Replies to post #140625 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[arizona1]

Good for Ed to publicly admit what many of us secretly wish for.

[fuagf]

LOL, have always LOVED nuggety, good guy, Ed, and share his hopes and views, as far as i know. He's presented me with a
slight ??? now though, i always thought spaghetti was good for us .. LOVE it! .. as a matter of FACT this morning a packet of mince
(wrapped myself) was taken from the fridge with the thought, "Yum, haven't had spaghetti for awhile" .. true .. it's defrosting now .. lol ..

Watching prompted, hmmm HBO, was introduced to the channel in a hotel
in Hanoi years ago and enjoyed their movies while resting from travel.

Now, just a trailer man again. Chuckle.

[StephanieVanbryce]

What to Watch for in 'Too Big To Fail' Tonight







By Ray Gustini 01:23 PM ET

Director Curtis Hanson adaptation of Too Big To Fail, the bestselling financial crisis chronicle from New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, premieres on HBO tonight, and if the finished film is half as thorough as the media's advance coverage of the project, audiences will have a new understanding of 2008's near-economic collapse by 11 p.m. this evening. Among the more memorable details of the production that have emerged in recent days

Andrew Ross Sorkin works for scale

The book's author tells Daily Intel's Jessica Pressler he pulled down about "scale...about $800 a day" for his one-line cameo as a reporter at a press conference. (He's the guy whose question begins "Mr. Secretary! Mr. Secretary!...") Other revelations from Ross Sorkin: the filmmakers did a "great job" with the project and avoided doing anything "overly crazy," William Hurt's performance as Henry Paulson is "brilliant," and while filming his cameo he "made some nice friends with some of the cast and some of the crew," including Topher Grace and Cynthia Nixon, who he got to eat lunch with

William Hurt and Henry Paulson bonded over birding

If Hurt's performance is as strong as Ross Sorkin says, you can credit the actor's extensive preparation process. According to the Washington Post, Hurt and Paulson met multiple times before filming began, with Paulson even inviting Hurt "to vacation with him over three days on a coastal Georgia island." On the trip, writes the Post's Ned Martel, Wendy Paulson led the group "on a 5 a.m. kayak trip, and the actor noted that had he been late, the strong-willed spouse...would have left him behind." The real-life Paulson, meanwhile, "pointed out hawks, egrets and spoonbills, as well as snakes and alligators...[and] caught and released snapper in a creek." (Hurt's a birder too) Later, Paulson "regaled [Hurt] with natural-history insights over dinner in a rustic lodge," while Hurt "kept up his questioning about regulators and profiteers, divining what Paulson learned on the Dartmouth gridiron and in the political arena." Paulson was also the only principle given a draft of the script and invited to submit notes

Billy Crudup and Paul Giamatti also met their real-life counterparts

Also in the Post article: Crudup, who is playing Timothy Geithner "arranged to spend 20 minutes last fall during a crosstown car ride" with the Treasury Secretary. Paul Giamatti, meanwhile, "went to Washington for a lunch with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke." (He's pictured above in character)

There are at least two embellishments

Los Angeles Times financial writer Walter Hamilton gives the film a positive assessment, but notes that "like most docu-dramas, it does condense events and conjure dialogue that never took place." For example, he says, Lehman Bros. chief executive Richard Fuld (right) "doesn't appear to have uttered that acrilegious 'screw Warren Buffett' remark when the famed investor offered to buy a stake in the company at what the CEO considered a fire-sale price." A scene where Paulson "barks at [2008 GOP presidential nominee John] McCain that if the Arizona senator doesn't back his plans, the next Great Depression will be his fault," also didn't happen, and wasn't in Ross Sorkin's book.

