Movie Review ---Inside Job

So, you've wondered about the Recession and where its roots are, who started it and who benefited
from its transfer of wealth. Well, wonder no more! The film, "Inside Job" lays it all out there and has pictures,too. All the familiar faces are there: Henry "Hank" Paulson, Bill Clinton, Lloyb Blankfein, Sandy Weill, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Larry Sommers, Robert Rubin, and a host of academics too numerous to mention.
Our esteemed congressmen, both senators and representatives do not get a pass here. Although they appear at several hearings putting the financiers on the hot seat, they look foolish when compared to their positions in the recent past when they passed laws removing controls on the banks and institutions that brought us down.
The revolving door through which many of them passed from Wall St. to the White House and Congress is clearly exposed. The lobbyist groups are highlighted as partners in crime as they lavished the funds on the members of Congress to bend them to their will. It is a sad testimony to the modern political environment we have to live under. Certainly Obama is aware but it seems he has little spine to tackle the real problems, ie. the laws removed and those that took their place. Perhaps he would look at the 2010 elections and think of some new approach to our pressing problems: financial deregulation and how to fix it.
But, when you consider that Larry Sommers and Hank Paulson were his 2 closest advisors, it does not give you much hope.
The 3 rating agencies(Moodys, S&P,Fitch) are clearly in cahoots with all the players,large and small. They forever stained their reputations by selling their souls for the almighty dollar. All the CDO's were rated by these scumbags prior to their sale to unsuspecting institutional investors(retail). That they in turn, had no clue as to what these instruments were or what their contents contained, was not a factor in the ratings assigned. Hence, the melt down in '08, when the insurer, AIG, could not pay off on some of their obligations to do so.
The academics at Columbia, Harvard, and other institutions of "higher" learning, looked like hired hands of the Wall St. bankers. Show me an instrument(derivative, CDO, mortgage tranche,etc.) and I'll have a favorable opinion published in no time, just send money.
Apparently, greed is the new god of Wall St., again.
Any hopeful signs? No, not really. No new regulatory environment has emerged other than the Dodd-Frank bill passed last month. What a joke!
Stay tuned for more turmoil, anxiety, deflation, and chaos. And you thought Iraq/Afghanistan were problems.