The Big Short Movie

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After watching the movie The Big Short, I have a much better understanding of the financial crisis that took place in 2008. One topic from the movie that really stood out to me was the idea of synthetic CDO’s, which I thought explained the crisis perfectly. For example, Selena Gomez is pictured playing a game of black jack in which she is winning. However, a large audience is in attendance making side bets on Selena’s hand. In addition, more audience members are making bets on the side bets. The big picture is that when Selena wins everything goes great. The audience is making money and so are the people placing bets on other bets. However, if Selena were to lose, there would be chaos and everybody would panic. This compares to the housing …show more content…

For example, two investors, Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley are pictured at the end of the movie celebrating because they had just predicted the downfall of the US economy, and they won big. However, Ben Rickert, played by Brad Pitt, quickly silences the two by making them realize they just profited off the financial doom of thousands of Americans. Although this is quite true and may seem morally wrong, what the two investors did was extremely risky. Had they been incorrect, they would have lost all of the money they bet on. If they would have placed these bets substantially earlier on, they would have lost as well. These two defied what other investors told them about how a market crisis was highly unlikely. Instead, they went with their research and decided to go against the odds. I believe that even though most people might think betting against the welfare of others is immoral, the reverse could have been much worse for the two. Because of that, I believe the two investors should not be ridiculed to the point they were. Instead, they should be viewed as two investors who took a different path from everyone else and won

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