Or maybe you already have.
There’s this movie that’s still making its way through some theaters in the U.S. called The Big Short:
It’s based on a Michael Lewis book. He’s the guy who wrote Moneyball about how statistics changed baseball, Flash Boys about how electronic trading has changed Wall Street, and the one that started it all, Liar’s Poker which was his first-hand account of the crash of October 1987.
We realize that many of you were still in diapers in October 1987.
We also realize that many people seem to have already forgotten what October 2008 was like.
If you’re interested in business school, then presumably you’re interested in business.
If you’re interested in any of that, you need to be able to understand what took the economy down.
The Big Short does a very good job of explaining it – though frankly even the movie’s simple explanations are not that easy to understand. Because this stuff is complicated. Mortgage backed securities. Credit default swaps. Collateralized debt obligations. Bespoke tranche opportunities.
If you haven’t seen it, then hey, EssaySnark just gave you a fun assignment for the weekend!
Apparently somebody thinks that they did a good job on this movie; it has been nominated for five Academy Awards. That does not automatically promise that it’s an accurate depiction of the timeperiod, but it does at least indicate that it’ll be entertaining.
If you have seen it, any comments to share? Opinions? Reviews? Did you like it? Did you learn anything? What struck you about the film? If you already work in finance, do you think it’s a fair depiction of events?
If you don’t work in finance (or maybe, even better if you do): Can you explain the sequence of events that led to the 2008 collapse?
Tell us what you think.