• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Big Short

Political forum. People here are geared towards politicizing. I must say, I'm now curious to hear a conservative's input on the movie to see if they saw politicization in the movie. I do know Fenton will hate it if he sees it because he's convinced it was all the government's fault and the banks did almost nothing wrong. But I don't believe even most conservatives think like him on this topic.


I will give it a view later today. I have never seen the melt down in a political sense, as every president since Carter at least left all the issues in place or softened the law more.

Without having seen it I suspect it will reveal that a simple thing called greed was involved, by both the lenders and the borrowers. Greed led the lenders in their demands to ease restrictions and greed led the buyers who could not afford the homes they bought
 
The film was released in 2015 which is not an election year. If it was intended as propaganda they would have released it after the candidates had been chosen.

I know the US is a totally divided but not everything is propaganda....especially when you haven't even seen it

And in the very next post, you admit you haven't seen it either! Hard to believe. Next time avoid posting childlike nonsense by having a basis for your comments.
 
I didn't build this thread in the General politics forum and you want to politicize it. If you don't want to see the movie... don't see it. No need to come in here and preach to everyone about a topic you don't know much about... And that topic is about these guys' perspective of the meltdown.

Dude...dial it down a bit, eh?

1. I'm not preaching about anything.

2. I just asked a question.

3. You said the movie just presented facts. I'd like to know if the movie presented ALL the facts.

Calm down and untwist your panties...okay?
 
I will give it a view later today. I have never seen the melt down in a political sense, as every president since Carter at least left all the issues in place or softened the law more.

Without having seen it I suspect it will reveal that a simple thing called greed was involved, by both the lenders and the borrowers. Greed led the lenders in their demands to ease restrictions and greed led the buyers who could not afford the homes they bought

I think you'll like it if for anything just how the movie was put together. It has a comedic styling but not a comedy if you can lend me that latitude to say it that way.
 
I think you'll like it if for anything just how the movie was put together. It has a comedic styling but not a comedy if you can lend me that latitude to say it that way.

Seen enough to know that it's Hollywood. Whenever I hear "based on a true story" I become immediately skeptical.

To the film, though. It seems it cannotg decide whether to be a drama, a comedy or a mocumentary, and it fails at all three. I loved the scene "and now here's Margot Robbie in a sudsy bathtub to explain it to you" as if any male could maintain 100% attention.

It does clarify the terminology, we do not know where the plot veers from reality, as is the case with any "based on a true story".

If you want a really go look at what happened have a look at the unbiased documentary "Inside Job". It is the best documentary I have ever seen
 
Seen enough to know that it's Hollywood. Whenever I hear "based on a true story" I become immediately skeptical.

To the film, though. It seems it cannotg decide whether to be a drama, a comedy or a mocumentary, and it fails at all three. I loved the scene "and now here's Margot Robbie in a sudsy bathtub to explain it to you" as if any male could maintain 100% attention.

It does clarify the terminology, we do not know where the plot veers from reality, as is the case with any "based on a true story".

If you want a really go look at what happened have a look at the unbiased documentary "Inside Job". It is the best documentary I have ever seen

I liked it when he turned to the camera and said something along the lines of "Now... i just wanted to tell you that THIS really happened. As much as it seems like fiction it really happened this way."
 
What it did was clarify the banking terminology behind it. What happened I was familiar with I just didn't know how deep they went to bury the evidence to the public of the corruption. The movie was about those groups of guys who saw it early.

So while these guys invested and watched the bubble grow they didn't account for how far some would go to lie about it and hide it. These guys thought it would collapse by X time and it realistically did but the lenders, banks, rating agencies AND the government basically conspired and lied and denied to the public in a way that they couldn't get a return on their money and it was costing them big bucks each month that it was being delayed.

Then when it collapses they almost lose everything anyway because the investments were with the banks that were collapsing themselves.

I know that you want to politicize this by seeing if the movie confirms a liberal's view of the crash... its simply not about that. It just tells you what these guys saw.

You seemed fine with politicizing your thread initially. Has that changed? Not having seen the movie, I cannot say if it's a political movie or not. What made me think it was was the initial comments in this thread. I'm sure I'll see it, just not on the big screen.
 
