Mortgage Crisis 2008 -- through the eyes of many people

This post lists 24 videos where individuals discuss the crisis. Some of them were directly involved (ex. Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase bank). Some were only commenting afterward, though they may have been doing analysis (as business leaders or politicians or economists) during the crisis.

Key is that they list many things or actions or individuals who did something wrong. The list of the culpable is long. However, as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers remarked, "Stupidity is not a crime."

Many specific individuals or things are repeatedly mentioned, but it's quite surprising how many individual things are only mentioned by one of the speakers in these videos. There were rather a lot of causes of this crisis. 

A couple of these videos are over an hour, but most are less than 20 minutes and many are less than 5 minutes.

When you watch these videos & movies, it's hard to believe. There were so many things that went wrong. It's as though everyone had a breakdown and became crazed to make money in the most inventive ways. That's the way crises often begin -- with a mania, but they end with a panic.

I believe there are some other reasons (believe it or not), but they are speculation and not to be found in YouTube videos.

The real truth about the 2008 financial crisis by Brian S. Wesbury in a TEDx Talk

Here's Who Really Caused the Recession by Business Casual

Financial Crisis: Who's to Blame? by Setpoint and Joe Knight

Greenspan Denies Blame for Crisis, Admits 'flaw' by Associated Press

Who's REALLY TO BLAME for the FINANCIAL CRISIS? by Bored Badger

Revisiting the 2008 Financial Crisis by the Hoover Institute

Who's to Blame for the Financial Crisis ? by Big Think

What Caused the Financial Crisis of 2008 ? by Patrick Boyle

The Causes and Effects of the Financial Crisis 2008 by Vivien Yeow and film by Jonathan Jarvis

Financial crisis explained (2/4): who benefited from the crisis ? by Financial Times

Naomi Klein Blames Greenspan, Deregulation for Economic Crisis by FORA.tv

2008 Financial Crisis: Should People Have Gone to Jail ? by Bloomberg Quicktake

Blame the Federal Reserve for the Financial Crisis by WyattResearchTV

WBS-Were Business Schools to Blame for the financial crisis ? by WITS Business School

What Caused the '08 Financial Crisis: Free Markets or Government ? by Reason TV

The 2008 Financial Crisis Explained - The Causes & Effects (Uk, USA, & Global)

Sanford Leeds on "The Subprime Crisis - Who is to Blame ?" by University of Texas at Austin

The shocking reality of how close Britain came to financial meltdown by BBC

Jamie Dimon On the 2008 Crisis by CNBC

What Led to the Financial Crisis ? by Associated Press

VP Debate - Subprime Mortgage Crisis: Who was at fault by C-SPAN

Financial Crisis 2008 EXPLAINED by FinHead

Michael Bloomberg - Origins of the Economic Crisis by FORA.tv

Michael Moore w/ Hannity - Who's Responsible for Financial Crisis ? by The Young Turks

Update: I'm adding this one I just saw today. It's the former Chief Financial Officer of Lehman Brothers describing the situation at the beginning of the crisis.

Former Lehman Brothers CFO

 

Previously blogged posts about the crisis included these movies:

Meltdown 

Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis

The Big Short on Crackle

Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis 

Inside Lehman Brothers

 

Another Canadian Documentary on the Mortgage Crisis of 2008

 This movie is named Inside Lehman Brothers.

 

It seems the movies I've found report on the crisis from several different vantage points. One is international, two or three are national, and one is Hollywood's version of what was happening on Wall St. This movie, Inside Lehman Brothers, is about one company, some of its employees, and whistleblowers who revealed its criminal behavior.

This particular presentation has some advertising inserted, but it's no worse than watching a television show with advertising.

I don't think this movie displays the full criminality which was occurring at individual firms (Countrywide Mortgages was one of the worst), but it points clearly to the fact some people knew what was happening, some reported it, and the government of George W. Bush and a Republican Congress didn't react at all. It was only after Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 2006 that regulations changed and the house of cards began to shake and fall apart. It ended a mere two years later in 2008.

The damage done and the reverberations are still with us today. At the end of the movie it mentions several actions of President Donald Trump that makes clear we still face this craze among Republicans to trust that "markets will self-correct" and that laissez-faire economics is best.

Mortgage Crisis 2008 in Hindsight: the HBO film

 Here's another update to the story. HBO did a movie about the mortgage crisis of 2008 called 

Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis

Like Meltdown, this one uses film clips of the main participants in Washington, but it is mostly interviews done after a few years (about 2011 I think) combined with some video clips of the events. There are on-the-street and Congressional testimony and White House discussions. There is quite a bit about the politics of the time and of the presidential candidates. It's quite inclusive with regard to the events in the United States. It doesn't however, deal with the international bigger picture except in one minor way.

My view of the events was (obviously) a bit different, but this film fills in a lot of the gaps which I had never known.