Author Topic: The Big Short movie  (Read 28132 times)

englishteacheralex

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #50 on: June 10, 2016, 03:56:02 PM »
Saw it last week and think it's great. The Big Short and Margin Call provide the best explanation of the financial crisis to lay people that I have seen or read. Out of the two, The Big Short is both more informative and more entertaining.

It also struck me as very mustachian. Not only because of Brad Pitt's character but the whole 'outsiders gaming the system' narrative. The protagonists are not heroes and no white knights, just more inquisitive and independent than the rest of the trade.

The only thing I did not like was Steve Carells' characters story about his brothers suicide. It struck me as too clichéd and moralistic. I subsequently learned that the man it was based on had not lost his brother through suicide but his little child through an accident and hence, was in a place where he thought that 'everything could happen, to everybody, at any time'. That is a much more convincing narrative how somebody without Michael Burry's single-mindedness and biologically determined independence (Asperger's syndrom) could have stood there and declared: I am right on this one and it's the rest of the world that has went completely nuts. But that's the only weakness of the whole movie.

I read the book and thought the exact same thing about the brother suicide narrative in the movie. But I immediately thought--oh, dead baby is too heavy for a movie like this; it's a larger order of magnitude and would derail the rest of the plot. Because dead baby stops any story in its tracks. Too sad. Everybody immediately flashes to their own baby and stifles a sob about how they would feel if it happened to them.

woopwoop

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #51 on: June 10, 2016, 05:05:20 PM »
I really enjoyed this movie. Thought it had great understated acting, witty dialogue, and nicely laid out the details of what happened to create the subprime mortgage crisis. Some expository parts were heavyhanded for me but watching it with the husband, he said that the explanations were not overdone for him - so I think I just went in knowing more than their average viewer. I was laughing out loud in parts, and the emotional stuff was enough without being overbearingly hollywood.

I don't quite understand ARS's objections that it wasn't as informative as a documentary or as entertaining as Star Wars or whatever. It was an intelligent and funny movie about an interesting topic that isn't commonly explored in Hollywood. From what I've heard talking with other people less dialed into financial news, it was very informative to them while still being funny to people who already knew the background. Nobody is going to watch a youtube documentary about subprime mortgages unless they're already immersed in the stuff; a movie with Brad Pitt and Steve Carell will draw a wide crowd of people and help inform them on a topic that most people plug their ears to because financial shit is boring. I think that's immensely valuable on a wide scale, apart from the fact that it was just an enjoyable movie for me personally.

Like history movies (Enemy at the Gates), it gives a nice overview of facts inside the structure of a story. As a teacher and writer, I know that storytelling is one way to make things stick in the brain where normally they wouldn't. I think this kind of movie is worthwhile simply for that reason.

iris lily

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #52 on: June 11, 2016, 09:47:36 AM »
I really enjoyed this movie. Thought it had great understated acting, witty dialogue, and nicely laid out the details of what happened to create the subprime mortgage crisis. Some expository parts were heavyhanded for me but watching it with the husband, he said that the explanations were not overdone for him - so I think I just went in knowing more than their average viewer. I was laughing out loud in parts, and the emotional stuff was enough without being overbearingly hollywood.

I don't quite understand ARS's objections that it wasn't as informative as a documentary or as entertaining as Star Wars or whatever. It was an intelligent and funny movie about an interesting topic that isn't commonly explored in Hollywood. From what I've heard talking with other people less dialed into financial news, it was very informative to them while still being funny to people who already knew the background. Nobody is going to watch a youtube documentary about subprime mortgages unless they're already immersed in the stuff; a movie with Brad Pitt and Steve Carell will draw a wide crowd of people and help inform them on a topic that most people plug their ears to because financial shit is boring. I think that's immensely valuable on a wide scale, apart from the fact that it was just an enjoyable movie for me personally.

Like history movies (Enemy at the Gates), it gives a nice overview of facts inside the structure of a story. As a teacher and writer, I know that storytelling is one way to make things stick in the brain where normally they wouldn't. I think this kind of movie is worthwhile simply for that reason.

You said it better than I was able to say it.

As a lifetime fan of fiction, I respect the  truths that come out of a well written novel. There can be a lot fo chew on in novels.

arebelspy

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #53 on: June 29, 2016, 02:34:37 AM »
Finally saw this film last night.  By nature, I am a worrier, but I ended up completely depressed and scared.  Everytime a banker or investor doubted the characters' beliefs that the housing market would tank, they just kept saying "The market always goes up".  Isn't this the same answer that we get when we ask "why index?"  And when the economy tanks, we will tank with it.  I'm realizing now just how lucky I was not to have lost my job or my house in that crises.  It's pretty likely that if I didn't have family that convinced me to move back in 2001 after the dot com crisis , I would still be in a shit-town with crap job prospects and when the housing crises hit, I may have had serious trouble then.     