I have been told that this movie is worth seeing for watching Selena Gomez explain collateralized debt alone.

I am going to do it.
 
I was going to say I'd heard good things about it but reading this thread so far, I'm guessing it's pretty political and I get the impression I may not like it so much. :lol:

It speaks the truth of the collapse. In a way that is easy to understand. In fact, they approach it in a very humorous way. Everyone should see this movie.
 
Ah, but look how quickly political just this thread about the movie became. My suspicion is that the movie plays right into what you already believe about who the bad guys are and who were just hapless victims and, incidentally, there's not a single thing wrong with that. Totally to each their own, like how American Sniper appealed more to conservatives. Glad you enjoyed your movie.

This movie is soooo not about right and left. It's about how big banks have ****ed us all up the ass -- in a way that is so completely absurd, it's almost surreal that indeed, it actually happened.
 
I will give it a view later today. I have never seen the melt down in a political sense, as every president since Carter at least left all the issues in place or softened the law more.

Without having seen it I suspect it will reveal that a simple thing called greed was involved, by both the lenders and the borrowers. Greed led the lenders in their demands to ease restrictions and greed led the buyers who could not afford the homes they bought

I think greed is the wrong word to use here. Gullible is more accurate, I think.
 
It speaks the truth of the collapse. In a way that is easy to understand. In fact, they approach it in a very humorous way. Everyone should see this movie.

I'll watch it at some point. I've heard enough good things about it to believe it's likely, at least, entertaining.
 
Great movie. Anyone else see this yet?

They do such a fantastic job explaining how it the meltdown occurred and cleaning up the confusion that Wall Street injected into the whole thing to hide their mischievous behavior.

Steve Carrell and Christian Bale really did awesome jobs with their parts.

What I thought was insane was Christian Bales character, Michael Burry, guy saw it coming in 2005 and started shorting the housing market then. Then when it was over he went to the government and asked if they wanted to know what he saw that early they never returned his call and instead audited him twice and had an FBI investigation of him.

I really enjoyed this book, but I'm not sure I'm willing to dish out the money or the time to go see the movie. Maybe it will be a netflix experience.
 
I think greed is the wrong word to use here. Gullible is more accurate, I think.

Vast swathes of Americans lied on our loan applications in order to get bigger houses than we could afford, because we assumed we could simply sell when our low-initial-payment adjusted, and make a nice fat profit.

That's not gullibility. That's greed.

After the 2008 crash, everyone wanted A Villain To Be Angry At. Want to know who was responsible? We were. That's a less popular answer than Them Evil Banks, or Those Darn Regulators, or Clinton Did It or Carter Did it or Bush Did It, but it has the added benefit of being more true.
 
Vast swathes of Americans lied on our loan applications in order to get bigger houses than we could afford, because we assumed we could simply sell when our low-initial-payment adjusted, and make a nice fat profit.

That's not gullibility. That's greed.

There was plenty of greed on the Banks, rating agencies, etc. side too. They were forging signatures, documents, committing fraud, lying, etc. Some of the tactics Countrywide were using were unbelievable. They would change the numbers on parts of loans and contracts after they were signed.

The fact that very few bankers, etc. went to jail pisses me off to no end.
 
There was plenty of greed on the Banks, rating agencies, etc. side too. They were forging signatures, documents, committing fraud, lying, etc. Some of the tactics Countrywide were using were unbelievable. They would change the numbers on parts of loans and contracts after they were signed.

The fact that very few bankers, etc. went to jail pisses me off to no end.
:shrug: then lets also send off the millions of Americans who equally lied on their documentation.

Boomerang, the follow-up to The Big Short, has a really excellent section where he describes the various cultural manifestations of the debt bubble. No one didn't do stupid and greedy.
 
:shrug: then lets also send off the millions of Americans who equally lied on their documentation.

Boomerang, the follow-up to The Big Short, has a really excellent section where he describes the various cultural manifestations of the debt bubble. No one didn't do stupid and greedy.

Go to a bank and forge a name on a loan. You'd be in jail faster then you can say say forgery.

Read up on what some of the Countrywide employees said they were made to do. And that was just 1 bank. They were all doing it.

