‘The groves of academe’, on the review:

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INSIDE JOB – REVIEW - 4/5 STARS

How did the financial crash of 2008 happen? This documentary, narrated by Matt Damon, does a good job of explaining a complex story of credit and discredit.

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This film is as gripping as any thriller. Aided by some fascinating interviews, Ferguson lays out an awful story. In the 1980s, the markets and financial services were deregulated, and the driving force for this liberalisation was Alan Greenspan, formidable chairman of the US federal reserve board from 1987 to 2006. Banks and loan companies were freer to gamble with their depositors' money; they were themselves freer to borrow more; they were free to offer investors dizzyingly complex financial instruments, with income streams from different debts bundled up, including high-interest home loans offered to high-risk borrowers – the so-called "sub-prime" market that offered mouthwateringly high returns.

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Perhaps the most sensational aspect of this film is Ferguson's contention that the crash corrupted the discipline of economics itself. Distinguished economists from America's Ivy League universities were drafted in by banks to compose reports sycophantically supporting reckless deregulation. They were massively paid for these consultancies. The banks bought the prestige of the academics, and their universities' prestige, too. Ferguson speaks to many of these economists, who clearly thought they were going to be interviewed as wry, dispassionate observers. It is really something to see the expression of shock, outrage and fear on their faces as they realise they're in the dock. One splutters with vexation; another gives vent to a ripe Freudian slip. Asked by Ferguson if he has any regrets about his behaviour, he says: "I have no comments … uh, no regrets."

This is what Ferguson means by "inside job". There is a revolving door between the banks and the higher reaches of government, and to some extent the groves of academe. Bank CEOs become government officials, creating laws convenient for their once and future employers.

Perhaps only the pen of Tom Wolfe could do justice to these harassed, bald, middle-aged masters of the universe, as they appear in Ferguson's film. The director shows how their body-language is always the same: somehow more guilty-looking when they are in the White House rose garden in their career pomp, being introduced to the press, than when they are facing openly hostile Senate hearings. They look uneasy, shifty, in weirdly ill-fitting suits, as if they are oppressed by the scrutiny, and worn out, possibly, by the strain of suppressing their own scruples. Their financial capacity far outstrips their capacity for enjoying themselves. They look very unhappy. Occasionally, British figures including Mervyn King and Alistair Darling are to be glimpsed in these photos, reminding us that we Brits have been ardent deregulators, as well.

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I was reminded of Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker, his very funny book about the financial mentality of the 80s boom. He noted that if a regular person won the lottery, he might roll around on the floor, kicking his legs up with glee, but when bankers won their arbitrary lottery, they instead became solemn, pompous, overwhelmed with their own importance and stateliness. Their recklessness and excess coexisted with an almost priestly sense of worth. Even more than rich lawyers, rich bankers felt that their money proved their superior cleverness and also moral worthiness as the generators of prosperity. Yet that prosperity didn't trickle down very far.