I thought War Games had it right ....the only way to win is to not play.  Now I feel like I just want to get a portion of my money out of the game.

If someone can make me happy that I'm following the right path, please try.  Otherwise, I am again overly worried about my future.

Short of civilization collapse though, it DOES always go up... on a long enough time frame.  Inflation basically guarantees it.  I guarantee you houses will be higher in nominal dollars in 30 years than they were in 2006.  Many places already passed those highs.  Others will at some point.

The thing is, the stock market in the short term is volatile--it will go up, and down.  In the long run though, it is ownership in businesses that produce real value.  That's something useful to own.  It has nothing to do with hoping it goes up.

That's what a bubble is--underlying values not supporting current prices, yet hoping some bigger sucker comes along to buy it from you at a higher price.  It's speculation.

Stock market investing, if done right, shouldn't be speculation.  It should be based on solid, underlying fundamentally strong investments.  And those have real value, not just hope.
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NoStacheOhio

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #54 on: June 29, 2016, 08:22:30 AM »
Sidebar, this is coming to Netflix in July. Definitely adding it to my queue!

JackieTreehorn

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #55 on: July 14, 2016, 03:22:54 PM »
I think Margin Call is the only one of these 2008 crash movies that is worth watching.  I agreed with it's point of view which is not that wall street is bad or that people were too greedy or that the government needs to do more to stop the big bad wolves of wall street etc., it's that the financial sector is too big.  People should be doing more productive things with their lives (e.g. the character played by Stanley Tucci, a former civil engineer), but instead have been lured into finance because of the lucrative pay.  The crash of 2008 was a corrective force that should have rebalanced the economy by dramatically reducing the size of the financial sector and bankrupting some of the firms that had made huge, unwise bets on the housing market, but of course the government (mostly) bailed them all out.  The acting was great, especially Paul Bettany and Jeremy Irons.

This one felt kinda preachy and not as funny as the people making it thought it was.  I thought Steve Carrell and Christian Bale were both kinda one-notey in their performances (the same note for both characters), although I'd watch the Baby Goose brush his teeth and find it interesting.

I also wouldn't bother with Too Big to Fail or that documentary narrated by Matt Damon (can't remember the name) that covers the same subject matter.

Metric Mouse

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #56 on: July 17, 2016, 11:14:38 PM »
Sidebar, this is coming to Netflix in July. Definitely adding it to my queue!

Nice to know. I've been looking forward to seeing it after the glowing recommendations from posters here. Hopefully it's good enough to entertain SWMBO as well.

gggggg

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #57 on: July 18, 2016, 02:09:29 PM »
It's on netflix streaming now, just pulled it up.

BlueHouse

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #58 on: July 18, 2016, 02:49:54 PM »
So mad I paid for it.  This seems to always happen.  I only pay for movies very rarely, but every time, it's on Netflix within a month. 

Koogie

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #59 on: July 19, 2016, 08:07:18 AM »
It's on netflix streaming now, just pulled it up.

So is Margin Call.      Make it a double feature...  :o)

gggggg

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #60 on: July 19, 2016, 05:32:43 PM »
Looks like margin call is DVD only. I wish it were streaming. BTW The Big Short was great imo.

Koogie

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #61 on: July 20, 2016, 07:35:51 AM »
Looks like margin call is DVD only. I wish it were streaming. BTW The Big Short was great imo.

Ah, guess that must be the difference between Netflix Canada and Netflix USA.   

By the by, did they increase the monthly price in the US as well ?   Our grandathered 7.99/mo. was increased to 9.99/mo effective July.

NextTime

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #62 on: July 20, 2016, 12:34:46 PM »
Goes up next month for me.

Not sure why so many are bent out of shape about it. $9.99 is a reasonable price for all that content. Did they expect the price to remain static for all eternity?

Metric Mouse

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #63 on: July 20, 2016, 07:11:27 PM »
Netflix has a 'lower' tier plan available for 7 or 8 bucks. Just one device and standard definition, I think, if money was a big deal.

