Charles Ferguson INSIDE JOB
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- JSK0
Flow of capital:
- High risk consumer wants mortgage because the housing prices will forever go up.
- Banks do not have money to lend as due to capital reserve requirement so they sell the loan to an investment banks
- Investment banks package this up as a financial instruments which can be leveraged and measured on it performance
- Investment banks sell these to investors including other banks, consumers, governments, everyone else who wants high return thinking that housing will forever go up.
- Other banks, consumers, investors, and governments want even higher risk to invest to get higher return thinking that housing will never go down.
- Investment banks, due to the demand, creates another product which is a derivative of the original product which has a leverage of 10x or 100x and sell it to the people who demand it.
- Investment banks buy insurance on these investments just in case they fail to protect themselves and their investors.
- Insurance companies (i.e. AIG) sell these contracts to banks but also makes a derivative product with the same contract on how well it will perform.
- Companies like IBM, GE, banks etc sell their bonds and CDO to maintain cash flow and make money which is also leveraged which get sold to consumers, banks and investors.
- Through these profit and credit, they are able to hire people.The economy grind to a halt because all of these things are based on loans, credit and ability to lend money based on trust between institutions. Through out the capital movement and when loans are made, they are obligated to provide a collateral. What everyone provided as their collateral were these derivative products. Everyone had them including government, investors, consumers (form of contracts or mortgage holdings), when these became worthless, they were worthless and could not be used as a collateral.
When you buy a $500,000 house and mortgage $500,000, your financial worth is $-400,000 (based on average 30yr fixed rate mortgage) but everyone thought that they had $500,000 or more. Consumers leverage this to buy more stuff, rack up credit cards etc. Banks sell these debt to investors because they yield high returns.
No bank will make a product that will not sell. They see demand for high yielding investments and they sell it.
- JSK0
Richard Wolff = Marxist.
He believes that every aspect of the economy should be controlled. In turn, there is no free enterprise. The market is controlled by the labour and by it self hence reducing market forces ability to maintain balance.
What Iceland's bankers did was based on what the consumers demanded: municipal governments wants more money using tax dollars, rising housing price cause people to get more mortgages, government needing money for structural improvements, etc etc. The money does not come from thin air. When there is demand, the banks provide. No banks lends money. They simply package it sell it off and make money off fees.
Bankers take leveraged loan based on what is needed. This is common aspect of using derivative as a financial instrument. Farmers use this to off set the cost of production through futures options hence making a derivative product. Forecast of price in future which predetermined.
No body in Iceland including government, mortgage holders, banks did not bother to look at that when investing in these to make money or get money to loan, that you could lose 10x if the market went sour. They believe that good times will last forever. Bank is a facilitator and complicit in the market down turn but hardly the sole blame.
- utopian0
God Bless American Greed & Ignorance!
- registe0
Look into the works of Professor Richard Wolff. You will find that the consumer is not to blame. Also watch The Light Bulb Conspiracy; Pyramids of Waste. You'll see the system is set up against the consumer, and is obviously manipulated.
- Amicus0
The big boys were all gambling, with a 99.9% certainty that if they lost the companies would be bailed out and they could walk away with fucking huge bonuses.
The real problem is that sub-prime mortgages were allowed, because gambling on sub-prime mortgages was a massive house of cards. With a lottery the more tickets you buy the greater the chance of winning. With this house of cards, though, every extra card (mortgage) brought the whole pile closer to collapse.
Lack of regulation in the financial markets is like decriminalising theft and leaving it all up to people's good will. You know sooner rather than later everyone is going to be putting their hands in every cookie jar and honeypot in town.
- JSK0
nb
you are looking at from very simplistic perspective.
the system was not destined to fail but it was based ideological pursuit. the truth of matter is that there is no real system. if there was system, they could stop the bleed and failure.
the path toward deregulation has been going on since the regan era. this ideological pursuit was purely based on market regulating themselves.
we have all enjoyed the wealth riches on the 90s and 2000 until now. same cog has been turning over and over. no one complains.
to call bank and its product fraud is based on perspective.
everyone buys in to the notion that banks are evil but they are no more evil than any other for profit company.
- The market does not regulate itself.nb
- ..apart from the fact they got bailed out with our money, for losing our money. Who the fuck to ? It's gone somewhere ?..mikotondria3
- pinkfloyd0
Looks interesting.
- fiver0
was great. depressing as all hell. felt hopeless.
- k_temp0
It's pretty well documented.
Overall conclusion, it's a big fucking corruption.
- mg330
We have this at home but I have not watched it yet. Maybe I'll check it out.
- JSK0
This is not as good as ones from PBS. Much more indepth.
Frontline has episodes dedicated to the financial melt down.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fr…
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fr…
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fr…
- nb0
Also, the director also happens to be the creator of FrontPage.
- nb0
Finally got around to watching this last night.
HOLY SHIT. One of the best docs I've seen. If you haven't seen this, drop everything and watch it.
And if you haven't seen his other film "No End In Sight" you should watch that, too.