Very Highly Recommended: Inside Job

I have just watched Charles Furgeson's Oscar-nominated documentary movie Inside Job, an exploration of the causes and consequences of the current financial crisis. This documentary is not comfortable to watch - in fact it made me absolutely furious! One can watch one prominent figure after another lie through their teeth or weasle-word evasions to the questions (though of course many of the main culprits simply refused to be interviewed).

Not only did the people who caused this crisis escape any consequences - most of them made obscene amounts of money even while their companies were being bailed out by the government, and in fact in the end we the taxpayers paid much of their obscene bonuses. Not only that, the system is thoroughly corrupted, from members of Congress to key government agency heads to government regulators to the rating agencies to the academic economists who advise them. Presidents Reagen, Clinton, Bush and and Obama have all contributed to the mess, as have key members of Congress from both parties. The ruling elites in Washington, on Wall Street, and in academia are getting fabulously wealthy while the rest of the nation continues to suffer.

This movie will not make you happy, but it is important to watch it anyway. If we the American voters are stupid enough to continue to elect people who do this to us, we get exactly what we deserve!!