The villains are many and the heroes few in Director Charles Ferguson's examination of the events that led up to the 2008 financial crisis that still resonates to this day in foreclosed homes, lost retirement savings and the most painful global recession in decades.
"Inside Job" points the blame at the big players in Washington and Wall Street for placing a rigid free-market, deregulation economic ideology above common sense policy decisions and for failing to recognize the many warning signs that the credit default swaps, subprime mortgages, derivatives, etc... would all come crashing down like too many cocaine binges by Wall Street big shots.
The greedy, narcissistic culture on Wall Street was allowed to swindle the American people because of back-bending politicians in Washington greased by Wall Street money. Many of these leaders in the White House, Congress and regulatory agencies were either former Wall Street execs themselves or had strong ties to the financial services industry.
The victims, as usual, are the working class and middle class all over the world.
Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulsen, Ben Bernanke. The list goes on and on. And yes, President Obama is called out for speaking tough on Wall Street but then appointing Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Summers as an economic advisor (although the documentary fails to mention that Paul Volcker is an economic advisor and Elizabeth Warren has been appointed as an advisor to the new Consumer Protection Agency housed in the Federal Reserve -- both pro-regulation consumer advocates.)
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the film is its examination of how the financial services industry has hijacked academia through big money and high-profile faculty who espouse the free-market, anti-regulation philosophy that puts Wall Street profits above all else.
Here is the trailer:
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