Inside Job

Inside Job is an enthralling documentary about how the reckless actions of Wall Street lead to the near collapse of the financial sector and subsequently the deepest recession since the 1930s. This is the second film by director Charles Ferguson, the first being No End in Sight an equally engaging indictment of the Bush Administration's handling of the occupation of Iraq.

Ferguson focuses on the Wall Street culture and the blatant arrogance of a half dozen men as the main causes of the financial turmoil. Inside Job begins in Iceland where the deregulation of the financial system in the 1990s lead to three banks accumulating assets almost ten times the small country's gross domestic product.

It becomes clear by the midpoint of the film that Iceland is a micro example of what has become a global problem. Runaway banks have been accumulating assets through toxic loans and other manoeuvres while paying themselves lavish bonuses.

Inside Job is easily one of the most frustrating documentaries ever made. And that is undoubtedly Ferguson's intention. The film is critical of Wall Street executives, credit agencies and especially regulatory agencies for the crisis.

Inside Job includes interviews from IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, congressmen Barney Frank, former New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer and many others. Ferguson traces the evolution of the banks from a small, largely local service to an out of control industry. He does not hold back criticizing every administration since Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Ferguson argues that despite what most people think, there were many people warning of an impending crisis in global financial markets. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Timothy Geithner ignored various signs of impending doom. Not to mention former treasury secretary and incidentally former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson.

Inside Job makes the argument that the federal regulators are as responsible for the breakdown of the system as are the executives of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. More frustrating still is the revolving door between Wall Street and government agencies.

As the banks became more deregulated, the more speculation became a problem. Derivatives, and credit default swaps, complicated trading schemes that most people do not understand is what caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers sending shockwaves through financial centres all over the world.

Credit agencies like Moody's and Standard and Poor gave firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman brothers, and Morgan Stanley A grade credit ratings within weeks before they nearly collapsed. And also having one of their executives standing up in front of a congressional committee and telling congressmen that their ratings are just merely 'opinion'.

It becomes clear that this is not a problem that emerged from the housing boom early in president George W. Bush's second term. Rather this was a systematic breakdown driven by a neoliberal ideology supported by Ivey league economic schools across the United States.

Inside Job is simply a story of bankers more interested in collecting bonuses and making more money than providing what should be an essential service. What makes it even more frustrating is that many of the key figures behind the crisis are currently on Barak Obama's staff. The film leaves us with a bitter pill to swallow.

As Ferguson notes, Wall Street has returned to normal with no federal prosecutions against any of the guilty. And one of the most poignant scenes in the film comes from Robert Gnaizda, the former head of the Greenlining Institute, a consumer lobbyist group who laughingly dismisses recent legislation to regulate banks with a simple 'Hah'.

Inside Job helps explain many of the complex terms such as derivatives and insurance backed securities that confuse those not immersed in the banking community. It is essential viewing for any citizen concerned about our broken system.

"If a bank forecloses on you, don't move and demand they produce a copy of your mortgage. In many cases, they can't." Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)

In the course of the angry and benignly biased documentary, Inside Job, Marcy Kaptur predicts what is happening right now: Banks are being forced to halt foreclosures because of faulty paperwork. But such mistakes are only a symptom Charles Ferguson reveals of the 2008 world-wide financial crisis, which involves high-ranking government officials like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner increasing their power while the policies they make cause certain harm to the people like us who have trusted them.

Like Fergusin's No End in Sight about the Iraq War, but more interesting and dramatic, Inside Job lays out logically the participation also of George Bush and Barack Obama in the global meltdown. Dispiriting are the derivative dispersal and shameful sub-prime lending that directly led to the breakdown of middle-class wealth while the purveyors of this massacre walked away with billions and no indictments. The Ponzi schemes of Kenneth Lay, Bernie Madoff, and their ilk are but small components of the charade that drew millions of hard-working, well-meaning citizens into debt and financial ruin as the value of their most cherished retirement vehicle, home value, dissipated right in front of their eyes.

Ferguson's documentary style is to remain behind the camera while letting the notables indict themselves. Unlike Michael Moore, he cares not to intrude or make a character of himself, something like Citizen Kane's reporter Thompson. Except when in a moment of profound pique he challenges the disaffection of Frederic Mishkin, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors: "I'm sorry, I'm sure that your textbook is important and widely read, but didn't you think that more important things were going on in the world?"

