Post date: Sep 14, 2010 10:37:24 PM
Two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the documentary "Inside Job" gives viewers a look back at what happened.
USA-COMPANY - "Share prices continue to tumble, Lehman brothers was forced to declare itself bankrupt, the largest single point drop.."
Two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a new documentary "Inside Job" focuses on the government's decision to let Lehman fail despite rescuing other institutions- and the economic unraveling that it came to symbolize.
Writer, producer and director Charles Ferguson.
CHARLES FERGUSON, WRITER, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR, "INSIDE JOB" SAYING:
"The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the culmination of something that had been going on for quite some time and essentially people in the financial system were making so much money that they didn't care and or didn't know and or didn't notice that what they were doing was going to, you know, put the entire financial system, the entire economy at risk."
It's a down to earth look at what exactly happened in Ferguson's view- giving a play-by-play look behind the scenes of a global crisis.
Ferguson says what he discovered was at times shocking.
CHARLES FERGUSON, WRITER, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR, "INSIDE JOB" SAYING:
When I asked Christine Lagarde, the finance minister of France for example when and how she learned of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers I assumed that she was going to tell me well I got a call about it a day or two before. What she said instead was that she read about it in the newspaper that no body had told her that Lehman was going to be forced into bankruptcy and that unfortunately is about the level of effectiveness and coordination of US government policy at the time."
But there is optimism that lessons have been learned:
Professor Lawrence White of the Stern School of Business at New York University:
PROFESSOR LAWRENCE J. WHITE, STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SAYING:
"We saw just the destructive consequences of huge financial companies trying to go about their business with tiny little slivers of capital. 33-1 ratios for a trillion dollar company like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch. We are never going to see that again. We are going to insist and we are insisting on higher levels of capital, greater supervision, more liquidity."
Global bank regulators hope to prevent another Lehman type debacle with new regulations to prevent financial institutions from threatening economic stability in the future.
Bobbi Rebell, Reuters