Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Big Short

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    The Big Short

    Well, that was great fun to watch, with lots of very nice acting.

    Basically, it was a refresher course on a conversation I had about CDOs and CDSs in a pub with Ginger Yellow in 2008, but with Christian Bale, Selena Gomez and Anthony Bourdain and a plot.

    A very entertaining insight into the causes behind the market crash.

    But - I didn't notice as I watched, but my wife pointed it out to me - it's a little disturbing that almost all the women come across as pathetic or weak, even the supposedly hardnosed boss at Morgan Stanley has to be bit soft and mumsy. And all the math-dudes, the quants, are Chinese or Indian. There's quite a lot of stereotyping at play. It might reflect reality, but once it's pointed out it's a little disconcerting.

    Not that this should stop you going to see it. It's by far the most fun you'll have understanding credit default swaps (with apologies to GY).

    #2
    The Big Short

    I read the book a couple of times, which was excellent, so I'm looking forward to catching up with this.

    To be honest, I don't remember any female characters in the book.

    Comment


      #3
      The Big Short

      -

      Comment


        #4
        The Big Short

        I enjoyed it, though it isn't a patch on Margin Call or 99 Homes. Obviously most of the characters are pretty horrible which makes it difficult to like them, but i'm surprised it's Bale and not Carell that is nominated. I thought Gosling was very good too.

        Wasn't the Margot Robbie cameo a reference to her role in Wolf of Wall Street? Women were portrayed a lot worse in that movie than The Big Short.

        Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Rafe Spall in it too.

        Comment


          #5
          The Big Short

          Repeating my query on the duplicate thread, if the source material is solely made up of male protagonists, is a screenwriter duty bound to invent some female ones? Or to rewrite some male characters as women?

          Now I haven't seen the film, but it seems that the female characters are mostly of the Basil Exposition variety.

          Comment


            #6
            The Big Short

            Marisa Tomei is in it playing Carell's wife, but it's a very small part sadly. Not that she's terribly important to the story of corruption and greed.

            I hear it won Best Picture at the PGA Awards, and now is favourite to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

            Comment


              #7
              The Big Short

              Stumpy Pepys wrote: Repeating my query on the duplicate thread, if the source material is solely made up of male protagonists, is a screenwriter duty bound to invent some female ones? Or to rewrite some male characters as women.
              As I said, I have no problem with them portraying Wall Street as a male dominated place.

              This is why I am specifically referring to the fourth wall scenes, where they chose random celebrities to explain economics in cameo scenes entirely detached from the plot of the film. The famous men (chef, professor) are chosen on the basis of their achievements. The famous women (model, pop star) are chosen the basis of being pretty. It's pretty lazy. They could have found a female professor in economics if they had bothered. They had a chance to let real world smart women critique the dumbass male world that the film is portraying and they blew it.

              Comment


                #8
                The Big Short

                To be fair, high profile economics academia is a pretty male dominated community as well. I'm struggling to think of a particularly famous female economist other than Yellen. So is Google.

                Comment


                  #9
                  The Big Short

                  It didn't have to be an economist. Anthony Bourdain also has a cameo role, using leftover food to explain repackaging of bad debt. He wasn't selected on the basis of his looks, but on the basis of being a chef.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The Big Short

                    I'm not defending the film in general. I haven't even seen it. I'm just saying they probably couldn't find a female economics professor anyone who's not nerdy about that sort of thing had heard of (I'm assuming Yellen would have declined if asked).

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The Big Short

                      antoine polus wrote: The famous men (chef, professor) are chosen on the basis of their achievements. The famous women (model, pop star) are chosen the basis of being pretty. It's pretty lazy.
                      OK, fair point.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        The Big Short

                        This was quite good. I had mixed feelings about how the celebrity cameos were handled, but I think they were necessary to help 98% of the audience sort out what was happening. Carrell was, indeed, excellent again. There really isn't much he can't do.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          The Big Short

                          Managed to catch this over two flights this week. I thought it was great. This may be Carrell's best overall performance in a feature. A lot of the minor roles were really well cast and performed. (Major respect to the guy at the asian restaurant playing the massive CDO douchebag. Edit: Byron Mann, who has had a long interesting career, but will probably not make as huge an impression as here.)