FrenchStache

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #64 on: July 23, 2016, 03:11:20 PM »
I enjoyed the movie as well since I like learning about the crash.  I thought Steve Carell was really good in it as well as the other other guys.  The sad thing for me is that I am sure new subprime products have been created or are still there and we are back to doing the same old thing.  I hope I am wrong and that regulations prevent these things from happening.  But as you know, people will always get creative and create the next thing.  Also a shocking reminder that not a single person got in trouble for it and we the taxpayers bailed out the banks.  Haven't seen the return on that money yet, have you? hahaha

arebelspy

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #65 on: July 23, 2016, 03:34:41 PM »
Also a shocking reminder that not a single person got in trouble for it and we the taxpayers bailed out the banks.  Haven't seen the return on that money yet, have you? hahaha

I sure did see the return--our economy not crashing into a great depression lasting to this day. 

Now that's not to say I don't think the bankers should be held responsible, I do.  Many of them should be in jail.

But to say we haven't seen a return on that money implies that we shouldn't have done the bailout, but we should have, and we have seen a return, IMO.  :)
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FrenchStache

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #66 on: July 23, 2016, 06:22:16 PM »
Also a shocking reminder that not a single person got in trouble for it and we the taxpayers bailed out the banks.  Haven't seen the return on that money yet, have you? hahaha

I sure did see the return--our economy not crashing into a great depression lasting to this day. 

Now that's not to say I don't think the bankers should be held responsible, I do.  Many of them should be in jail.

But to say we haven't seen a return on that money implies that we shouldn't have done the bailout, but we should have, and we have seen a return, IMO.  :)

I agree with you that it turned around the economy and saved us from falling off the cliff.  I do think that we may not realize or appreciate how close we came to being far worse off. 

Does it mean that it is the solution each time the banks play with fire?  Throw tax payer money at the issue.  I know it's better than the alternative but it feels like we will always be at the short end of the stick. 

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #67 on: July 24, 2016, 03:19:38 PM »
Also a shocking reminder that not a single person got in trouble for it and we the taxpayers bailed out the banks.  Haven't seen the return on that money yet, have you? hahaha

I sure did see the return--our economy not crashing into a great depression lasting to this day. 

Now that's not to say I don't think the bankers should be held responsible, I do.  Many of them should be in jail.

But to say we haven't seen a return on that money implies that we shouldn't have done the bailout, but we should have, and we have seen a return, IMO.  :)

I agree with you that it turned around the economy and saved us from falling off the cliff.  I do think that we may not realize or appreciate how close we came to being far worse off. 

Does it mean that it is the solution each time the banks play with fire?  Throw tax payer money at the issue.  I know it's better than the alternative but it feels like we will always be at the short end of the stick. 

We also did get paid back all the bailout money. Plus interest. Now, the government gave really over generous terms for those cash infusions. Really, we should have charged market rates and made a lot for the taxpayers--we were taking on tremendous risk, and were the only source of such huge reserves of capital, and should have been compensated for both of these factors.

I agree that our policy is lacking. Now the "too big to fail" banks are even bigger than they were before the crash.

wildbeast

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #68 on: August 10, 2016, 11:55:59 AM »
Just watched this last weekend and dh and I both really liked it.  Afterwards when you realize just how screwed up everything is, you do feel kinda depressed.  But we found the movie funny and interesting. 

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #69 on: August 30, 2016, 12:43:50 PM »
My brother chose this book for me as a Christmas gift shortly after it came out, and although I hadn't even heard of it, I quite enjoyed it.  It does a better job of explaining the details of the crisis.

I watched the movie on Netflix with my husband a couple of weekends ago (his pick) and quite enjoyed it too!  I was surprised by Steve Carrell's acting... no "Anchorman" here!  If all you've seen him in is dumb comedy, this was a refreshing change.

MasterStache

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #70 on: August 31, 2016, 11:07:49 AM »
I saw this movie and really liked it.

One thing I find very ironic is that I STILL see folks claiming that the downfall of our economic system is/was/will be the result of immigrants and poor people.

yuka

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #71 on: August 31, 2016, 12:05:07 PM »
I'll join in rezzing this thread. I like the movie a lot. I always get excited to watch it (now 3 or 4 times), and by the end of the movie I'm furious. It also gave me a newfound fascination with visiting half-finished developments; I actually tried to rent a condo in one.

Favorite line (when they're in FL):
Carrel: I don't get it, why are they confessing to us?
(Some other character): They aren't. They're bragging.

Also, the stripper with five houses.