Unlike the recent screed of Davis Guggenheim against organized education in Waiting for Superman, in which teachers' unions could do no right and charter schools no wrong, Ferguson seems more honest in presenting only the facts. As I demanded of him to present the other side of the financial crisis, I couldn't think of what he could say to counter the welter of facts indicting those in front of his camera.

One of the most telling moments is that of Bush's Chief Economic Adviser, Glenn Hubbard: "You have three more minutes. Give it your best shot!" That arrogance informs the documentary and our grim lives for the foreseeable future.

There is no possible way that all of the contributors to the financial meltdown can get adequate attention in a two-hour documentary. There were many factors involved, and some get short shrift in the film to focus on what would be easily comprehensible by most viewers, and, one can safely assume, to fit the biases of the producers, director, writers, etc. It's their movie, after all, and no documentary can avoid the bias trap. None that I have seen anyway.

Think of the film as a departure point. If one is really interested, they will dig deeper into the question through other documentaries and books on the subject. There will be plenty in the years ahead. More evidence will come to light, and more questions will be answered.

Let it be said that this film will make you angry. It will also make you a more informed individual and a better citizen.

It is not easy to get through two hours of discussion on why the financial meltdown occurred, but this film is probably the most painless way to do it. and it did it very well.

Charles Ferguson also directed the very good "No End In Sight" about the failures of the Bush administration with regard to Iraq and on how poorly thought-through their ideas were on that topic. His focus in this movie is also on the failure of power to prepare for what many could see was a nightmare in the making. Ferguson in this film traces the failure, and in many cases, the unwillingness of government, academic, and financial elites to make policy which ensures financial health for all. Ferguson made a lot of money as an Internet entrepreneur and can now make the film the way he wants, and it's caught on by word of mouth, by virtue of a little man named Oscar, and probably by the zeitgeist.

Ferguson tracks some of the key decisions which greased the rails for the meltdown-from the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which destroyed the division between investment and savings banks, to the destruction of the reputation of Brooksley Born who had desired to put derivatives under the regulation of the CFTC of which she was the head, to the laissez-faire attitude of Alan Greenspan during his tenure as Fed chief. He interviews academics whose imprimatur and intellectual reputation were made available at a price. Ferguson also notes the popularity of cocaine and prostitutes on Wall Street at the time of this boom.

Ferguson interviews some of the key movers and shakers. If they're unwilling to be interviewed for the film, a message saying that that person declined to be interviewed appears on the screen. This is nearly more damning than if they do participate as it suggests they have something to hide. Ferguson doesn't suffer fools lightly and if he feels that an interviewee is not being straight with him, he is not shy about noting this. This is to our benefit as viewers and ensures that we see who is responsible for what. The movie is paced well, Ferguson is an intelligent, detail-oriented director and Matt Damon narrates the film quite ably.

If you don't know what derivatives are, this is a good film to fill you in, in a substantive and adequate way, on all the key points you need to know in order to understand the crisis. If you have followed the economics news closely, this is an excellent summary of the crisis. This really should be required viewing for all in the US.

Inside Job belongs to a genre of new documentaries, like The Cove, Dear Zachary and Bowling For Columbine, that are not only made to document the background of a phenomenon but also to encourage people to do something about it. Dividing itself into five sections of a 'report', the film looks at the background and effect of the recession and its effect on politics, the world, society, the economy, public welfare, education, the present and the near and distant future.

Inside Job is undeniably motivational and does well to extract the hypocrisies and selfishness of the main perpetrators and other persons linked with the crisis. Indside Job depicts the global financial from only one perspective and does not give due weighting to the alternate point of view. Of course, it does not help that the main protagonists involved in the entire affair are obviously missing from this documentary, a fact that is rubbed on to the audience time and again.

On the flip side, economics, being a head scratcher for several budding commerce students by nature, the spoken narrative of figures and key personnel could perhaps have been better explained with a clearer use of graphics. However since the film makers are not lecturers it would be too much to expect them to be aware of the concepts of pedagogy.

Well crafted and edited, Inside Job is a good introduction to the cause and effect of the financial crisis, it falls just short of being the definitive version. It is a good watch nevertheless and provides sufficient food for thought and plenty of opportunity for future cocktail party discussion.