January 4th, 2016 New Years Edition

I did see The Big Short this past weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it as well.  I saw it with a Banker, who understood a great deal about the trades (and insurance) that was being proposed and we were both pleasantly surprised about the amount of humour in the film.   Much in the same way that The Martian had more humour than expected!    Short was engaging and interesting and very scary to boot.   The level of complicity on all levels of Bank, regulators, Bond Rating (Moody’s and Standard and Poor) and the Federal government was scary to behold!   To borrow from Cumberbatch’s Hamlet “…something is rotten in the State of Denmark…”   What was remarkable was the fraud in propping up the value of these bonds when the underlying mortgages were clearly dog shit!  This is a story where as they show, you are Chicken Little and you are betting against your own country and the underlying economy.   People’s lives will be changed and destroyed and yet no one at the top of house goes to jail.   No one pays for this horrible example of modern day greed.   I am a reasonably bright person but I still struggle to understand how one gets paid out from a falling asset.   I liked the performances all around and was most impressed by Steve Carrell as I felt his Oscar nomination for Foxcatcher was not really deserved.  Here, this is more deserving,   Gosling as well (even with blackened curly hair and brown contacts) also was better than his more recent films.   All was needed was Edward Norton and Daniel Day Lewis!!   Christian Bale was his reliable self.