Excellent documentary. A little on the dramatic side, of course, as many major news network programs are slanted, to be expected. But it really did explain the whole mess to me.
What I gathered was that the whole CDO /subprime mortgage movement had gained so much momentum that each individual player did not want to “pull the plug” for fear of harming his or her own self-interest (financially) or be responsible for the immediate collapse of the economy. Even Alan Greenspan admitted he could have raised interest rates to discourage people from borrowing, but that in turn would start a chain reaction, sending the economy into a recession.
As it turns out, the whole “house of cards” collapsed anyway, so the end result was the same, just delayed. Maybe if someone had stepped in sooner the total number of people affected would have been less?
Also, did anyone catch the part at the end where one of the people on the show mentioned that this whole debacle would inevitably happen again in the future because of the inherent self-interest nature of humanity? Pretty scary but true!