Proud Foot

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #72 on: August 31, 2016, 12:26:57 PM »
Watched this the other night.  I found it very interesting and thought it was good how they explained the things in a way most would understand.  The thing I learned from it was how the S&P and Moody's played a role in how they rated the issues.

Jrr85

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #73 on: August 31, 2016, 12:36:13 PM »
Am I the only one who didn't care for it?

Quite dull. Nothing new, if you weren't under a rock the last few years.

So many good actors (normally really like Brad Pitt, Steve Carroll, and Christian Bale), and yet it was so bad.  Slow paced, not funny, stiff acting, very little plot.

Should have gone with my instincts halfway though and turned it off.

I'm shocked reading this thread. Apparently a lot of you really liked it.  Wow.

I am with you.  I thought it was pretty awful.  It did some good stuff regarding making relatively dry subjects entertaining, but I would be seriously surprised if most people got even a rudimentary understanding of what happened.  If I didn't already have a good idea, I think the explanations would have been too simplifying to be enlightening. 

The characters were also awful.  I don't think it was the acting as much as the writing did a terrible job converting the real life characters from teh book to big screen characters. 

I also thought the portion of the book with the old lady from Moody's was ridiculously ham handed.  They couldn't get the conflict of interest across without having the Moody's person literally admit cooking the ratings in order to keep business?   

clarkfan1979

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #74 on: August 31, 2016, 01:20:10 PM »
I liked the movie more than marginal call. I love the plot because they are betting against everyone else. I live my life in a similar fashion.

I didn't see the crash coming, but I knew what to do when it hit. I bought one house at the bottom of the market in a college town in Colorado in 2007. The neighborhood didn't tank very much because it so close to a large university. However, I still bought at the bottom. I also bought at the bottom in Florida in 2012. I had the house under contract in 2011, but due to 3 months of delays in closing, we finally closed in Jan 2012.

I basically bought when everyone else was telling me not to do it. There was alot of fear in the housing market when I bought, which provided low prices. It's a little frustrating because some of my friends and family now think it was common sense when I bought. They say, "Of course it was going to go back up." However, some of them specifically told me not to do it when I did.

If I bought in 2007 in Florida that would have been a really bad time because prices were still high. If I bought in the Colorado neighborhood in 2012, the neighborhood already recovered and it would have been really expensive. When prices are high that is when everyone is asking me if I'm going to buy another rental. I'm like, "No way, it's way too expensive." They usually look at me like was a confused look on their face and then we talk about something else.

LMBB

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #75 on: September 14, 2016, 09:45:08 PM »
I loved this movie. (Full disclosure, I am a health services researcher and novice health economist)

For others that liked it too, I would highly recommend the book "Misbehaving", by Richard Thaler. He is a behavioral economist that made a cameo appearance in The Big Short explaining the various economic concepts covered in the movie.

Traditional economic principles assume that people make rational decisions and are constantly optimizing. In reality, we don't (I found this concept pretty obvious, but apparently not to traditional academic economists). Misbehaving is the story of Richard Thaler's career, beginning as a graduate student and noting all the areas where people behave exactly the opposite of how economic theory would predict them to behave. He later worked with Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman (Of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" fame) on how human decision making impacts financial decisions. This book is the story of how behavioral economics went from a rogue academic field to a prominent area of inquiry. Dr. Thaler has consulted with NFL teams, financial firms, and both the US and UK governments over the years.

I thought the book was so fascinating and provided a lot of insight into why people make flawed financial decisions. It even touches very briefly on the tech and housing bubble bursts, but it's more of an aside than the central theme of the book.

Seems like something that might interest the folks on this blog. I listened to the audiobook because multitasking!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26530355

joninnyc

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #76 on: September 20, 2016, 10:09:27 PM »
This is an extremely complicated topic, and as someone earlier mentioned, it's Hollywood. What you see in the movie (and in the book, even) are not the whole or even real story. You're getting a fun version to hook you in both the book and movie. If you've already taken the time to watch the movie and are interested in actually understanding what happened, a good place to start is this article from the excellent Naked Capitalism: Debunking the Big Short

clarkfan1979

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #77 on: September 21, 2016, 01:38:11 AM »
I loved this movie. (Full disclosure, I am a health services researcher and novice health economist)

For others that liked it too, I would highly recommend the book "Misbehaving", by Richard Thaler. He is a behavioral economist that made a cameo appearance in The Big Short explaining the various economic concepts covered in the movie.

