Exploration 8

     In the documentary, Inside Job, I found it interesting how different the lifestyles are between people who know and the people who thrive on banking and Wall Street. Those people obviously have a large disposable income, and act very differently than those who don't. It almost seems as if their morals are different because they have a lot of money. The documentary pointed out how prostitution and drug use was not uncommon for those people. Another thing that stood out to me was how the big companies such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley bet against the same CDOs that they were trying to sell just to gain more profits. This makes the whole system seem corrupt. Moody's, S&P, and Fitch also gave very high ratings of safetly to very risky securities. This makes you wonder if anyone in the stock market and banking world can even be trusted. It is interesting how certain people declined to be interviewed for the film and how some were angry when certain questions were asked.
     The information in this documentary could very easily be misleading because most of the people watching it are probably not huge experts about the subject at hand. Personally, I do not know that much about Wall Street and banking but the way the film is put together gives it a credibility that makes me believe what they are saying.
     It seems that Wall Street executives have so much power because they have so much money and if they are the executive of a large company, they often pick the people to be on the board, which lessens their chance of getting fired. They have so much power in both political parties because they are both Republicans and Democrats. They are also vey well educated and know how to get what they want. I think that they still seem to keep power despite changes in Congress and the President because their system is so corrupt that it is so hard to fix and will be very difficult to fix. After watching this documentary I feel that there should be more punishment for those who break the law. A lot of the people who have committed fraud have not been aprehended at all. This might be because they have so much money and can pay off people, but regardless, the need to be punished for what they did. It is hard to understand why those people go unpunished but the following link sheds some light on how this happens.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-09/why-some-ceos-survive-wall-street-scandals.html

     The most interesting quote from the documentary in my opinion is, "The idea of a recession was unlikely." I find this hard to believe because there were numerous economists who warned that the "bubble" was about to burst, forcing us into a recession.
     I plan on investigating further into Wall Street and banking to gain more knowledge about the subject. After watching this documentary it's a little more interesting because now I understand what they are talking about, but I would still like to know more.