James Woods and Andrew Ross Sorkin don't see any easy answers

Woods, who is playing Fuld, and Ross Sorkin spelled out the movie's takeaway in an interview with Piers Morgan. "Here's the problem with what's happened to our culture," explained Woods. "You're not required to be ethical. As long as you're legal." Sorkin offered a more chilling take: "Who do we blame for not changing the system for the next time, for the next Too Big To Fail," he asked. "That is the administration today. That is a group of people who have not made all of the real decisions that need to be made."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/05/what-watch-too-big-fail-tonight/38040/

[StephanieVanbryce]

Of course it's only a movie .. . ;) of all the characters .. . I enjoyed the character of Ben Bernancke the most.

...... I think Paulson was a good man, just not a far sighted one ..it seems he took it step by step and MOST of the others, including Geithner, saw the long term (meaning, where & what it would lead to) pretty darn soon, during the Lehman ... crisis. I still don't quite understand why he let Lehman go... maybe because it was the first .. .just thoughts and maybe you know.....?

And I was able to understand more about giving the money to the very people who caused it .. AND that it disturbed them also, I forget which one it was ..who was the woman ? she asked "you're telling me that we bailout these banks and do nothing for the Americans who have lost jobs and homes ? they really really thought that the banks would start lending ...and give credit once again ... HOW SAD.

Plus I understood completely and finally why IT had to be . even if not perfect. it simple had to be.

the end with those words were so so sad .. and true.

[StephanieVanbryce]

And I also saw the struggle about 'nationalizing' the banks .. . and how strongly abhorrent that was to 'most' of them
.. . actually, I got the impression that it would have been illegal .. .and Paulson kept believing in a "private sector solution" ..

........

[StephanieVanbryce]

and when G.E. called ...

[StephanieVanbryce]

What ‘Too Big to Fail’ remembers


TOO BIG TO FAIL: Paul Giamatti playing Ben Bernanke.

By Ezra Klein Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 05/24/2011

Watching “Too Big to Fail” is an excellent reminder of both what a plum-insane policy TARP was, and why a bunch of very not-insane people eventually coalesced around it. The film — an HBO adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s celebrated history of the crisis — does an extraordinary job dramatizing the almost comical thought process that led to pretty much every intervention we attempted during the financial crisis. First, someone would say, “No, we can’t possibly do that. It’s unfair to the public, lethal to politicians, completely outside the acceptable bounds of government action and quite possibly illegal.”

Then things would get worse.

And then: “Okay, let’s do that.”

This held through the federally midwifed and taxpayer-supported sale of Bear Stearns to J.P. Morgan, through the Federal Reserve’s rescue of AIG, through the idea that taxpayers would buy up these toxic assets and sell them later, and, finally, through to the final plan: giant heaps of public money funneled directly into private megabanks, all of which were forced to accept the funds.

No one liked it. Not Hank Paulson or Timothy Geithner or Ben Bernanke. Not the Congress that initially refused to pass the bailout nor some of the healthier banks that had to accept it. It just seemed, to the people in the middle of the crisis, like the only thing that would work.

And, somewhat amazingly, given the haste with which the policy was constructed and the uncharted circumstances in which it was implemented, it did work. Sort of. It worked to arrest the financial crisis, though it didn’t come anywhere close to preventing a recession (that said, economists Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder estimate (pdf) that the recession would’ve been much worse without it).

But that meant that the collapse Paulson and Bernanke and Geithner were facing, the emergency that made unthinkable and unfair and unprecedented and perhaps unlawful policies necessary, didn’t happen. And so Americans saw the policies but only briefly heard about the nightmare that brought them into being. And then they felt the aftershocks and then — and this shouldn’t be underestimated — saw the bonuses that meant the financial system had been “saved” and reacted with all the horror and hatred that TARP and the banks and the whole damn thing so richly deserved.

Which is why “Too Big to Fail” is very much worth your time. The financial crisis wasn’t that long ago, but even so, it’s hard to recall how insane that period was, how the economy’s guardrails shook and then bent and then broke and how we almost tipped over. But it’s worth remembering, if only because it’s the only possible explanation for why we did what we did, and why we are where we are.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-too-big-to-fail-remembers/2011/05/19/AFcuxRAH_blog.html#pagebreak