Too Big to Fail (2011)

Actors: Jon Stewart (actor), Ronald Reagan (actor), Bill Pullman (actor), Michael O'Keefe (actor), Billy Crudup (actor), Tony Shalhoub (actor), John Heard (actor), Matthew Modine (actor), William Hurt (actor), Paul Giamatti (actor), Edward Asner (actor), Dan Hedaya (actor), Bill Clinton (actor), Patrick Michael Strange (actor), Patrick Michael Strange (actor),

Plot: A close look behind the scenes, between late March and mid-October, 2008: we follow Richard Fuld's benighted attempt to save Lehman Brothers; conversations among Hank Paulson (the Secretary of the Treasury), Ben Bernanke (chair of the Federal Reserve), and Tim Geithner (president of the New York Fed) as they seek a private solution for Lehman's; and, back-channel negotiations among Paulson, Warren Buffet, investment bankers, a British regulator, and members of Congress as almost all work to save the U.S. economy. By the end, with the no-strings bailout arranged, modest confidence restored on Wall Street, and a meltdown averted, Paulson wonders if banks will lend.

Keywords: accountability, aide, aig, bailout, bank-fraud, bank-of-america, banker, bankruptcy, based-on-fact, bear-stearns
Genres: Drama, Drama,

Quotes:

Henry Paulson: [TIREDLY] The Fed can lend to non banks under unusual and exigent circumstances, we're thinking of taking over 80% of the company.::Jim Wilkinson: [INSISTENTLY] Hank we can't! This morning we were lecturing the entire country on moral hazard.::Henry Paulson: [INCREASINGLY ANGRILY] AIG has collateral, they have assets, Lehman didn't, we couldn't lend into a hole, its not the same story!::Jim Wilkinson: [PLEADINGLY] Nobody is going to care, its another bailout, with no legislation, the Hill is gonna go crazy, the country is gonna go crazy.::Henry Paulson: [ANGRILY LECTURING] The plane we flew in on this morning leased from AIG, construction downtown AIG, life insurance 81 million policies with a face value of $1.9 trillion. Billions of dollars in teachers' pensions. You want "too big to fail" here it is! You got a better idea -the suggestion box is wide open!

Mack's Assistant: Tim Geithner's calling again.::John Mack: Cover your ears. You tell Tim Geithner to fucking blow me. I'm trying to save my company.

Michele Davis: They almost bring down the US economy as we know but we can't put restrictions on how they spend the $125 billion we're giving them because... they might not take it! [the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs upon hearing that the 9 bank CEOs may refuse to take free money from the federal government if they had to be held accountable for how they spent it]

Richard Fuld: [on the phone with Neel Kashkari] Last February, we were at 66 a share. Lehman Brothers is *not* Bear Stearns. We have a great business. Real estate will come back. I am not *fucking* giving this company away!

Ben Bernanke: I spent my entire academic career studying the Great Depression. The depression may have started because of a stock market crash, but what hit the general economy was a disruption of credit. Average citizens unable to borrow money, to do anything. To buy a home, start a business, stock their shelves. Credit has the ability to build a modern economy, but lack of credit has the ability to destroy it, swiftly and absolutely. If we do not act, boldly and immediately, we will replay the depression of the 1930s, only this time it will be far, far worse. We don't do this now, we won't have an economy on Monday.

Ben Bernanke: I don't really understand why there needs to be so much tension about this. The country is facing the worst economy since the Great Depression. If the financial system collapses, it will take every one of you down.

