Blessings Steemians!

I've stepped back a little bit from my daily publishing (which I have done for about a year, in order to give myself more space to deal with what's been present for me. Since I only have 2 weekly scheduled posts (Sunday & Tuesday), I figured I should keep this going at least :-)

Previous Episodes

Episode 1: K-PAX
Episode 2: Snowden
Episode 3: The Peaceful Warrior
Episode 4: They Live
Episode 5: Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land

Be warned, while I do not plan to spell out the whole story of any of these movies, there will most likely be at least some spoilers in every episode.

Episode 6: The Big Short

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The Movie

The Big Short is a comedy-drama-documentaryish movie about the lead up to the 2008 housing market collapse. The movie was written by Adam McKay & Charles Randolph, based upon the book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis.

With an all-star cast including Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and numerous fourth-wall-breaking scenes to explain specific financial concepts, this movie probably educated more people about the collapse, and the "market" in general, than any other piece of media.

The Story

This is the story of the people who saw the collapse coming; the ones who were trying to make money on it, and the ones who were trying to get the word out. In case you're not aware of what exactly the housing collapse was, here's from Wikipedia:

The United States housing bubble was a real estate bubble affecting over half of the U.S. states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012.^[2] On December 30, 2008, the Case–Shiller home price index reported its largest price drop in its history.^[3] The credit crisis resulting from the bursting of the housing bubble is—according to general consensus—an important cause of the 2007–2009 recession in the United States.^[4]^[5]
Increased foreclosure rates in 2006–2007 among U.S. homeowners led to a crisis in August 2008 for the subprime, Alt-A, collateralized debt obligation (CDO), mortgage, credit, hedge fund, and foreign bank markets.^[6] In October 2007, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury called the bursting housing bubble "the most significant risk to our economy".^[7]
Any collapse of the U.S. housing bubble has a direct impact not only on home valuations, but mortgage markets, home builders, real estate, home supply retail outlets, Wall Street hedge funds held by large institutional investors, and foreign banks, increasing the risk of a nationwide recession.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] Concerns about the impact of the collapsing housing and credit markets on the larger U.S. economy caused President George W. Bush and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke to announce a limited bailout of the U.S. housing market for homeowners who were unable to pay their mortgage debts.^[12]
In 2008 alone, the United States government allocated over $900 billion to special loans and rescues related to the U.S. housing bubble. This was shared between the public sector and the private sector. Because of the large market share of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) (both of which are government-sponsored enterprises) as well as the Federal Housing Administration, they received a substantial share of government support, even though their mortgages were more conservatively underwritten and actually performed better than those of the private sector.^[4]^[13] The financial sector bailout ultimately proved profitable for the U.S. government, especially its nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.^[14]

Some Quotes

Ben Rickert: "If we're right, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about fucking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here's a number - every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?"

Mark Baum: "The banks have given us 25% interest rates on credit cards. They have screwed us on student loans that we can never get out from under. Then this guy walks into my office and says those same banks got greedy, they lost track of the market, and I can profit off of their stupidity? Fuck yeah, I want him to be right!"

Mark Baum: "I don't get it. Why are they confessing?"
Danny Moses: "They're not confessing."
Porter Collins: "They're bragging."

Michael Burry: "I met my wife through Match.com. My profile said, "I am a medical student with only one eye, an awkward social manner, and $145,000 in student loans." She wrote back, "You're just what I've been looking for." She meant "honest", so let me be honest. Making money is not like what I thought it would be. This business kills the part of life that is essential, the part that has nothing to do with business. For the past two years, my insides have felt like they've been eating themselves. All the people that I respected won't talk to me anymore, except through lawyers. People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it feels authoritative and familiar. And I am not, nor ever have been, "familiar." So...so I have come to the sullen realization that I must close down the fund. Sincerely, Michael J. Burry, M.D." [Final letter to his investors]

Mark Baum: "They knew. They knew the taxpayers would bail them out. They weren't being stupid, they just didn't care."

Rabbi: "Paul is a fine boy, and Mark is an excellent student of the Torah and the Talmud."
Mark Baum's Mom: "Then what's the problem, rabbi?"
Rabbi: "It's the reason Mark is studying so hard. He's looking for inconsistencies in the word of God!"
Mark Baum's Mom: "So has he found any?"

Why I Wanted to Share The Big Short

I wanted to share this film for three main reasons.

I have come to absolutely LOVE this format of making great movies, with great actors, that are just dramatizations of real-life events. I love documentaries, but for many people they are inaccessible, and even for those who enjoy them, I feel like this style of film is still more enjoyable, and you can learn just as much. Plus, what are the odds of a documentary about a topic like this getting anywhere near the same amount of reach in the mainstream.
Not only does this film shine light on an event that affected everyone in the US, but it is also just one example of a system, a whole structure, a way of being that has existed for some time, and which many people don't understand the extent of.
This movie is absolutely hilarious, well-acted, well-written, and just an all-around great movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I can't recommend it highly enough.