The Big Short (2015)

Watched 99 Homes today and that shit is crazy! Totally believable as well that the shit was so backed up and crazy that Fannie Mae had no checks in place for that shit. He was just ripping shit out of one house, getting paid to replace it, and getting paid again to put it into another house. Lol. Wild!

Blaming the poor for not knowing their place is a pretty strange take. Anyway, I enjoyed that movie, but had mixed feeling about it. Checking my notes about it, I was unsure about the didactic sequences using the stars. In a way it's nice that these explanations are there (the Wolf of Wall Street lacked those for instance), but it kinda felt like talking down to the viewers in a strange "Millionaires explain things to the paupers" way. To limit this effect maybe they could have used some meta comedy effect that emphasized they were not the author of the text being delivered (like they could mess it up or be surprised by it). I guess you can argue that the very nature of the sequences already make them meta comedy, but... yeah. Also, the main characters discover how fubared things are and their first instinct is wonder how they can profit from this knowledge. This is in part counterbalanced by some scenes (Melissa Leo pointing at the hypocrisy, Steve Carell's hesitations, Brad Pitt's vigorous reality check...).

What is certain is that the film is often very funny unlike Margin Call, but Margin Call is crazy good even though I must confess its genius did not hit me the first time I saw it. I caught it on TV a few years later and scene after scene after scene are amazingly written and cleverly directed.

grumblethorn said:

Yes dumb people and minorities are to stupid to be responsible for their actions it's the states fault. Also the states responsibility to pay their way for a lifetime.

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i mean people should be more careful to not get taken advantage of, but that doesn't make the other side not predatory. both things can be true at the same time.

Sterling said:

i mean people should be more careful to not get taken advantage of, but that doesn't make the other side not predatory. both things can be true at the same time.

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We have big budget movies like Big Short focusing on one ... but where’s the big budget movie showing the other side?

When I see people say “both sides” I hear “you are technically correct but what you’re saying is counter to my preferred narrative, so it’s time to deflect.”

Szlia said:

Blaming the poor for not knowing their place is a pretty strange take. Anyway, I enjoyed that movie, but had mixed feeling about it. Checking my notes about it, I was unsure about the didactic sequences using the stars. In a way it's nice that these explanations are there (the Wolf of Wall Street lacked those for instance), but it kinda felt like talking down to the viewers in a strange "Millionaires explain things to the paupers" way. To limit this effect maybe they could have used some meta comedy effect that emphasized they were not the author of the text being delivered (like they could mess it up or be surprised by it). I guess you can argue that the very nature of the sequences already make them meta comedy, but... yeah. Also, the main characters discover how fubared things are and their first instinct is wonder how they can profit from this knowledge. This is in part counterbalanced by some scenes (Melissa Leo pointing at the hypocrisy, Steve Carell's hesitations, Brad Pitt's vigorous reality check...).

What is certain is that the film is often very funny unlike Margin Call, but Margin Call is crazy good even though I must confess its genius did not hit me the first time I saw it. I caught it on TV a few years later and scene after scene after scene are amazingly written and cleverly directed.

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Wow this movie tries to dumb things down but still went completely over your head

Szlia said:

Blaming the poor for not knowing their place is a pretty strange take. Anyway, I enjoyed that movie, but had mixed feeling about it. Checking my notes about it, I was unsure about the didactic sequences using the stars. In a way it's nice that these explanations are there (the Wolf of Wall Street lacked those for instance), but it kinda felt like talking down to the viewers in a strange "Millionaires explain things to the paupers" way. To limit this effect maybe they could have used some meta comedy effect that emphasized they were not the author of the text being delivered (like they could mess it up or be surprised by it). I guess you can argue that the very nature of the sequences already make them meta comedy, but... yeah. Also, the main characters discover how fubared things are and their first instinct is wonder how they can profit from this knowledge. This is in part counterbalanced by some scenes (Melissa Leo pointing at the hypocrisy, Steve Carell's hesitations, Brad Pitt's vigorous reality check...).

What is certain is that the film is often very funny unlike Margin Call, but Margin Call is crazy good even though I must confess its genius did not hit me the first time I saw it. I caught it on TV a few years later and scene after scene after scene are amazingly written and cleverly directed.

