The Big Short Movie Essay

Americans living our time period today, 2010 have a lot of the same similarities as the Americans living in the period of 1934. One of the main similarities is the amount of spending. During 1934 Americans loved to buy things just like Americans due during this time today. Americans in 2010 are said to spend almost three times more then the people that lived five years ago, similar to the people who were a major cause of the Great Depression. Recently last March America faced another Stock Market crash; this one was not at all as severe as the one at the time of the Great Depression. This crash did in fact really hurt families all over our nation though similar to the Great Depression. Families are getting wrenched out of their homes because they cannot pay the bills. Businesses are having to fire an immense portion of there staff because the business cannot afford to pay that may employees. Just like the time of the Great

During 1997-2006, house prices rose 85 percent. This led to an irresponsible consumer spending spree. Millions of people bought a house that they could not afford. Government regulatory agencies and mortgage lenders became less strict with credit restrictions so that people could buy homes without making any down payment. In 2007, however, the home values and sales began to decline. Due to the loss of trillions of dollars in home value, a record number of borrowers defaulted on their mortgage payments. America was put into a recession in 2008 because of the contraction of corporate spending and consumer purchased. The prices of consumer goods spiked, while employment declined. On October 3, 2008, former President Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program; however, the bill did not restore the economy as a whole. By June 2009, America's economic recovery was at its weakest since the end of the Second World War. I chose this event in history because it had a major effect on America’s economy and changed the course of history. Historians need to study the Great Recession because America should learn from their mistakes. The Great Recession was due to different factors; however, if the regulations on credit restrictions were not tampered with, then the severity of the recession could have been

The world has encountered two major economic slumps since World War I. The Great Depression was the longest financial crisis witnessed by the modern world. It started at around October 29th, 1929 and lasted up to the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 (Temin 301). The great depression was by far the worst and longest economic crisis ever recorded in modern history, until towards the end of 2007. The next economic crisis that would be comparable to the Great Depression occurred in the late 2000s, precisely between December 2007 and June 2009 (Roberts 1). It would be popularly referred to as the Great Recession. The Great Depression and the Great Recession were undoubtedly similar in multiple ways. This paper aims at comparing these two great economic crises by highlighting their similarities. This paper answers the question ‘How similar were the failures of the financial markets during the great depression

In 1929 the Stock Market crashed was said to have “ushered in” the Great Depression. After Wall Street and the Stock Market crash of 1929, the banks began to fail. By 1933 over half of the banks in the United States had failed and went out of business. The economy came to a full stop as businesses could no longer access credit lines to purchase inventory, checks were no longer accepted as currency due to the multitude of failing financial institutions which led to an unemployment rate reported to be as much as 30 percent of the available workforce. (“First measured century: Timeline,” n.d.)

First, I want to give you a little background on the Financial Crisis of 2008/2009. The Financial Crisis began in December of 2007, and by the fall of 2008 the economy was in a huge downfall. This all began in August of 2007 because of defaults in the subprime mortgage market, which sent a shudder through the financial markets. The former chairman of the Federal Reserve described the crisis of 2008/2009 as a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami”. Many firms, including commercial banks, Wall Street firms, investment banks, all suffered significant losses and eventually went bankrupt. This caused households and smaller businesses to have to pay higher rates on the money that they borrowed. This downfall wasn’t just

The Great Depression and the Great Recession were two financial crises that ruined the economy for a great number of people. Not only was the U.S. significantly impacted, but the world was affected as well. Although many years set them apart, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Barack Obama both responded to dire situations in a similar manner by implementing acts that prompted government involvement, created jobs for the unemployed, and promoted pump priming.

The recession of 2008 is also called the ‘Great Recession’, said to have begun in December 2007, and took a turn for the worse in September 2008, and it was a severe economic problem expanded globally. This recession affected the world economy, and is said to have been the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. The decline in the Dow Jones this time was -53.8%. Since the official start of the recession in December 2007, and through June 2010 there have been about 2.3 million homes foreclosed in the United States. In 2012, the state with the most foreclosures in January alone was California, with 51,584 houses being repossessed. Unemployment during this collapse was 8.5%, and continued to increase to about 10% as of 2010. People’s reaction to this recession was a huge decrease in spending and borrowing from banks, but an increase in saving.

