The Great Recession, which began in 2007-2008 with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and led to an international banking crisis, offers many lessons for compliance practitioners and enthusiasts alike. Many documentaries have been produced in the ensuing years to offer new insights on the crisis and its causes.
- American Casino and the origins of the subprime collapse – The filmmakers of American Casino started their work in 2008 with a theory that the housing market was in trouble. Over the year that they filmed, this idea took root in reality and unfolded before them. The 2009 documentary that resulted offers a vivid explanation of how the subprime mortgage market evolved and then fell apart. The stories of average Americans who held the mortgages that were underlying the bonds created by big investment firms humanize the origins of the crisis and help to ground the actions in the financial markets by connecting them to the many people that were affected.
- Inside Job and non-disclosure of conflicts of interest – This 2010 documentary reaches back into the international origins of the financial crisis, to begin with an look at the collapse of the Icelandic banking system. One of the movie’s principal assertions is that academics and scholars who are professors at many of the prominent educational institutions have conflicts of interest due to their financial ties to firms such as Goldman Sachs and other large market makers. The film’s argument suggests that these conflicts of interest are not subject to mandatory disclosure and so the economists express opinions about investments and financial systems which cannot be transparently evaluated.
- Capitalism: A Love Story and the dangers of deregulatory trends – Michael Moore’s 2009 documentary takes a wide view on general contemporary economic conditions in the United States, ethically questionable practices of major corporations, and the status of the American worker in modern capitalism. Germane to the subject of the 2008 global financial crisis, Moore takes a look at the lending practices of Countrywide, one of the main players in the subprime lending practices that led to the market collapse and ensuing crisis. Countrywide operated in an generation of regulatory relaxation, leading to unduly risky practices of giving loans to people who could not reasonably afford them as well as giving discounts and special deals to politicians and regulators in hopes of keeping the good times rolling.
- The Flaw and the evolving state of modern American capitalism – A good companion movie to Capitalism: A Love Story, this 2011 documentary focuses on explaining how the consumer society in the United States has a symbiotic relationship with the markets, at the expense of the American citizen whose main value in society becomes determined by spending power. In this dynamic, the rich get richer while the poor stay poor and the middle class drifts ever downward, with interventions such as the easier extension of lending in the pre-2008 years only seem to present a possibility for upward mobility for them, but rather just create financial crises where they bear the brunt of the losses.
- Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve and the cyclicality of major financial crises – The ebb and flow of regulatory pressures in the United States are enabled by the lack of understanding most Americans have about what the Federal Reserve System is and how its policies impact the economy and the markets. This 2013 documentary suggests that these policies had a major role in the 2008 financial crisis and will continue to contribute to the creation of bubbles that culminate in future crises. The firm suggests that awareness of the public and citizens’ engagement in activism for more accountability and greater transparency by the Federal Reserve System are critical for protecting society from ever-greater financial crisis in the future.
These are just a few examples of documentaries which can provide an informative and compelling view into the events of the 2008 global financial crisis. For years to come there will surely be many more such documentaries to add further insights to the historical record on the Great Recession.