BBC2 now - Inside Job.

[johnfm]

Just the intro on the Iceland fiasco is an eye opener....

• reaches for popcorn and awaits crankedup.....

..and Soovy....

[johnfm]

Really really amusing - especially the rating agencies.

Really nobody is covered in anything other than something a bit smelly.

Virtually no defence for most, probably all, of the players involved really.

[Smiler.]

It beggars belief.

But wait, it's all just jealousy, surely?

[deltaevo16]

A looter throws somthing through a window and gets a year in prison
A banker defrauds millions and keeps his bonus, and ends up in a similar postion of power.

The rich protect the rich.

A fine attempt to explain the madness that was the credit bubble.
It was nice to see a few squirming faces.

[Randy Winkman]

Smiler. said:

It beggars belief.

But wait, it's all just jealousy, surely?

Yes - I'm waiting for the apologists to come along and tell us how wide of the mark it was.

[johnfm]

Wow

Where to start.

So many players covers in st.

The heads of the banks

The rating agencies

The academics being paid

the government advisors resisiting regulation of derivatives

And then Obama appoints have of the guys who fked it up in his administration.


You really could not make it up.


And the snippets of the guy who quit when he discovered the dodgy accounting - and the hounding out of Spitzer for a bit of shagging - yet not a single prosecution on Wall street??

But, it is all understandable - greed is a very primal and motivatiing instinct.

Just a surprise that regulators, when adviced to regulate chose not to.

Or as Soovy might say

the poor people should have read the small print...

[planetsurfer]

two statements

The law is to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.

The law is written by criminals on behalf of criminals and enforced by criminals

simples

[johnfm]

planetsurfer said:

two statements

The law is to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.

The law is written by criminals on behalf of criminals and enforced by criminals

simples

I don't really buy into that.

I do think that a group of very powerful people successfully lobbied to increase the amount of leverage they could use, could resist derivative regulation (taking out CDSs on products you have no other interest in is just ripe for failure) and basically ignore regulation that did exist and coul djust buy off the regulators and academics and govt advisors by giving them very very high paying jobs.

The conflict of interest moments with the academics was sweet - these guys just couldn't bring themselves to say " yeah, in hindsight we lost impartiality due to fees.."

[Northern Munkee]

Boom. And we are living with the after effects, right now. This connects directly into the austerity we are suffering.

Everyone should be made to watch it.

[Bing o]

I watched this a while back (in business class on SIA ironically) expecting to find it full of holes and innacuracies.

Sadly it's not, and paints Wall Street and the White House in a very bad light.

[WhoseGeneration]

Bing o said:

Sadly it's not, and paints Wall Street and the White House in a very bad light.

Are they not, in truth, the same?
I'm old enough to have thought that JFK might have broken that link. Alas, we were denied that.

[Bing o]

WhoseGeneration said:

Bing o said:

Sadly it's not, and paints Wall Street and the White House in a very bad light.

Are they not, in truth, the same?
I'm old enough to have thought that JFK might have broken that link. Alas, we were denied that.

Politicians and bankers are very similar. You don't get to head up a country or a very large IB through anything other than playing hardball politics and over-riding self interest. Our CEO regularly meets world leaders, and I doubt it's for tea and crumpets (or bratwurst in his case).

[manic47]

That was eye-opening to say the least....

The failure of almost everyone on it to accept any responsibility whatsoever was astounding.

[Digga]

Northern Munkee said:

Boom. And we are living with the after effects, right now. This connects directly into the austerity we are suffering.

Everyone should be made to watch it.

I agreee.

F**k! I am actually a bit shocked after that and what is most shocking is that I don't know why because a lot of it I already knew.

The mendacity of people like Fuld is well documented, I've read Renhardt & Roghoff's ideas in depth, I knew Iceland was an accident waiting to happen viz GDP/banking ratios etc. etc., but it was the background and detail this piece provided that somehow managed to fill me with a sense of discomfort. As others here said, that the academics were so blatantly for hire is damning in the extreme, both individually and for their respective schools, and the breadth and depth of infiltration into government and politics of ex-bank people is clearly a hazard.