Michele Davis: I hate to do this right now, but I'm going to have to have a press call first thing, and I don't know what I'm going to tell them.::Jim Wilkinson: Okay, here's how you explain it. Wall Street started bundling home loans together - mortgage-backed securities - and selling slices of those bundles to investors, and they were making big money. So they started pushing the lenders saying, come on, we need more loans.::Henry Paulson: The lenders had already given loans to borrowers with good credit, so they go bottom feeding, they lower their criteria.::Neel Kashkari: Before, you needed a credit score of 620 and a down payment of 20%; now they'll settle for 500, no money down.::Jim Wilkinson: And the buyer, the regular guy on the street assumes that the experts know what they're doing. He's saying to himself, if the bank's willing to loan me money, I must be able to afford it. So he reaches for the American Dream, he buys that house.::Neel Kashkari: The banks knew securities based on shitbag mortgages were risky...::Henry Paulson: - you'll work on 'shitbag'...::Neel Kashkari: - so to control their downside, the banks started buying a kind of insurance. If mortgages default, insurance company pays. Default swap. The banks insure their potential losses to move the risk off their books, so they can invest more, make more money.::Henry Paulson: And while a lot of companies insured their stuff, one was dumb enough to take on an almost unbelievable amount of risk.::Michele Davis: AIG.::Jim Wilkinson: And you'll work on 'dumb.'::Michele Davis: And when they ask me why they did that?::Jim Wilkinson: Fees!::Neel Kashkari: Hundreds of millions in fees.::Henry Paulson: AIG figures the housing market would just keep going up. But then the unexpected happens.::Jim Wilkinson: Housing prices go down.::Neel Kashkari: Poor bastard who bought his dream house? The teaser rate on his mortgage runs out, his payments go up, he defaults.::Henry Paulson: Mortgage-backed securities tank. AIG has to pay off the swaps. All of them. All over the world. At the same time.::Neel Kashkari: AIG can't pay. AIG goes under. Every bank they insure books massive losses on the same day. And then they all go under. It all comes down.::Michele Davis: [horrified] The *whole* financial system? And what do I say when they ask me why it wasn't regulated?::Henry Paulson: No one wanted to. We were making too much money.

Richard Fuld: [on the housing crisis] You know, people act like we're crack dealers. Nobody put a gun to anybody's head and said, "Hey, nimrod, buy a house you can't afford, and you know what? While you're at it, put a line of credit on that baby and buy yourself a boat."::Joe Gregory: [chuckles] You heard anything from Buffett?::Erin Callan: He's asking for preferred shares at 40, with a dividend of nine percent.::Richard Fuld: [annoyed] We were just at 66. What the fuck?::Joe Gregory: Maybe it's just an opening gambit, Dick.::Richard Fuld: Sounds more like a goddamn insult!::Erin Callan: Dick, we're at 36 right now. We haven't been anywhere near 66 in months. The markets like Buffett. His name will push the price up overnight.::Richard Fuld: You know, I don't care who he is. I am not spending $360 million a year for the pleasure of doing business with him. Real estate will come back.::Joe Gregory: Koreans have been sniffing around.::Richard Fuld: There you go. And they won't steal us blind. I've seen this before: CEOs panic and they sell out cheap. Right now, the Street's running around with its hair on fire, but the storm always passes. We stand strong, and on the other side, we'll eat Goldman's lunch.::Erin Callan: So what do we do about Buffett?::Richard Fuld: Screw Warren Buffett.

Ben Bernanke: [Having breakfast with Henry Paulson] Lehman's down another 10%.::Henry Paulson: You are not gonna let me get down a single bite, are you?::Ben Bernanke: This is why I have oatmeal.

Chris Flowers: Make sure Fuld's not keeping any bad news out of the mix.::Rodgin Cohen: It's "open kimono", to quote Dick.::Chris Flowers: There's a revolting image.

Too Big to Fail (2011)

Actors: Jon Stewart (actor), Ronald Reagan (actor), Bill Pullman (actor), Michael O'Keefe (actor), Billy Crudup (actor), Tony Shalhoub (actor), John Heard (actor), Matthew Modine (actor), William Hurt (actor), Paul Giamatti (actor), Edward Asner (actor), Dan Hedaya (actor), Bill Clinton (actor), Patrick Michael Strange (actor), Patrick Michael Strange (actor),

Plot: A close look behind the scenes, between late March and mid-October, 2008: we follow Richard Fuld's benighted attempt to save Lehman Brothers; conversations among Hank Paulson (the Secretary of the Treasury), Ben Bernanke (chair of the Federal Reserve), and Tim Geithner (president of the New York Fed) as they seek a private solution for Lehman's; and, back-channel negotiations among Paulson, Warren Buffet, investment bankers, a British regulator, and members of Congress as almost all work to save the U.S. economy. By the end, with the no-strings bailout arranged, modest confidence restored on Wall Street, and a meltdown averted, Paulson wonders if banks will lend.