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So you are agreeing with us that most poor people are only poor because they are dumb and make bad choices because they are dumb? Based.

Sanrith Descartes I concede that I read these scenes in the worst possible way and I know that is absolutely not the intent. The intent, which, if I remember correctly, is even explicitly given by a voice over, is to deliver a very dry explanation in a way that keeps the spectators engaged. I understand the absurd / playful idea of having a bathing Margot Robbie delivering such explanation, but, what can I say, it also made me feel a bit like stepping in one of those Lumi-like conspiracy theory where elites of all kinds share some secret understanding of the world's mechanisms

Ambiturner The great thing with these kind of one sentence put down is that I have no idea what part of my post made you say that, so it's 100% noise, 0% signal. In case that was about that, the opening statement about blaming the poor was directed at Big Phoenix's take, not at the movie.

LiquidDeath I have no idea how you infer that from my post. This is not the social mobility thread, so I would just say that blaming an economic crisis on the irresponsibility of people that fell victim of predatory tactics instead of blaming the people who engineered the tools that allowed these tactics to exist and those who used them is pretty crazy. Bad analogies are always bad, but if you leave a window open and your house get burglarized, you are party responsible, but the brunt of the blame lies on the burglar.

Who wants to watch a 2 hour movie of a janitor buying a 600 thousand dollar house with a bad loan underwritten by Tim Dillon who then goes tits up and loses it all.

I mean, i literally already said it in this thread, that exact movie is 99 Homes...

elidib said:

I mean, i literally already said it in this thread, that exact movie is 99 Homes...

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Yeah, but that movie doesn't portray the people buying the homes as incompetent retards that deserve what they get like some people in this thread seem to want.

yep. ITT: poor people be stupid!

in reality: you pay 800/mo rent for a shitty apartment, apply for a bank loan for a pretty nice home and are approved. monthly payment: $750. somewhere down the line, you have a car emergency, health issue, major home repair that needs to be done, or lose your job which wipes out your bank account and sends you into the "payday loan just to pay bills until i get paid" spiral.

When I was a youngin' if you walked in to the bank and tried to get money for nothin' they would show you the door. Countrywide advertising all over cable TV that you could buy a house with no credit no down payment no job didn't make any sense. Banks? Handing out money? That just isn't how its done. Now you can put some of the blame on the regular folks that showed up to live the American dream of home ownership but the only reason those offers were ever on the table is because someone way higher up the food chain thought they could profit from it. The yokels weren't a cause of the housing crisis. If they whole thing was a train they would be the coal that gets shoved in. They wasn't the conductors or ticket takers or bulls or even passengers for that matter. They were fuel.

elidib said:

yep. ITT: poor people be stupid!

in reality: you pay 800/mo rent for a shitty apartment, apply for a bank loan for a pretty nice home and are approved. monthly payment: $750. somewhere down the line, you have a car emergency, health issue, major home repair that needs to be done, or lose your job which wipes out your bank account and sends you into the "payday loan just to pay bills until i get paid" spiral.

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This is a silly take, mainly because the example you provided put this poor person on the payday loan spiral regardless of whether they took on a stupid loan. If that is a case, it is clearly an example of someone who can't manage their money well enough to stay out of financial ruin in any case.

I don't really feel sorry for the people that took on a normal mortgage they just couldn't afford. Those are just people that would be in a terrible situation at the first sign of trouble no matter what. The people I really feel for are the ones that were sold those bullshit ARM mortgages when rates were at near historic lows. In most cases the lenders completely glossed over how those things actually worked and really fucked people over pretty handily.

LiquidDeath said:

In most cases the lenders completely glossed over how those things actually worked and really fucked people over pretty handily.

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There was a nontrivial amount of out and out fraud as well with a heaping helping of it during the fraudclosure aftermath.

I have some sympathy for the regular people but of course everyone is responsible for the decisions that they make. Practical mathematics isn't really a part of many people's education. I went decent schools in decent areas in a decent state and the amount of time devoted to sound financial advice, credit card math, mortgage math and the like is close to zero. While we're not educating students on this stuff what we are teaching them are all the ugly bits of American consumerism wrapped up in the American Dream of Home Ownership.