and the world. Charles Ferguson documentary narrates how politicians, bankers, and economist conspired to create a crisis that caused high unemployment, increased the United States global debt and contributed to the loss of investments and savings. He describes how banks resisted regulation in the early 1990's by CFTC and how successive regimes led to the crisis by enacting laws that supported the process.

The Great Recession inflicted abundant harm in the U.S. and global economy; 8.7 million jobs vanished (Center on Budget), 9.3 million Americans lost their homes (Kusisto), and the U.S. GDP fell below what the economy was capable to produce (Center on Budget). The financial crisis was unforeseen by millions and few predicted that the market would enter a recession. Due to the impact that the recession had, several studies have been conducted in order to determine what caused the recession and if it could have been prevented. Government intervention played a key role in the crisis by providing the bailout money that saved those “Too Big to Fail” institutions. Due to the amount of money invested in the bailout and the damage that the financial crisis had on the U.S. population, “Too Big to Fail Banks”, and financial regulation are two of the biggest focuses of the presidential candidates. Politicians might assure voters that change will occur, but is it to late for change to be efficient, are the financial institutions making the same mistakes that led to the financial crisis?

History has shown us again, and again that when power is left unchecked it becomes corrupt and out of control, that is the iron law of oligarchy. In the US we saw this happen recently in the 2008 economic meltdown. The banks and corporations should never have been aloud to become "to big to fail," and once they did grow to a point when they were there should have been more government oversight to make sure things did not get out of hand. After the great depression laws were put in place to try to prevent something like that from ever happening again, but we undid those restrictions and ended up in a place eerily similar to somewhere we had been before. In this paper I will cover a brief history of the great depression, and show how the situation in 2008 was all too similar. I will also discuss and analyze the factors that brought us to the tipping point in our most recent economic scare. And finally I will explain why the actions taken by the FED were necessary and kept us from an even more

The financial crisis of 2008 has been described as the worst financial crisis the world has seen since the great depression, but there are now murmurings of the potential for an even greater financial crisis, a currency crisis, caused by the demise of the US Dollar. The Dollar has been the reserve currency of the world since it took over from the Pound at the end of world war two, but we examine if it is about to crash spectacularly?

In order to better the financial crisis, financial experts must first understand where the problem originated. In Too Big to Save, Robert Pozen develops principles for evaluating the government bailout efforts on a financial crisis. Pozen explains why the taxpayers will take most of the fall if the banks fail and we go into a recession. He confirms that financial officials will use prefer stocks compared to common stocks because they wanted to not nationalize the banks and to keep capitalism. Pozen presents an idea on how the United States financial regulation should be structured in the future. Since there are different proposals and perspectives, everyone will not agree on every proposal but this shows how we can evaluate our economy and how it should

In this essay, I will briefly explain what happened during the financial crisis of 2007-09, and also discuss the contribution of the government to the financial crisis.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, in September 2008 almost brought down the world’s financial system. Considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great depression of the 1930s. Economist Peter Morici coined the term the “The Great Recession” to describe the period. While the causes are still being debated, many ramifications are clear and include the failure of major corporations, large declines in asset values (some estimates put the drop in the trillions of dollars range), substantial government intervention across the globe, and a significant decline in economic activity. Both regulatory and market based solutions have been proposed or executed to attempt to combat the causes and effects of the crisis.

The banking crisis of the late 2000s, often called the Great Recession, is labelled by many economists as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Its effect on the markets around the world can still be felt. Many countries suffered a drop in GDP, small or even negative growth, bankrupting businesses and rise in unemployment. The welfare cost that society had to paid lead to an obvious question: ‘Who’s to blame?’ The fingers are pointed to the United States of America, as it is obvious that this is where the crisis began, but who exactly is responsible? Many people believe that the banks are the only ones that are guilty, but this is just not true. The crisis was really a systematic failure, in which many problems in the

Blumberg, Alex, dir. “The Giant Pool of Money – Episode 355.” Dir. Davidson Adam, This American Life. NPR News: WBEZ,

What caused the financial crisis to happen? The origin of the crisis, the film argues, can be traced back to the 1980s, when the process of deregulation was eagerly implemented under the Reagan Era. Prior to the emergence of Reaganomics, the financial industry was tightly regulated following the Great Depression. Most of the banks were local and were prohibited from speculating customers’ deposits (brought by the Glass-Steagall Act), while the investment banks were modest and private. However, everything changed after 1980, when Ronald Reagan became president and the U.S economy entered a thirty-year phase of deregulation. Financial institutions, which included commercial and investment banks then embarked on the process of maximizing profit by making risky investments with the depositors’ money. By the end of the decade, saving and loans companies went bankrupt, causing tax payers to lose more than one hundred billion dollars. However, the government did not implement any reform and deregulation continued to take place under the Clinton

“Too Big to fail” was first known in a 1984 Congressional hearing where Congressman Stewart McKinney discussed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s intervention with Continental IIIinois. The idea interprates that certain financial institutions are so large, if any of them fails, it will bring an unexpected disastrous effect to the economy. As we all known, the 2008 financial crisis had arose the “too big to fail” problem to the peak controversial point. Banks, insurance companies, auto companies are part of the big company industry. They make profit by creating and selling complicated derivatives and trading loans, commodities and stocks. When the big economic environment is prosperous, those big companies make a competitive

It was 1929, and in the United States things could not be better for those smart enough, or for that matter, brave enough, to gamble on the Stock Market. All of the big stocks were paying off handsomely, the little ones too. However, as much as analysis tried to tell the people that this period of great wealth would last, no one could imagine what would come of the United States economy in the next decade. The reasons for this catastrophic event in American 20th century history are numerous, and in his book, The Great Crash, John Kenneth Galbraith covers the period and events which lead up to the downward spiral in the fall of 1929 and the people behind the scenes on Wall Street who helped this fire spread.