Traditional economic principles assume that people make rational decisions and are constantly optimizing. In reality, we don't (I found this concept pretty obvious, but apparently not to traditional academic economists). Misbehaving is the story of Richard Thaler's career, beginning as a graduate student and noting all the areas where people behave exactly the opposite of how economic theory would predict them to behave. He later worked with Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman (Of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" fame) on how human decision making impacts financial decisions. This book is the story of how behavioral economics went from a rogue academic field to a prominent area of inquiry. Dr. Thaler has consulted with NFL teams, financial firms, and both the US and UK governments over the years.

I thought the book was so fascinating and provided a lot of insight into why people make flawed financial decisions. It even touches very briefly on the tech and housing bubble bursts, but it's more of an aside than the central theme of the book.

Seems like something that might interest the folks on this blog. I listened to the audiobook because multitasking!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26530355

I know the movie is for entertainment purposes. However, if you are familiar with behavioral economics, the movie is very entertaining.

infogoon

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #78 on: September 21, 2016, 08:52:50 AM »
I remember reading that Thaler was hired by the Redskins to train their scouting department and draft team in optimal methods for handling the draft. They spent weeks training them, and then when the draft rolled around the training was basically ignored in favor of "gut feelings" and other traditional nonsense.

GuitarStv

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #79 on: September 21, 2016, 11:12:38 AM »
I remember reading that Thaler was hired by the Redskins to train their scouting department and draft team in optimal methods for handling the draft. They spent weeks training them, and then when the draft rolled around the training was basically ignored in favor of "gut feelings" and other traditional nonsense.

See Also: Moneyball

LMBB

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #80 on: September 22, 2016, 01:25:52 AM »
I remember reading that Thaler was hired by the Redskins to train their scouting department and draft team in optimal methods for handling the draft. They spent weeks training them, and then when the draft rolled around the training was basically ignored in favor of "gut feelings" and other traditional nonsense.

Yep, that's covered in Misbehaving. He provides an interesting analysis of the value of trading picks and how well "high cost" players perform relative to the opportunity costs. He's done a lot of really cool stuff.

Of course, as a health services researcher studying antibiotic selection and physician decision making, Nudge is more directly relevant to my work but I still couldn't put Misbehaving down. I kept thinking about the terrible decisions people make with their money (myself included, more so in my pre-mustache days) and his work helps partially explain some of those decisions. His writing style is engaging and funny. He calls behavioral economics "the un-dismal science" and I have to agree. Fascinating stuff.


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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #81 on: September 30, 2016, 03:40:23 AM »
Looks like margin call is DVD only. I wish it were streaming. BTW The Big Short was great imo.

Ah, guess that must be the difference between Netflix Canada and Netflix USA.   

By the by, did they increase the monthly price in the US as well ?   Our grandathered 7.99/mo. was increased to 9.99/mo effective July.

Margin Call is on Netflix streaming everywhere if you feel like paying a few extra bucks a month for a VPN: http://unogs.com/video/?v=70167125

I saw Too Big to Fail, which was ok. If you watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqf97p1Rdm0 then you've basically seen Too Big to Fail.

If you're into 2008 Crash movies: http://fortune.com/2015/12/27/big-short-wall-street-movies/

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #82 on: September 30, 2016, 06:51:30 AM »
Just watched The Big Short last night. Excellent movie. Also extremely depressing. I can't help but wonder if we're erecting another house of cards from the rubble.

erutio

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #83 on: September 30, 2016, 11:05:55 AM »
Just watched The Big Short last night. Excellent movie. Also extremely depressing. I can't help but wonder if we're erecting another house of cards from the rubble.
SPOILER ALERT:  (Do I even need to put this on a movie based on real life events...?)

Lol I also watched it last night on Netflix with DW.  I had to pause the movies several times to further explain some financial terms to her, but she found the movie entertaining.  Knowing that it's based on a non-fiction event, it is still a movie for the purpose of entertainment, and I loved it.

Definitely some mustachian characteristics in Brad Pitt's character (the seeds, the ER, family), but also a little too tin-foily. 
I thought it was very interesting that instead of showing a big celebration and payoff for the 3 firms in the end, the filmmakers shows the viewers how each firm was struggling with their own morals of profiting off the fraud, mistakes, and job/homes loses of millions of others.   Whether this happen irl or not, I thought the juxtaposition was very effective storytelling. 
Especially poignant was Brad Pitt tempering the excitement of his proteges and explaining that real lives were being adversely affected by the turn of events in the market. 

I understand that is it a highly dramatized version of the events, but it entertained DW and myself for 2 hrs, and it gave us a little food for thought, which is all I look for in a Hollywood movie anyways. 