I'm not even getting on the rating agencies who blindly stamped AAA on garbage packages, and they knew it was garbage. A lot of what happened may not have been possible if it was not for the rating agencies lying, cheating, and looking the other way for the almighty $.

There was plenty of blame to go around. The home owners and borrowers were also to blame, but they were down the list.
 
Go to a bank and forge a name on a loan. You'd be in jail faster then you can say say forgery.

Read up on what some of the Countrywide employees said they were made to do. And that was just 1 bank. They were all doing it.

I'm not even getting on the rating agencies who blindly stamped AAA on garbage packages, and they knew it was garbage. A lot of what happened may not have been possible if it was not for the rating agencies lying, cheating, and looking the other way for the almighty $.

There was plenty of blame to go around. The home owners and borrowers were also to blame, but they were down the list.
Fraud is fraud. American borrowers don't get off simply because American bankers did it, too. You want to imprison those responsible? We haven't the jail space.
 
Vast swathes of Americans lied on our loan applications in order to get bigger houses than we could afford, because we assumed we could simply sell when our low-initial-payment adjusted, and make a nice fat profit.

That's not gullibility. That's greed.

After the 2008 crash, everyone wanted A Villain To Be Angry At. Want to know who was responsible? We were. That's a less popular answer than Them Evil Banks, or Those Darn Regulators, or Clinton Did It or Carter Did it or Bush Did It, but it has the added benefit of being more true.

Give me a frekin break.

The homeless bum on your street corner asks to borrow $5000 so he could buy a car. You going to lend him the money?
 
:shrug: then lets also send off the millions of Americans who equally lied on their documentation.

Boomerang, the follow-up to The Big Short, has a really excellent section where he describes the various cultural manifestations of the debt bubble. No one didn't do stupid and greedy.

They were encouraged to lie. That is what you don't get.
 
Fraud is fraud. American borrowers don't get off simply because American bankers did it, too. You want to imprison those responsible? We haven't the jail space.

I said the borrowers were the blame too. But the banks started it. If the banks didn't lobby for a freer hand none of it would have been possible. Since the 70's and 80's they spent $100's millions in lobbying for that deregulation. So they got it, and they crashed the system in 2008. They, and the politicians(both GOP and Dem) who helped deregulate them deserve the largest share of blame.

Again Google Countrywide employees. It's a fascinating read. Their agents were told to go after lower income people. And NOT to check their income or job status. They then encouraged the borrower to lie, and if they didn't in some cases the Countrywide people would change/forge the contract.
 
Last edited:
Give me a frekin break.

The homeless bum on your street corner asks to borrow $5000 so he could buy a car. You going to lend him the money?

Depends. Did he walk into my office in a suit and tie, with documentation showing his intent to repay and claims of a $50,000 salary? Did he commit fraud on his loan application?

You're assuming perfect knowledge on the part of the banks. Did they know that folks were applying for loans they couldn't repay? Yup. Did that mean that people weren't lying en masse on their loan applications? Nope.

This isn't a binary question of either-or. Both were guilty.
 
Go to a bank and forge a name on a loan. You'd be in jail faster then you can say say forgery.

Read up on what some of the Countrywide employees said they were made to do. And that was just 1 bank. They were all doing it.

I'm not even getting on the rating agencies who blindly stamped AAA on garbage packages, and they knew it was garbage. A lot of what happened may not have been possible if it was not for the rating agencies lying, cheating, and looking the other way for the almighty $.

There was plenty of blame to go around. The home owners and borrowers were also to blame, but they were down the list.

They were pulling people from the street, telling them they could surely afford a house. Heck, if a professional lender is telling me this, then surely he must be right?
 
Depends. Did he walk into my office in a suit and tie, with documentation showing his intent to repay and claims of a $50,000 salary? Did he commit fraud on his loan application?

You're assuming perfect knowledge on the part of the banks. Did they know that folks were applying for loans they couldn't repay? Yup. Did that mean that people weren't lying en masse on their loan applications? Nope.

This isn't a binary question of either-or. Both were guilty.

He's a bum, so no suit and tie. He tells you he will be paying you back. Do you loan him the money?
 
Back
Top Bottom