Just watched HBO's "Too Big To Fail"... have a question.

05/24/2011 | TMMT

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Just finisjed watching HBO's Too Big To Fail.

Its movie about the 2008 financial crisis and I have a question for those who've seen it and who has a better working knowledge of the events that led up to the 2008 crisis.

How accurate are the facts portrayed in this HBO film?

Knowing HBO's left leaning views and they clearly tried to make the repubs out to be villainous but all that aside, how did they do factually?

Reason I ask is, if they did their homework and presented the business facts and events that led up to the 2008 crash correctly then I don't care who is responsible.

We need to find us alot of rope and some tall trees and get to work!

[rokkitapps]

I watched it, and to my understanding, it was pretty accurate..

The whole narrative about not bailing out lehman and then bailing out AIG was how it happened, according to what I have read.

The bowing down to Pelosi was a well documented event. Most of the movie seemed accurate to what I have read. Anyone else?

[freedumb2003]

2 words:

FannieMae
Freddiemac

2 perpetrators:
j. carter
b.j. clinton

That’s all anyone need know about what caused the 2008 bump. Had it not been for the massive overreaction and overreaching of teh wan and his corral of academicians, none of who have even run a lemonade stand, it would have been over by 2009.

[free me]

Architects of Ruin: How big government liberals wrecked the global economy---and how they will do it again if no one stops them

[Doogle]

BINGO

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Here are 2 threads that discuss “TBTF” on Karl Denninger’s forum. (I have not seen it) In general, these are folks who are quite aware of and suitably informed as to what happened; and I am sure they will have an overwhelmingly negative view. I apologize if the threads are password protected. If so, let me know and I will do what I can to pass on or otherwise make available the reviews/comments. Some language WILL (not *may* not!) not be safe for work!

http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=186760&ord=2560062#2560062

http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=185793&ord=2560055#2560055

[re_nortex]

2 perpetrators: j. carter b.j. clinton

I will explicitly add these two traitors to the list:

• Chris Dodd
• Barnie Frank

And there's the vile Community Reinvestment Act, another evil spawn in the long line of anti-American programs from the DemonRATS.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Just for clarification, by an “overwhelmingly negative view” in my prior post I meant they will have a negative view of the bailout(s)....not a negative view of the HBO production.

[freedumb2003]

>>I will explicitly add these two traitors to the list:

Chris Dodd
Barnie Frank
And there’s the vile Community Reinvestment Act, another evil spawn in the long line of anti-American programs from the DemonRATS.<<

My comment stands enhanced.

[Yaelle]

I was afraid to watch it too, mostly because I had the un-pleasure of hearing an interview with Ed Asner about it, who actually said that one reason he enjoyed doing the movie was that he hated capitalism so much. I feared he was “the star” and that it would be some sort of socialism beats this crap kind of film.

I was WRONG. It was a good movie and only got in a teeny dig against the Republicans, and of course their jab at McCain rushing in to save the day WAS JUSTIFIED because he did behave idiotically in his unique Napoleonic way.

The acting was good, especially my very favorite actor James Woods. The scene where he (as CEO of Lehman) watches, with a glass of scotch, on TV while the government bails out AIG after his company was forced to go bankrupt, was very touching. I love that guy. And William Hurt, known for overacting, was subtle and not bad at all as Hank Paulson.

[Yaelle]

They are password protected.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Thanks for the input.

I watched it and it seemed to mirror what I recall happening from news reports during that time period.

I just wanted another take or two on it...

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

The community reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed a long time ago but it wasn’t really enforced until the 90’s. When Dems won Congress in 2006 during Bush they dusted it off and really started applying it.

So it was a carrot and stick, make ‘sub-prime’ loans or else we (Congress) will investigate you. This was the stick.

The carrot was you could make a bad loan and pawn it off on the government though Freddie/Fanny. This was the carrot.

All things being equal bankers wouldn’t loan to people who couldn’t pay the loan back. But government regulation changed this.

[popdonnelly]

At least the supposed “liberals” like Ed Asner are showing their true colors.

[Rational Thought]

It was more than just Government regulation. It was Government participation. Aside from Fannie and Freddie, even FHA was writing absolute garbage.

Sub prime loans had actually been around for years. Represented to investors accurately as "sub prime", that market was profitable through the nineties. The beginning of the end was when the games began with the misrepresentation and blending of products on the secondary market.

Little known fact...at one point approximately two years ago, 20% of all FHA loans were delinquent. I haven't been able to locate any current stats, but I'd bet things aren't much better.

I haven't seen the movie as I refuse to subscribe to HBO. I have heard (just today in fact) from a lender friend that the script is accurate.

[leaning conservative]

So what you are saying is that the CRA was created as affirmative action loans for people w/ bad credit or who had not saved like regular hardworking people to buy a home?

I should have been knowledgable about this & was not. Thanks!

[PeaRidge]

The entire meltdown began in the late 1960s, and became worse with each Democratic administration.

In 1968 as part of President Johnson's Great Society reform plan, the Fair Housing Act was passed to fight the practice of restrictive loan processing. It prohibited geographic restrictions when the criteria for redlining were based on race, religion, gender, familial status, disability, or ethnic origin.

In 1977 Sen. Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) introduced a “creeping socialism” community reinvestment Senate bill. Opponents argued the bill would allocate credit without regard for merits of loan applications, thereby threatening depository institutions.

Proponents countered that it was only to ensure that lenders did not ignore good borrowing prospects in their communities. The bill's sponsor stressed it would neither force high-risk lending nor substitute the views of regulators or those of banks.

Then later President Carter, pressed by grassroots organizations — though opposed by the banking industry— signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). It guaranteed home loans to low-income families.

Also at this time ACORN was forming and beginning its efforts to organize and redistribute federal money while bypassing state and local governments.

Enter quasi-governmental competition from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac; active government officials (that interfered with the normal market funtions) such as William J. Clinton, James Johnson (Fannie Mae), Janet Reno (Justice Department), Henry Cisneros (Clinton's HUD Secretary), Robert Rubin (Treasury Secretary), Jamie Gorelick (number two at Justice), Andrew Cuomo (HUD Secretary after Cisneros), Rep. Barnie Frank who blocked efforts at oversight, and a whole host of other secondary players such as Madeline Talbot (ACORN), who implemented a massive re-distribution program of unimaginable scope, while paying themselves astronomical salaries, commissions, and bonuses.

Traditionally conservative banking, lending, insurance, and investment houses began to shift their business models under pressure from the three branches of government---Reno's Justice Department suits against lending institutions; Franks and Kennedy's legislative action on regulations and lending practices; Clinton's executive pressure from HUD and Treasury; and cutthroat competition from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which were engaging in unfair lending practices---and forcing historically successful and conservatively operated institutions into government constructed high risk adventures in money and credit mis-management.

It is even more complicated than this description.

[steveab]

Nice take on the situation. CNBC did a take on the collapse call “House of Cards”.

[waynesa98]

While the peanut farmer and the horndog were president at critical times dodd, frank, rangle and others like conyers are just as much to blame, for setting up the CRA and keeping their eyes wide-shut to the obvious dangers and fraud at freddie and fanny. And it seems as though those morons are going to try for CRA 2.0.

[petercooper]

bttt