HBO has made a docudrama Too Big to Fail based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's book about the financial crisis. I haven't read the book but thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
Sure it's lots of old (mostly) white men in suits talking, but they're talking about the collapse of the world economy. By all accounts I've seen it's pretty accurate, I also found it understandable. I don't think I learned much but it did help me put all the players and timelines into perspective.
No matter how many people they have working for them when a crisis happens the top people get in a room and discuss options, at very high levels and make big sweeping decisions on hunches based on the best but incomplete information they have. It's amazing how many billion dollar mergers and bailouts happened so quickly, but the alternative was worse. We shouldn't have gotten into that situation, there should have been regulation and oversight to prevent it, but there wasn't and sadly there still isn't. But maybe if people have relive that experience we'll be able to see the need for it.
Also the casting is a lot of fun; best summed up by saying Dan Hedaya as Barney Frank.
Ezra Klein liked it. "Which is why “Too Big to Fail” is very much worth your time. The financial crisis wasn’t that long ago, but even so, it’s hard to recall how insane that period was, how the economy’s guardrails shook and then bent and then broke and how we almost tipped over. But it’s worth remembering, if only because it’s the only possible explanation for why we did what we did, and why we are where we are."
Mathew Yglesias did too. "Peter Gould’s slimmed down almost 600 pages of actual text in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book into 98 minutes, cutting out characters’ biographies, condensing protracted negotiations between Lehman Brothers and potential buyers into single scenes. The movie relies on montages of actual cable reports to provide context, but other than that, and a single scene where Paulson and Jim Wilkinson explain some of the financial instruments involved in the meltdown to Michele Davis to prepare her to brief the press, it mostly trusts the audience to keep up. It’s a risk, but with a small, curated audience like HBO’s, probably a reasonable gamble. The movie doesn’t need to waste time outlining John Thain’s compensation history to make him look avaricious when he complains about possible golden parachute limits during the meetings setting up the Troubled Asset Relief Program."
He also points out, House Republicans Aim To Reduce Regulation Of Derivatives.
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