The Big Short Essay

433 Words1 Page

The big short is a comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Adam McKay. The film was released in December 2015. It is based on the non-fiction book of Michael Lewis; The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (2010). the movie talks about the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis, is styled as a comedy, with pop-cultural explanations of finance and humorous repartee between the characters.

The movie focuses not on the financial establishment but on the few investors who saw in advance that the mortgage securities market and derivative financial products were unsustainable–who knew that the system would crash. They decided to short bet against the economy which meant that they were betting against the US economy

The movies divided into three separate but parallel stories of the U.S mortgage housing crisis of 2005, Michael Burry, an eccentric ex-physician turned one-eyed Scion Capital hedge fund manager, He believes that the US housing market is built on a bubble that will burst within the next few years. Autonomy within the company allows Burry to do largely as he pleases, so …show more content…

An errant telephone call to Front Point Partners gets this information into the hands of Mark Baum, Baum and his associates, who work at an arm’s length under Morgan Stanley, decide to join forces with Vennett despite not totally trusting him. In addition to Burry's information, they further believe that most of the mortgages are overrated by the bond agencies, with the banks collating all the sub-prime mortgages under AAA packages. Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley, who are minor players in a $30 million start-up garage company called Brownfield, get a hold of Vennett's prospectus on the matter. Wanting in on the action but not having the official clout to play, they decide to call an old "friend", retired investment banker Ben Rickert, to

Show More
Related

  • Grapes of Wrath and It's a Wonderful Life

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Huge technological improvements and scientific breakthroughs have paved the way for larger, more stable and profitable financial markets. Fast and easy money was to be made by playing the booming stock market - many laymen took advantage of these opportunities without having a complete understanding of what exactly they were doing. This inevitably led to the crash that sent America and the world into the Great Depression. In the movie we see the first stages of the panic that spread throughout the country. People got scared and ran to the bank to take out their life savings.

    Read More

  • Causes of the 2008 US Recession

    1519 Words  | 4 Pages

    Many people today would consider the 2008, United States financial crisis a simple “malfunction” or “mistake”, but it was nothing close to that. Contrary to what many believe, renowned economists and financial advisors regarded the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to be the most devastating crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. To make matters worse, the decline in the economy expanded nationwide, resulting in the recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brue). David Einhorn, CEO of GreenHorn Capital, even goes as far as to say "What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go back to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn't an accident. We didn't get unlucky. The crisis came because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas". The 2007 financial crisis was composed of the fall of many major financial institutions, an unknown increase in mortgage loan defaults, and the derived freezing up of credit availability (Brue). It was the result from risky mortgage loans and falling estate values (Brue) . Additionally, the financial crisis of 2007 was the result of underestimation of risk by faulty insurance securities made to protect holders of mortgage-back securities from risk of default and holders of mortgage-backed securities (Brue). Even to present day, America stills suffers from the aftermaths of the financial crisis.

    Read More

  • Evicted By Matthew Desmond Analysis

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “The Big Short”, this movie about the economic collapse of 2008 in America highlights how Americans of all racial backgrounds were hit hard when the housing market collapsed. The film provides a very compelling argument and describes how the market crashed because banks began to give out more unstable loans out to people in order to sell more properties, which eventually led to the housing market to be built upon millions of risky loans. This practice grew until the housing market became too unstable because of all the risky loans and resulted in an economic crash. The housing market collapse led to millions of Americans to lose their homes because of foreclosures and led to massive amount of homelessness and unemployment since the Great

    Read More

  • Essay 2

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the movie A Beautiful Mind, the description of schizophrenia is shown in many accurate ways. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) states that the symptoms of this disease are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, or unorganized or catatonic behavior. People with schizophrenia are also socially withdrawn and awkward when in contact with other people. These traits of the sickness are shown in detail throughout the movie by way of the character John Nash’s struggle with the disease. Nash is a very intelligent professor but believes he is working with the government to foil a Soviet attack plot. Nash eventually goes onto win a Nobel Prize for one of his theories. The movie shows the effects of schizophrenia on not only one man, but also on the friends and family of the ill individual. Treatment is discussed but not to any great length due to him ignoring the doctor’s orders on medication. Overall the movie shows some very prevalent traits of the disease in great detail during certain parts of the film.

