Boom!

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2017)

A truly great film about the corruption in the financial sector. I enjoyed every minute of it and also it was very close to home. I used to set these things up on back office trading systems after they were dealt.
I began to notice that we were moving away from ordinary bonds to MBA's - (Mortgage Back Assets) and after a while we moved onto CDO's (Collateral Debt Obligations).
What I could never understand - but personally found reassuring - was why the always had such high ratings. I didn't want my bank to take any undue risks and go bust because my job depended on it.
In around 2006 I read the 'Economist' and there was a mention about these subprime mortgages. I felt uneasy so I sent them a mail asking why mortgage backed bonds in general had such good ratings... No reply.
Anyway I lost my job with them around July 2006 when my job went out to India as I was told they needed to cut costs (It later transpired that the cost of providing two direct connections between the trading floor and the Indian back office cost more than keeping the team in London). However I was treated fairly and got a decent redundancy package and soon found a new job.
2008 - kerpow! my ex employer took a huge hit and a year later had to transfer Euro 85bn of problem assets off its balance sheet. It now no longer exists - a once proud bank. Total losses (so far) which had to be covered 23 billion dollars.
Numerous trading scandals were unearthed and a new scandal is just being investigated. With hindsight I'm glad I lost my job to get out of the mayhem - but 1000's of jobs were lost in London and Germany due to high level incompetence.
There's another crash on the way as Donald is just stirring things up nicely.