                          It was actually a brilliant choice for Adam McKay to do this.

                          The cameos didn't really bother me (partially because I knew they were coming from this thread), but according to imdb the original script had planned for Jay-Z and Beyonce for the casino scene, which would certainly been different.

                          Margot Robbie was second choice as well (according to imdb), but more appropriate (probably) considering Wolf of Wall Street.

                          Started, but did not finish Spotlight, so will refrain from comparing the two until I do.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            The Big Short

                            Currently about to finish the book. I can't follow all of it because its hard to keep track of who is on which side of which bet and so forth, but having seen the film, I sort of get the gist.

                            At the end of the day, it was fraud all the way down. Some say "well, there really aren't any laws we could prosecute..." Yeah, well, then that's the fucking problem.

                            I'm particularly concerned about the ratings agencies. First of all, what kind of shitty system is just based on letter codes? BB, AAA, what the fuck? I'm crap at math and all that but I am a big believer in specificity. Why can't it have an actual number attached to it? Like the exact odds it will fail based on something at least resembling a scientific model. Nobody would bet on horses or football based on a letter rating and yet we bet the whole economy on these things? (well, nobody should be betting on horses, really, because the industry is cruel to animals, but that's a separate point).

                            A friend of mine worked for Moody's doing municipal bonds for a while, but that was his first job at age 23.* As the book points out, its insane that the ratings agency jobs are relatively low-paid and seen as either easy or entry level. Their opinion matters the most. It's like if the least experience lawyers worked on appeals courts.

                            It makes me think. I could have made a lot more money in my life. I could be a lot more secure. Should I have done that? This story helps me feel better about my decisions, I suppose.

                            Among other things, I could have been an analyst. A guy I quote in my articles a lot basically offered me a job about 10 years ago. But then I'd have to live in New York and wear a tie and care about a whole lot of shit that I absolutely do not care about and even though the analysts I talk to (the guys that follow the medical device companies) do know a lot about what's going on, I still don't really understand what their function is - especially when they hardly ever put a SELL rating on anything.

                            Adam McKay has said he deliberately made it all male and white, because that's what Wall Street mostly is, that's who is mostly responsible for the disaster, and white maleness kinda dominates the whole culture.

                            There is a woman mentioned in the forward of the book as being an early prognosticator of the collapse, but she simply doesn't figure into the rest of the story. Not sure why not. Maybe she wouldn't give an interview or maybe she just wasn't really involved in an interesting way. If she had, she would have been in the movie.

                            The cameos, especially Margot Robbie, were so ridiculous that seemed to be mocking straight men - "You're probably getting bored so here's a beautiful naked woman to get you to pay attention." I really like her, though. Look forward to her in Suicide Squad.

                            Anthony Bourdain was there because he's probably America's most famous chef (or ex-chef), the metaphor about three day old fish was appropriate, and he's kind of a dick. Or comes off that way, at least.

                            Whatserface at the casino was an odd choice. Perhaps her agent made some kind of deal because she's promoting an album. Yeah, she's pretty, but not that well known to anyone over 25. For that scene, somebody more directly linked to gambling or sports would have been good - maybe Pete Rose.

                            The minor roles are great. The guy playing the CDO Douchebag was great. In the book, he comes off more as stupid than as a con-man. But, as it's explained in the book, he's really more of a front man for Merrill Lynch, BIH.

                            And the two guys who play the Florida mortgage guys were perfect for that. The one guy, I forget his name, is very good on New Girl and the other guy always plays that sort of douche.

