bluemele 

I believe he had to sell all his GS stock when he became Treasury Secretary. Tax free....

Yeah the movie mentioned that, something about a special law passed to make it tax free... nice.

Mike

bluemele 

I believe he had to sell all his GS stock when he became Treasury Secretary. Tax free....

Had no idea he didn't have to pay taxes on the GS money - unbe-fucking-lievable!

Bill Hurt's acting reminded me of Dick Cheney. And they are similar in some ways - ran things ruthlessly and changed the rules with huge balls, were good at football, nature lovers.

couple of things...

I thought the movie was good, but I thought it didn't take on the tough/controversial issues enough. It tried to be informative, without judgement or trying not to offend anyone....with the exception of the portrayal of Fuld.

1) There's a segment in the movie that tries it's best to describe the "play by play" of the housing credit speculation bubble. I thought it TOTALLY glossed over the involvement of Freddie and Fannie and the government's involvement. Essentially, it made the corporate crooks out to be the evil masterminds of the whole ordeal......which was true, but unfortunately, the reality was the Fannie and Freddie were the largest holders of these toxic "subprime" mortgages which was the underpinning element to the whole collapse.

2) As stated above, I thought it went a long way to make Paulsen look like a hero, when in reality, he was just a government employed crook.

3) The movie does a good job of foreshadowing the eventual failure in the bailout in that the banks never did what the government really wanted them to do with the money.........and I think it's left up to the viewer to come to their own conclusions about the success/failure of the bailouts. The movie doesn't address some of the other limitations of government intervention, like unanticipated challenges (regulators always discover that there's some issue they didn't think about....like corporate bonuses, etc).

4) The movie doesn't address at all, the fact that the government later created HAMP, but only for people who's loans were backed by Fannie and Freddie...and only for people who made less than a certain amount.....so if you're a guy who makes $70k a year living in mid-Missouri and bought a $200k house with an FHA loan, you have options. If you're a guy who lives in San Francisco and makes $150k a year and bought a $400k shoebox in what would be considered an otherwise "prime" mortgage NOT through FHA....chances are....you're screwed. You can't even do what's called a "short" refinance.

the bottom line is that the bailouts only bailed out wall street. The rest of America never got much at all for their money.

The government would have LITERALLY been better off buying up toxic assets and transferring them to section 8 housing.

I remember reading last year or two years ago that Bank Of America had received like 150,000 HAMP applications, and only approved 13. Thirteen.

HAMP is just another joke, the bottom line is if the Bank doesn't make more profit via HAMP, they won't approve you. I had a friend go through this process, he spent over a year perpetually filling out hamp applications with his lender, every phone call he was lied to just to get him off the phone. It's enough to make a sane person want to blow up a bank.

Mike

Big Mike 

I remember reading last year or two years ago that Bank Of America had received like 150,000 HAMP applications, and only approved 13. Thirteen. HAMP is just another joke, the bottom line is if the Bank doesn't make more profit via HAMP, they won't approve you. I had a friend go through this process, he spent over a year perpetually filling out hamp applications with his lender, every phone call he was lied to just to get him off the phone. It's enough to make a sane person want to blow up a bank. Mike

In 2009, I was laid off from my job. I went without work for 5 months. I got 3 months behind on my mortgage. Upon regaining employment (I was one of 800 applicants for my job), all I wanted was to reissue the mortgage and push what I owed to the back end. Not a reduction in principal, not a reduction in payments, no alteration to the interest rates (which had fallen by then).....I simply wanted the same payment, just push what I owed to the back.

I explored HAMP and found out that I wasn't eligible because my mortgage wasn't backed by Fannie or Freddie (and even if I did, I made too much money).

I then tried to apply through Wells Fargo's voluntary program. At first, I was LITERALLY told "we can't even talk to you until you're 6 months behind." So I LITERALLY had to skip 3 more payments in order to even apply.... I applied 11 times. 11 times. Every time I would apply, I'd call and call, only to be shuffled around and then discover after a month went by that my paperwork had sat on someone's desk and was 30 days old and therefore, out of date.

After going through this for over a year, the bank finally processed my request and denied me, even though I'd been making all the payments up to the point of my layoff, and after I found a new job.

If that wasn't bad enough, I watched as homebuilders built NEW homes in my neighborhood because most homebuyers avoided short sales like the plague. Short sales require you to put up earnest money that's tied up for upward of 90 days while the bank processes it, only to find out the bank says no. So here were/are all these short sales that sat vacant, while people bought brand new houses. Sickening.

It's beyond the notion that the banks are too incompetent or bureacratic to clear these distressed properties off their books....it's ALMOST like they intentionally try to delay or impede the process.

RM99 

In 2009, I was laid off from my job. I went without work for 5 months. I got 3 months behind on my mortgage. Upon regaining employment (I was one of 800 applicants for my job), all I wanted was to reissue the mortgage and push what I owed to the back end. Not a reduction in principal, not a reduction in payments, no alteration to the interest rates (which had fallen by then).....I simply wanted the same payment, just push what I owed to the back. I explored HAMP and found out that I wasn't eligible because my mortgage wasn't backed by Fannie or Freddie (and even if I did, I made too much money). I then tried to apply through Wells Fargo's voluntary program. At first, I was LITERALLY told "we can't even talk to you until you're 6 months behind." So I LITERALLY had to skip 3 more payments in order to even apply.... I applied 11 times. 11 times. Every time I would apply, I'd call and call, only to be shuffled around and then discover after a month went by that my paperwork had sat on someone's desk and was 30 days old and therefore, out of date. After going through this for over a year, the bank finally processed my request and denied me, even though I'd been making all the payments up to the point of my layoff, and after I found a new job. If that wasn't bad enough, I watched as homebuilders built NEW homes in my neighborhood because most homebuyers avoided short sales like the plague. Short sales require you to put up earnest money that's tied up for upward of 90 days while the bank processes it, only to find out the bank says no. So here were/are all these short sales that sat vacant, while people bought brand new houses. Sickening. It's beyond the notion that the banks are too incompetent or bureacratic to clear these distressed properties off their books....it's ALMOST like they intentionally try to delay or impede the process.

I disagree with you on that. It was not the banks job to do this and was enacted by congress which caused significant distress upon the workflow at these organizations. I think the banks had 2 choices, hire a bunch of unqualified or laid off mortgage brokers to handle this temporarily, or just let it string out.

I think being the libertarian type that you could appreciate having the government tell you what to do and not abiding by it in the fullest intent.

In my opinion, these laws shouldn't have even been enacted and it is up to the banks how they want to deal with it. Now, of course, we are the idiots who bought most of these mortgages, so it is our own doing by eating our own spoiled supper.

I applied as well for my rental properties that I owned. They laughed at me...

My friend did it and she got it instantly! So, different strokes for different folks...

just watched it. Allstar cast and good movie

Bermudan Option 

just watched it. Allstar cast and good movie

Just wondering, what if the cast characters in the movie...you know, the ones that should be under investigation, but made out like BANDITS paid the producer to make this movie? Just wondering out loud...hmm.