I was watching the movie "Big Fish" last night (released in 2003), directed by Tim Burton, with Jessica Lange (as Sandra Bloom) and Albert Finney (Ed Bloom) as the lead characters. At one point, the dialogue absolutely grabbed me in reference to the 2007-2009 credit crisis origins.Scene: 1970s - Albert Finney has just robbed a bank as an unplanned accomplice of the poet Norther Winslow (played by Steve Buscemi). The vault however, which Finney inspected, was empty:
Dialogue:
Buscemi: Yeah! There's gotta be close to $400 here! And that's just from the drawers. Let's see what you got from the vault.
(looks in the vault bag)
This is it? The whole vault?
Finney: I'm afraid so.
Buscemi: It's got your deposit slip on it.
Finney: Well, I just didn't want you leaving empty-handed.
There's something you should know. The reason they don't have money...
I told Norther about the vagaries of Texas oil money...
...and its effect on real-estate prices...
...and how lax enforcement of fiduciary process...
...had made savings and loans particularly vulnerable.
Hearing this news, Norther was left with one conclusion:
He should go to Wall Street. That's where all the money is.
I knew then that while my days as a criminal were over...
Thanks for the hand!
...Norther's were just beginning.
When Norther made his first million dollars...
...he sent me a check for $10,000.
I protested, but he said it was my fee as his career advisor.
************
Substitute "oil money", for "ridiculously low mortgage rates for an extended period of time" and you have a perfect apt description of the culmination of the sub-prime lending crisis.
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JWThe Confused Capitalist
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