Keywords: accountability, aide, aig, bailout, bank-fraud, bank-of-america, banker, bankruptcy, based-on-fact, bear-stearns
Genres: Drama, Drama,

Quotes:

Henry Paulson: [TIREDLY] The Fed can lend to non banks under unusual and exigent circumstances, we're thinking of taking over 80% of the company.::Jim Wilkinson: [INSISTENTLY] Hank we can't! This morning we were lecturing the entire country on moral hazard.::Henry Paulson: [INCREASINGLY ANGRILY] AIG has collateral, they have assets, Lehman didn't, we couldn't lend into a hole, its not the same story!::Jim Wilkinson: [PLEADINGLY] Nobody is going to care, its another bailout, with no legislation, the Hill is gonna go crazy, the country is gonna go crazy.::Henry Paulson: [ANGRILY LECTURING] The plane we flew in on this morning leased from AIG, construction downtown AIG, life insurance 81 million policies with a face value of $1.9 trillion. Billions of dollars in teachers' pensions. You want "too big to fail" here it is! You got a better idea -the suggestion box is wide open!

Mack's Assistant: Tim Geithner's calling again.::John Mack: Cover your ears. You tell Tim Geithner to fucking blow me. I'm trying to save my company.

Michele Davis: They almost bring down the US economy as we know but we can't put restrictions on how they spend the $125 billion we're giving them because... they might not take it! [the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs upon hearing that the 9 bank CEOs may refuse to take free money from the federal government if they had to be held accountable for how they spent it]

Richard Fuld: [on the phone with Neel Kashkari] Last February, we were at 66 a share. Lehman Brothers is *not* Bear Stearns. We have a great business. Real estate will come back. I am not *fucking* giving this company away!

Ben Bernanke: I spent my entire academic career studying the Great Depression. The depression may have started because of a stock market crash, but what hit the general economy was a disruption of credit. Average citizens unable to borrow money, to do anything. To buy a home, start a business, stock their shelves. Credit has the ability to build a modern economy, but lack of credit has the ability to destroy it, swiftly and absolutely. If we do not act, boldly and immediately, we will replay the depression of the 1930s, only this time it will be far, far worse. We don't do this now, we won't have an economy on Monday.

Ben Bernanke: I don't really understand why there needs to be so much tension about this. The country is facing the worst economy since the Great Depression. If the financial system collapses, it will take every one of you down.

Michele Davis: I hate to do this right now, but I'm going to have to have a press call first thing, and I don't know what I'm going to tell them.::Jim Wilkinson: Okay, here's how you explain it. Wall Street started bundling home loans together - mortgage-backed securities - and selling slices of those bundles to investors, and they were making big money. So they started pushing the lenders saying, come on, we need more loans.::Henry Paulson: The lenders had already given loans to borrowers with good credit, so they go bottom feeding, they lower their criteria.::Neel Kashkari: Before, you needed a credit score of 620 and a down payment of 20%; now they'll settle for 500, no money down.::Jim Wilkinson: And the buyer, the regular guy on the street assumes that the experts know what they're doing. He's saying to himself, if the bank's willing to loan me money, I must be able to afford it. So he reaches for the American Dream, he buys that house.::Neel Kashkari: The banks knew securities based on shitbag mortgages were risky...::Henry Paulson: - you'll work on 'shitbag'...::Neel Kashkari: - so to control their downside, the banks started buying a kind of insurance. If mortgages default, insurance company pays. Default swap. The banks insure their potential losses to move the risk off their books, so they can invest more, make more money.::Henry Paulson: And while a lot of companies insured their stuff, one was dumb enough to take on an almost unbelievable amount of risk.::Michele Davis: AIG.::Jim Wilkinson: And you'll work on 'dumb.'::Michele Davis: And when they ask me why they did that?::Jim Wilkinson: Fees!::Neel Kashkari: Hundreds of millions in fees.::Henry Paulson: AIG figures the housing market would just keep going up. But then the unexpected happens.::Jim Wilkinson: Housing prices go down.::Neel Kashkari: Poor bastard who bought his dream house? The teaser rate on his mortgage runs out, his payments go up, he defaults.::Henry Paulson: Mortgage-backed securities tank. AIG has to pay off the swaps. All of them. All over the world. At the same time.::Neel Kashkari: AIG can't pay. AIG goes under. Every bank they insure books massive losses on the same day. And then they all go under. It all comes down.::Michele Davis: [horrified] The *whole* financial system? And what do I say when they ask me why it wasn't regulated?::Henry Paulson: No one wanted to. We were making too much money.

