I've seen this documentary once before, but I was able to understand it a bit more the second time through. I find it disturbing that millions of people lost their savings, jobs, and homes because a select few were greedy. What I thought was also disturbing was that there were government officials who did nothing to stop it. It seems as if the CEOs of the companies have a lot of power in congress. As it was stated in the video, "It's a Wall Street government".I feel as if these people have so much power in government because of the investments some of these people put into the candidates and current government officials. I think this is part of the reason they have been able to fight a lot of reforms that have been trying get passed.
Unfortunately, their greed turned out to be a disaster for everyone. When loans began to fail, the investment banks lost an extremely large amount of money. I was surprised when I read that $700 billion in bailout money went to the financial industry. Also, it was hard to believe that during one year, unemployment went from 5% to 10%.
What I thought was interesting about the movie was how many of the people who were involved in the crisis refused an interview. In a way, it almost makes it seem as if they had something to hide.
I believe the best way to prevent such things from happening again is to educate people on the issue. If more people were aware of what was being done behind the scenes, more could be done to stop it before it gets out of hand, just like it did in 2008.
A great resource I used was found at http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/site/#/events
I agree with you completely. I found the greed of the government officials to be astonishing as well. I could not believe it. I also agee with you that people need to be educated on what actually caused the economic crisis of 2008.
ReplyDeleteGreat resource. very useful!
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