People Always Pay Their Mortgages

Rating: 7/10 (16 March 2016)

The Big Short is a good if not entirely successful attempt to explain the economic collapse of the housing market. Banks lend money to people for mortgages, issue bonds based on the money that gets paid like clock work from hard working people who pay their mortgages to own their own home. I remember in the late 80s my mom paid off the final installment on a house my parents bought in 1955.
But my parents weren't deadbeats and banks started getting looser and looser with easy credit. They began issuing what was called sub prime loans which is below the interest market rate. Those did go more and more to deadbeats and there's one great scene where a well proportioned woman tells us exactly what sub prime is and to run whenever you hear the words mentioned.
Several people in the brokerage and the banking businesses got a scent of what was to happen to the various brokerage houses and the investment portfolios that had those bonds. People lost billions and that is no exaggeration. Like in the Stock Market crash of 1929 people saw that coming and sold out as well. A few got rich and even richer like Joseph P. Kennedy then. Most went bust.
Some of the people who got the bad odor from the banks were people played by folks like Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, and Brad Pitt who was in the investing game and has an interesting role as one who is now living a modified hippie lifestyle. Magaro and Wittrock have their own small brokerage firm and Pitt gives them some sage advice.
I liked Carrell the best because he has the best scenes in the film, when he personally investigates who some of those mortgages have been issued to. His scene with the stripper is priceless.
It might help to have a business background, but The Big Short breaks it down for you as simply as possible. I might not have understood all the nuances, but I was entertained.