Whilst this will do nothing to sway the opinions of the mindless bank-bashers, it will at least broaden their horizons as to the wider responsibilities for the crisis. The corruption and the wealth gap created is a scandal and I have no doubt there could and should have been more prosecutions were the system itself not so bent.

Criticism of the show? Well Clinton got away scot free though - a bit of a pisser considering his fundamental part in the instigation of sub-prime mortgages - and the broader detail of the way money suddenly over-flowed from the US to the UK and Eu was glossed too quickly perhaps for those who are unfamiliar.

[Mr XXXX]

I enjoyed it.

Preferred Too Big To Fail though...

[Randy Winkman]

Digga said:

Criticism of the show? Well Clinton got away scot free though - a bit of a pisser considering his fundamental part in the instigation of sub-prime mortgages - and the broader detail of the way money suddenly over-flowed from the US to the UK and Eu was glossed too quickly perhaps for those who are unfamiliar.

Wasn't he mentioned and shown a few times?

The sums of money some people took away were absolutely eye watering.

This will lead to us all walking around in matching grey overalls under communist governments in 50-100 years time. The problem seems to be that there are plenty of people who have absolutely no problem with exploiting a system if it makes them rich - no matter how much it screws up the rest of us. They're just like the scroungers at the bottom - but with brains.

[anonymous-user]

Icelandic regulator turns up at the bank and faces fourteen lawyers representing the bank ready to counter his every argument. If the regulator did really well, he get's offered a job.

[Digga]

Randy Winkman said:

Wasn't he mentioned and shown a few times?

I own up to perhaps having briefly nodded off a couple of times between 2145 and 2200hrs.

I wish I knew why the show has caused me such consternation. I feel a bit gullible for letting it alter my opinion, on facts that on the most part I already had knowledge, but cannot deny that it's left me with a nagging sense of anxiety - like I subconsciously know I've thrown the baby out with the bath water but haven't recognised it.

I think it is perhaps that the systemic collusion, the web that links bankers, politicians, academics, ratings agencies, is perhaps stronger than I ever imagined. The regulators need wider scope and bigger teeth to tackle thse obvious conflicts of interest.

[Derek Smith]

I must admit that I was expecting a whitewash thread here, suggesting that it was all smoke and mirrors and that we should be thanking the bankers and those acting in unison for their industry.

Nice to have a prejudice proved wrong.

I always assumed I was a bit cycnical and people and things weren't as bad as I thought. I've been proved wrong again.

The programme was astounding.

I missed the beginning. The programme doesn't appear to be on iPlayer yet Eastenders is.

[Northern Munkee]

Digga said:

I agreee.

F**k! I am actually a bit shocked after that and what is most shocking is that I don't know why because a lot of it I already knew.

The mendacity of people like Fuld is well documented, I've read Renhardt & Roghoff's ideas in depth, I knew Iceland was an accident waiting to happen viz GDP/banking ratios etc. etc., but it was the background and detail this piece provided that somehow managed to fill me with a sense of discomfort. As others here said, that the academics were so blatantly for hire is damning in the extreme, both individually and for their respective schools, and the breadth and depth of infiltration into government and politics of ex-bank people is clearly a hazard.

Whilst this will do nothing to sway the opinions of the mindless bank-bashers, it will at least broaden their horizons as to the wider responsibilities for the crisis. The corruption and the wealth gap created is a scandal and I have no doubt there could and should have been more prosecutions were the system itself not so bent.

Criticism of the show? Well Clinton got away scot free though - a bit of a pisser considering his fundamental part in the instigation of sub-prime mortgages - and the broader detail of the way money suddenly over-flowed from the US to the UK and Eu was glossed too quickly perhaps for those who are unfamiliar.

Agreed. I knew most of the information, but it joined all the dots, in a compelling, and understable way (except I still struggle how 50 other people can insure something to cash in on failure that they don't own, including the people that bundled it up and sold it as AAA. If they were a footballer caught in a betting ring betting on his team to lose, he'd go to jail, here they join the government and is put in charge, to nationalise the debt and prevent regulation...