In the film “Capitalism Hits the Fan” economist Richard Wolf explains the historical framework of the economic crisis as a crisis of overproduction. Wolff states the Crisis of 2008 was caused by overproduction and stagnant wages that spurred a series of booms and bust that are not temporary.

All the economy’s parts seem to be working together for a change: joblessness is under 5% - a 24 year low – yet inflation is holding steady at 3%, a combination that economists thought impossible” (Pooley). This article placed the economy in very favorable position, but the economy collapsed back in 2008 when Wall Street folded. In a video published by Johnathan Jarvis titled “The Cause and Effects of the 2008 Financial Crisis,” the video explains how the economy went from being healthy and vibrant, to desperate and helpless because investors were creating mortgages with people who were not financially stable, and those mortgagors were more than likely struggling to pay their debts prior to attaining a sub-prime mortgage loan. When these sub-prime mortgages defaulted, the house was reposed by the mortgagee and put on the market to sell. When the house went up for sale because of the default, the

The Great Recession and the Great Depression are the fallout of the exact same economic problems and are only different in a few respects. Each period is marked by a massive run ups in asset prices followed by a crash in the stock market and sent both debt and equity markets down. These periods are said to be the worse economic downturn in the country’s history. During the great depression, as banks failed and threatened to shut down the financial system altogether, President Franklin Roosevelt moved quickly and effectively to address the most dangerous financial crisis of the Great depression. The massive stock market collapse that began in October 1929 erased massive amounts of wealth and because many banks had invested heavily in the markets, and had lent recklessly to speculative investors, the banks found themselves without sufficient capital and in many cases without reserves. He created the New Deal which responded to an unemployment rate that had reached 25 percent, and in some cities as much as 75 percent. He signed the Emergency Banking Act, which allowed inspectors to evaluate troubled banks and decide whether or not they could reopen. The Glass-Steagall Act created a barrier between commercial and investment banking and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guaranteed that citizens would not lose their bank deposits even if a bank failed.

The novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ was written by John Steinbeck in the 1930, it tells a story of what life was like during the Great Depression. Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman addresses loss of identity and a man's inability to accept change within himself and society, due to the fact, of the Wall Street Crash. When the Wall Street stock market crashed in 1929, the world economy was plunged into the great depression. The Great Depression was the deepest economic depression in its history. Wall Street was in a panic because 10 millions of dollars were wiped out within an hour; out of 2500 banks only 1000 of them were shut down.

George Santayana, a Spanish poet and philosopher said, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." This quote applies to the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008. There are many similarities between the two, like the causes, the actual events, and the aftermaths. Several factors led to the Great Depression, which were the following: overproduction by business and agriculture, unequal distribution of wealth, Americans buying less, and finally, the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Recession also had similar factors leading to it, like the housing “bubble” burst and less consumer spending. In both events, the Presidents enacted programs that they believed would help the American people.

The Big Short is a movie that discusses the housing market crash in 2008. As you may know, the banks, the mortgage brokers, and the consumers were all affected by this collapse. On each level of the system, there were things that went wrong and that could have been changed that could have prevented the failure of the housing market.

Set in South Boston, Good Will Hunting is about Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a young man who immerses himself in books, drinking and friends to escape his anger and frustration stemming largely from his past experiences with abusive foster families. Will and his best friend, Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck), hang out together with their small group of friends in impoverished areas of Boston, drinking and occasionally fighting down in Southie. Will works menial jobs, hiding his incredible genius (such as a talent for memorizing facts and an intuitive ability to solve complex math equations).

In America there have been great economic struggles and triumphs. The many great leaders of this country have foraged, failed, and overcome some very difficult times. Comparing the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008 has revealed similarities that by learning from our mistakes in 1929 could have prevented the latest recession. I will discuss the causes of the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and what policies were implemented to reverse the economic downfalls.