You must watch the HBO movie “Too Big to Fail” and if you don’t have HBO, find a way to get it just so you can see this movie. The movie is compelling for anyone interested in public affairs, and terrifying in the clarity that it brings to the 2008 financial collapse that consumed our financial markets and came a hair from ruining our economy.
The jury is still out on the ramifications of the choices made in those days.
Some of the fallout has, over time, shown the actions paid-off: the economy didn’t completely implode (note I said “completely”); banks paid back almost all of the money “loaned” them; GM has repaid their “loan”; and AIG has also had an offering that repaid their bailout.
Still, it is unclear if those actions created a philosophical web that can’t be undone: saddling us with ever-larger financial institutions that are now “too big to fail”; compromising the ideals we hold dear (that you should be rewarded or punished for your actions); and saddling us with a national debt that has become untenable.
The questions raised by the film still haunt us, and will continue to do so for years to come. But, for those who watched as America looked to be crashing before us, "Too Big to Fail" is a rudimentary education in just how serious those times were. Even the people who had the most-dire prognostications at that time may not have seen all of the dangers we faced.
You should watch it.
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