“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.” & Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004, 40th President of the United States from 1981-89
No Time for Complacency
The Oscar-nominated film “The Big Short” (2015), based on Michael Lewis’ best-selling book of the same
name tells the story of the events leading up to the global financial crisis of 2008 through four investors who predict the U.S. housing market crash and find ways to profit from it.
In one scene, Jared Vennett, a contemptuous Deutsche Bank bond trader, shows a room full of investment bankers how close the housing market is to collapsing. Using a tower of wooden Jenga blocks to create a visual analogy, he explains how mortgage bonds were made up of tranches, with the highest-rated and most secure loans stacked on top of the lower-rated ‘subprime’ ones.