Richard Fuld: [on the housing crisis] You know, people act like we're crack dealers. Nobody put a gun to anybody's head and said, "Hey, nimrod, buy a house you can't afford, and you know what? While you're at it, put a line of credit on that baby and buy yourself a boat."::Joe Gregory: [chuckles] You heard anything from Buffett?::Erin Callan: He's asking for preferred shares at 40, with a dividend of nine percent.::Richard Fuld: [annoyed] We were just at 66. What the fuck?::Joe Gregory: Maybe it's just an opening gambit, Dick.::Richard Fuld: Sounds more like a goddamn insult!::Erin Callan: Dick, we're at 36 right now. We haven't been anywhere near 66 in months. The markets like Buffett. His name will push the price up overnight.::Richard Fuld: You know, I don't care who he is. I am not spending $360 million a year for the pleasure of doing business with him. Real estate will come back.::Joe Gregory: Koreans have been sniffing around.::Richard Fuld: There you go. And they won't steal us blind. I've seen this before: CEOs panic and they sell out cheap. Right now, the Street's running around with its hair on fire, but the storm always passes. We stand strong, and on the other side, we'll eat Goldman's lunch.::Erin Callan: So what do we do about Buffett?::Richard Fuld: Screw Warren Buffett.

Ben Bernanke: [Having breakfast with Henry Paulson] Lehman's down another 10%.::Henry Paulson: You are not gonna let me get down a single bite, are you?::Ben Bernanke: This is why I have oatmeal.

Chris Flowers: Make sure Fuld's not keeping any bad news out of the mix.::Rodgin Cohen: It's "open kimono", to quote Dick.::Chris Flowers: There's a revolting image.

I Want Your Money (2010)

Actors: Bill Farmer (actor), Newt Gingrich (actor), Bill Farmer (actor), Cindy Robinson (actress), Jim Meskimen (actor), John Stossel (actor), Chris Cox (actor), Chris Cox (actor), Ed Meese (actor), Julia Denton (miscellaneous crew), Jane Edith Wilson (actress), Mike Huckabee (actor), Ray Griggs (writer), Ray Griggs (producer), Ray Griggs (director),

Plot: Two versions of the American dream now stand in sharp contrast. One views the money you earned as yours and best allocated by you; the other believes that an elite in Washington knows best how to allocate your wealth. One champions the traditional American dream, which has played out millions of times through generations of Americans, of improving one's lot in life and even daring to dream and build big. The other holds that there is no end to the "good" the government can do by taking and spending other peoples' money in an ever-burgeoning list of programs. The documentary film I Want Your Money exposes the high cost in lost freedom and in lost opportunity to support a Leviathan-like bureaucratic state.

Genres: Documentary,

Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash '08 (2008)

Actors: Fred Armisen (actor), Dan Aykroyd (actor), Dana Carvey (actor), Dana Carvey (actor), Chevy Chase (actor), Jimmy Fallon (actor), Will Ferrell (actor), Will Forte (actor), Rudolph W. Giuliani (actor), Al Gore (actor), Bill Hader (actor), Darrell Hammond (actor), Darrell Hammond (actor), Darrell Hammond (actor), Fred Armisen (actor),

Plot: Saturday Night Live celebrates the 2008 Presidential Election with a best of clip show featuring some of the best sketches about the election. Sketches include Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton talking about the presidential nomination Katie Couric interviewing Sarah Palin, Hillary Clintong talking about the nomination process, Bill Clinton giving a non-endorsement of Obama on Weekend Update, George W. Bush giving an endorsement to McCain and Palin, the 2008 vice presidential debate between Biden and Palin, the CNN Univision Democratic Debate 2008, the town hall debate between Obama and McCain, and a montage of best moments. The special also features political comedy from SNL's history including Carter giving drug advise, Ronal Reagan mastermind, Perot and Stockdale in a car, a Michael Dukakis advertisement with puppets, a debate between Bush and Dukakis, and a debate with Gerald Ford. John McCain and Sarah Palin also appear.

Keywords: sketch-comedy, u.s.-president
Genres: Comedy,