Review of Inside Job (2010) by Walter M — 03 Mar 2012

"Inside Job" is a documentary, that in retelling the familiar story of the financial crisis of 2008, manages to succeed in meticulously detailing the events leading up to it, even as warnings were being issued, smartly introducing damning evidence along the way. It also explains calmly what derivatives are and how their collapse trickled down to hurt people just making a living. On the other hand, those same details occasionally work against the documentary, especially in its obsession with prostitution.(Eliot Spitzer, interviewed here, being involved with escorts was worse than stockbrokers since he showed as an elected official a disdain for the laws he had been sworn to uphold.) And, yes, conflict of interest might be a big deal but too much time is spent on what sounds like an academic debate. It is never quite clear whether or not these people defending the lack of restraint on Wall Street were corrupt or true believers.(Alan Greenspan definitely seems to fall into the latter.) The documentary also goes beyond its purview by showing the divide between rich and poor which is nothing new and therefore not really relevant here.

All of which proves Karl Marx right when he said that capitalism would collapse all business into just one company.

Of course, he was talking about a laissez faire model that was corrected during the Great Depression when Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism from itself. From then to the 1980's, banks and investment firms were modest outfits with modestly paid employees but ever since deregulation kicked in under Reagan(still flourishing to the present day), these businesses have exploded with employees given invcentives based on profit, not risk(as one person suggested). As the scorpion said to the frog, this is just in capitalism's nature.