Sunday, May 29, 2011

Too Big to Fail: Who are the bad guys here?

I just finished watching Too Big to Fail on HBO on demand. Had a coworker tell me it was very interesting and I should check it out. Well, I like a good movie just like the next person so I ventured into the On Demand section and watched. I have to say I was greatly confused on who the Hell were the good and bad guys.

Unless you were living under a rock, you knew this country had a severe financial meltdown. The stock market was shedding hundreds of points daily, banks were closing and folks all over the country were losing their homes. Most of us knew this was partially to blame on the banking industry. After watching this movie, I go a 40/40/20 mix. 40% is the banking industry. The major players were so arrogant and greedy they wouldn't see the writing on the wall. The movie plays that part up with the focus of Lehman Brothers failing do to the CEO not coming to terms with his banks free fall. 40% goes to the government. With Paulson letting Lehman fail and go bankrupt, he intern cause a market wide panic on any financial stocks. There are several scenes that depict the colossal error but none more important than Paulson giving his speech about how the government did all they could to save the bank and in the real world the stock market takes a jump off the cliff to the tune of 400 points in a matter of hours. The other 20% was barely touched but that goes to the sheep like consumers. They blindly followed the banks into the housing crash. If so many people weren't hell bent on owning a home, thus crash would have likely been less catastrophic. I grew up renting apartments. My mother never had the income to purchase a home. My generation was brainwashed into believing renting is wrong and shows you are poor. The banks took advantage of that mentally and exploited it.

Did this movie break any ground, no. Does it leave some questions on the table, yes. Will we ever know the real story on how this happened, nope. The question I don't have an answer for is did we learn anything? The market as of Friday was over 12,000 and seems to be doing better but why? Housing is still in the toilet and jobs are still pretty scarce. I'm sure we will be seeing a run on something soon showing why it is so high and how we should prepare for it if it collapses. Let's hope everyone is listening this time.

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