                            * Then after a while, everyone realized there's not much point in rating municipal bonds like that because the default rate is really low. So now he does some kind of consulting or somesuch related to those bonds that I don't understand. He's like the poorest man in Weston, CT, which means he's the richest guy I know.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              The Big Short

                              I'm particularly concerned about the ratings agencies. First of all, what kind of shitty system is just based on letter codes? BB, AAA, what the fuck? I'm crap at math and all that but I am a big believer in specificity. Why can't it have an actual number attached to it? Like the exact odds it will fail based on something at least resembling a scientific model.
                              They do, mostly. What they actually mean varies a bit from agency to agency (eg Moody's is an expected loss measure where as S&P and Fitch are first dollar of loss measures), but they at least in theory correlate to observed probabilities of default numbers. For instance:


                              Of course, especially around things like structured finance instruments in new asset classes, sovereigns and banks, there are all sorts of qualitative overlays and assumptions that call into question the "science" of the model, but then again the model is not exactly reliable anyway.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                The Big Short

                                There also need to be bands. Any additional precision would be even more chimerical than the current ratings.

                                And the different terminologies serve to identify which agency assigned the rating.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  The Big Short

                                  Among other things, I could have been an analyst. A guy I quote in my articles a lot basically offered me a job about 10 years ago. But then I'd have to live in New York and wear a tie and care about a whole lot of shit that I absolutely do not care about and even though the analysts I talk to (the guys that follow the medical device companies) do know a lot about what's going on, I still don't really understand what their function is - especially when they hardly ever put a SELL rating on anything.
                                  On this point, Matt Levine had a good line the other week.

                                  Model 1

                                  Sell-side analysts are in the business of finding out what stocks will go up and then telling you.
                                  They tell you to Buy stocks that will go up, Hold stocks that will stay flat (why?), and Sell stocks that go down.
                                  You believe them, and do that.
                                  Sometimes they lie to you, but it is always a shock when they do.

                                  Model 2

                                  Sell-side analysts are in the business of helping institutional investors get access to corporate management teams.
                                  They flatter management teams by giving most companies good ratings, to maintain access.
                                  They help their clients, because investors who meet with management tend to outperform investors who don't.
                                  The clients aren't too worried about the Buy/Sell/Hold stuff.
                                  I more or less believe Model 2, though I recognize that it is imperfect and incomplete. But there is plenty of empirical evidence for it. Model 1, however, strikes me as obviously, a priori silly.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    The Big Short

                                    All of which goes to support the idea that trying to stock-pick is a mug's game. And - in an efficient market - if you're doing it consistently well, you're probably getting inside information from someone.

                                    Without the statistics on hand, something near 80% of actively managed funds trail their index in any given year. Over a five year period, that rises to 95%.

                                    The single best thing most investors can do - and most large, institutional investors do do - is buy a small, diversified portfolio of ETFs and hold them forever and ever. By doing nothing more than riding the market and saving the exorbitant fees, you'll beat the active crowd consistently over the long haul.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      The Big Short

                                      I'm skeptical on the ETF part, myself, though it's probably OK for shares.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        The Big Short

                                        Skeptical in what way?

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          The Big Short

                                          As in, in many asset classes, there are lots of questions about how well they replicate the underlying market both in terms of composition and liquidity mismatches.

                                          There are also larger policy questions about opening up inappropriate asset classes to retail investors, but that's a separate matter (and one for which the ship has long since sailed in the US).

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            The Big Short

                                            Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I mean, if you're an index purist, there are probably (and I'm not joking) a grand total of ten ETFs or index mutual funds that would do everything you reasonably need to do.

                                            But, of course, the industry doing what the industry does, they're continuously bringing (here it comes...) 'innovative new funds to meet investor demand'. I mean, the 'video game tech index'? Now you're basically just stock picking again, but with obscure sectors.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              The Big Short

                                              All my money, such as it is, is in a 401(k), a mutual fund, and my house.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                The Big Short

                                                Nothing wrong with any of those.

                                                Comment

                                                Working...
                                                X