    Read More

  • essay 2

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our current society is not capable of turning into one similar to Gilead. Gilead is an unstable time period, for what was known to be the United States of America. There are several reasons why our society today cannot be one like Gilead. The people of Gilead do many acts that violate the Bill of Rights, which our society respects highly. The United States Constitution is also violated in the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

    Read More

  • essay 4

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Antisocial personality disorder is a personality disorder marked by a general pattern of disregard for a violation of other people’s rights. Explanations of antisocial personality disorder come from the psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and biological models. As with many other personality disorders, psychodynamic theorists propose that this disorder starts with an absence of parental love during infancy leading to a lack of basic trust. In this view, the children that develop this disorder respond to early inadequacies by becoming emotionally distant, and they bond with others through use of power and destructiveness. Behavioral theorists have suggested that antisocial symptoms may be learned through modeling, or imitation. As evidence, they point to the higher rate of antisocial personality disorder found among the parents of people with this disorder. Other behaviorists suggest that some parent’s unintentionally teach antisocial behavior by regularly awarding a child’s aggressive behavior. The cognitive view says that people with this disorder hold attitudes that trivialize the importance of other people’s needs. Cognitive theorists also believe that these people have a genuine difficulty recognizing a point of view other than their own. Finally studies show that biological factors may play an important role in developing antisocial disorder. Researchers have found that antisocial people, particularly those with high impulse and aggression, display lower serotonin activity and has been linked this same activity with other studies as well.

    Read More

  • Essay On 102 Minutes

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    On September 11th, 2001 at the World Trade Center 2,749 people were killed when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were crashed into the north and south towers. 412 of them were rescue workers who came to help. 147of them were passengers or crew members on the two flights. 102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, the title referring to the time between when the first airplane hit the north tower and the south tower collapsed, tells the stories of what is happening inside the Twin Towers on September 11th and the fight for survival under unimaginable conditions.

    Read More

  • The Great Depression Research Paper

    2275 Words  | 5 Pages

    ] This catastrophic event is caused by the accumulation of a large scale of speculation by not only investors but also banks and institutions in the stock market. Though the unemployment rate was climbing during the 1920s and economy was not looking good, people on Wall Street were not affected by the depressing news. The optimism spread from Wall Street to small investors and they were investing with the money they don’t have, which is investing on margin as high as 90%. When the speculative bubble burst, people lost everything including houses and pensions. The main reason ...

    Read More

  • The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Lewis is the author of “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” and Lewis’ main theme, or the main point, that he is trying to get across is how the 2008 financial crisis came to be, who saw it coming, and how people reacted. Lewis has experience with Wall Street and has worked for Salomon Brothers when he was younger. Today, Lewis is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. There were three things I highly enjoyed “The Big Short”: the character development, themes, and personalization.

    Read More

  • Jim Braddock and The Great Depression

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jim Braddock, the main character of the movie, went through tough times; he lost his job, couldn’t support his family and witnessed loved ones being lost to the Great Depression. Going through all this just made him a stronger man. This gargantuan mess was created because of the Stock Market crash of the 1930’s. This was a time when the stock market fell to the ground. The crash hurt so many American families, including Braddock.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Movie Inside Job

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    The subject of Inside Job is the global financial crisis of 2008. It features research and extensive interviews with financiers, politicians, journalists, and academics. The film follows a narrative that is split into five parts. The five parts discussed are The Foundation, Mortgage Boom, The Crisis, Accountability, Where are we now.

    Read More

  • 2008 Financial Crisis Essay

    1536 Words  | 4 Pages

    The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues In The Big Short Movie

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    Eight years ago, the world economy crashed. Jobs were lost, families misplaced, hundreds of thousands of people left shocked and confused as they watched the security of their world fall to pieces around them. In, “The Big Short,” a film directed by Adam McKay and based on the book written by Michael Lewis, viewers get an inside perspective on how the financial crisis of 2008 really happened. Viewers learn the truth about the unethical actions and irrational justifications made by those who unwittingly set the world up for failure. Two main ethically tied decisions are brought into question when watching the film: how could anyone conscionably make the decision to mislead investors by misrepresenting mortgage backed securities (MBS), and why

    Read More

  • The Wolf Of Wall Street Movie Analysis Essay

    1301 Words  | 3 Pages

    This movie starts off as Jordan Belfort, the main character in the movie, losing his job as a stockbroker in Wall Street. After losing his job, he goes and gets a job in a Long Island brokerage room. In the brokerage room, he sells penny stocks. Thanks to him being aggressive in his selling skills, he was able to make a profit. With the new income, he gives his wife a bracelet and she asked him why doesn’t he go after the people that can afford to lose money, not the middle-class people or lower income people. That is when he gets the idea to get a lot of young people and train them to become the best stock brokers.

    Read More

  • Margin Call, the Movie

    1790 Words  | 4 Pages

    In conclusion to Margin Call, the firm ended entirely. Eric Dale and Peter Sullivan were the characters that remained faithful to the firm. They genuinely cared about what is more beneficial for the firm and for their coworkers. They do anything that they can do to save the firm. While they care about their coworkers and the firm, other characters are the exact opposite. Seth Bregman, Jared Cohen, Will Emerson, Sam Rogers and John Tuld were the exact opposite of Eric and Peter. They only cared about themselves and what money they can get out of the firm before it crashes. They didn’t even care if their coworkers were struggling, as long as they had money, they were happy. In the end, Margin Call is a realistic take on what happens inside a Wall Street Firm and realistic problems that they could encounter.

    Read More

More about The Big Short Essay

Open Document