Optimism and hope were to have been this missive’s themes, but unfortunately I watched Margin Call, and then read The Sydney Morning Herald (see above) and InvestorDaily’s news on CommSec’s fine.
If you watch one film only about the global financial crisis (GFC), then it may well have to be JC Chandor’s debut triumph Margin Call.
While not based on any one Wall Street firm, the over-leveraged, mortgage-backed securities scenario would be familiar to anyone who followed the demise of groups such as Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.
In the film, senior risk analyst Dr Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) – who has a doctorate in rocket science – is the bright young late-20s thing who exposes the firm’s imminent financial demise if the over-levered MBSs are not dumped on a mostly unsuspecting market that day.
In the film’s dénouement, investment floor head Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) confronts chief executive John Tuld (Jeremy Irons) with his resignation. The sartorially splendid Tuld calms Rogers’ conscience, saying – effectively – things were ever thus.
Rogers’ attack of conscience about the thousands of lives that have just been trashed is allayed – and bought off – by the promise of a fortune to be made in the next two years as the financial train wreck smashes on.
In the penultimate scene, Rogers sees head of investment Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) talking with Sullivan about his promotion, despite Sullivan’s reservation about what the firm has just done to people’s lives.
Sickeningly, the viewer knows that the cycle has begun … again.
I would love to be upbeat about the much-touted radical changes that FOFA et al will usher in, but in all honesty, I can’t.
The John Tulds and the Jared Cohens and the Peter Sullivans will find a way around any legal definition of the clients’ best interest and of conflicted remuneration.
To re-phrase James Carville’s 1992 campaign for Bill Clinton – “It’s the trust, stupid.” That’s one of the saddest and most intangible losses in the GFC, and I’m at a loss to see how any society can legislate on what is essentially the best internal regulator, conscience.
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