Too big to fail Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Too big to fail - Movie Review Example The television movie was based on a book by Andrew Ross Sorkin entitled Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of how Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – and Themselves. In essence, the book and the movie discussed the issue of how the banks were careless in their lending practices leading to accumulation of worthless and toxic paper assets (Sorkin 2) which threatened their viability but are now in a bind expecting government to help them out somehow through a bailout, arguing they are too big to fail without seriously affecting the entire banking system (HBO, 2014). Their argument is a form of blackmail to government to act decisively soon: help us or clean up the entire mess. The movie revolves around the two old and venerable investment banks of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers; the former found a white knight savior in Bank of America but Lehman Brothers was more problematic to solve. Two issues are paramount in this movie that require some ethical thinking: should banks engage in risky lending practices (moral hazard) that results in a failure of free market capitalism and secondly, if taxpayers money should be used to benefit a few people (are tax dollars used wisely or not? and are bailouts helpful or not?). Easy credit was the cause of the 2008 financial crisis but cutting off credit into a crunch can worsen the recession into possibly a new depression like in 1929 (Kinsley, para. 4). Kinsley, Michael. â€Å"Economic Crisis Unfurls in Hushed Suspense.† The New York Times, 22 May 2011. Web. 14 July 2014.