Both DW and I graduated in 2008, and landed our first real grown-up jobs in summer/fall of that year, so we were too young and had too little money to have been affected by it.  In fact, we have basically only lived through a bull market in our adult working lives, going on 7 years.   A movie like this is hugely entertaining to me because I never experienced it firsthand, and wonder how we would truly react if another downturn came. 
Thinking about it, we were lucky that our life stages just happened to market-time for us.  I didn't start contributing to my 401k until around Jan 09, and I think I did it at first just for the company match.  And houses were more reasonable and mortages low when we were ready to buy a few years down the line.

bacchi

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #84 on: September 30, 2016, 10:06:14 PM »
I liked the Mortgage Professor's take on the film. Basically, his view is that the bankers were all doing what the government signaled for them to do.

Eh, most of the subprime loans were not made under the mandate of the CRA.

yoop

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #85 on: December 26, 2016, 10:01:03 AM »
ONE guy picked up on what was happening very early - christian bale's character. He released a news letter for his investors. one of the news letters got out to other people. christian bale's character has Aspergers, so he has the patience to pour over stock market and investment information. he realizes that adjustable rate mortgages made to people with horrible credit are getting up sold as better quality than what they are. he makes up a bet against these bonds. his leaked news letter gets to a guy that also starts making bets on these mortgage bonds failing. which gets a few other people curious. then a market opens for these bets and it goes as well as the mortgage bonds with people falsifying these too. the only ones who make money, it seems, are the ones who were in early and just stayed with their original bets against the bonds, christian bale, steve carroll's group and the guy with the cards falling over. the banks all got bail outs so are right back to doing what they did before.

i read the book and can't remember the names of the people. i watched the movie and loved it.

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #86 on: December 26, 2016, 07:50:39 PM »
I only wish the movie had a sequel that addressed the fallout, there is so much good, bizarre stuff still to unpack.  This YouTube clip, for instance, where congress tries to figure out if a $700B blank cheque to Wall Street is really a good idea.  At first they were unified on 'of course not', but eventually it got a redo and passed!

This will probably happen over and over again in our lifetime, so it's good to try to learn more about.  Surprisingly few people recall any of the details, and the details happen to affect any and every working and retired person that depend on banks, government infrastructure, and investment banks (which is now everybody).  I personally just sit back and laugh at our species, being the 'most intelligent living organism on the plant', that we've created our own trap.  Disease couldn't wipe us out (bacteria, virus), nuclear war was a possible threat, climate change still might come to pass if we limp that far - but simple compounding social disorder could unwind all of the 'invisible hands' that brought our species to this happy era we have enjoyed presently. 


yuka

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #87 on: January 30, 2017, 02:40:51 PM »
I only wish the movie had a sequel that addressed the fallout, there is so much good, bizarre stuff still to unpack.  This YouTube clip, for instance, where congress tries to figure out if a $700B blank cheque to Wall Street is really a good idea.  At first they were unified on 'of course not', but eventually it got a redo and passed!

This will probably happen over and over again in our lifetime, so it's good to try to learn more about.  Surprisingly few people recall any of the details, and the details happen to affect any and every working and retired person that depend on banks, government infrastructure, and investment banks (which is now everybody).  I personally just sit back and laugh at our species, being the 'most intelligent living organism on the plant', that we've created our own trap.  Disease couldn't wipe us out (bacteria, virus), nuclear war was a possible threat, climate change still might come to pass if we limp that far - but simple compounding social disorder could unwind all of the 'invisible hands' that brought our species to this happy era we have enjoyed presently.

First of all, I'd like to contest the idea that the $700B spent actually mattered. Or alternatively, that it was only $700B. In reality, they spent $700B, but sent a ~$23trillion promise to Wall Street. It certainly wasn't the first time (Mexico, 1993 comes to mind.)

To agree with you on the second point, it certainly will:  http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/governments-fannie-mae-will-back-pe-giant-blackstones-rental-business-debt.html


marty998

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #88 on: January 31, 2017, 04:47:45 AM »
Saw the movie last weekend. Enjoyed it, and not just because of Margot Robbie in a bubble bath :D

Agree with earlier posters that hollywood usually makes a hash of financial films - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is a hatchet job for example.

This one was pretty good, and even taught me a couple of things that I didn't know about.

loraine

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Re: The Big Short movie
« Reply #89 on: February 16, 2017, 09:41:55 PM »
There are a lot of positive feedbacks about the movie in this thread. I have not seen it yet, but I will pretty soon.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!