By Alex J. Pollock
Two government mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were central to making US house prices widely unaffordable. Should the European Union import this dubious American idea?
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22 sats \ 6 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 18 Oct
Don’t they ever learn? Fannie/Freddy are two of the major causes of the housing market crash of 2008. They were buying up a lot of trash that the mortgage companies were selling mortgages for. A lot of the Fannie/Freddy mortgages promoted very high moral hazards due to the free-for-all in the mortgage originating business. Dodgy mortgages were bundled up together and sold with AAA ratings! There is a good movie out there about this called “ The Big Short”.
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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Oct
They learn in the sense that they saw the US kick the can down the road for a bit with this approach.
I still have never seen The Big Short. Despite so many people vouching for it, I just can't bring myself to trust a Hollywood portrayal of economics.
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33 sats \ 4 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 18 Oct
You’re right not to trust Hollywood for its portrayal of economics, but then, what kind of portrayal would you trust them to make accurately. I trusted the old Hollywood to make entertaining movies, but not now, at all.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Oct
I don't necessarily trust them to portray anything accurately, but as an economist I find it particularly distracting when they misportray economic topics.
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24 sats \ 2 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 18 Oct
I really haven’t seen a movie where they did economics or economic thought right. They even f up philosophical thought. I saw the butchering of Atlas Shrugged and thought they missed the point very well. I do understand that movies are different from books and they can’t make the same thing in both media. Other good examples are Lord of the Rings, Spaceship Troopers and etc. Then you have what happened to The Hobbit! Just unbelievable.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Oct
I was shocked at how different the book Starship Troopers was from the movie. They hardly even resemble each other. I found them both quite compelling though.
Atlas Shrugged is another one where I haven't wanted to see how they managed to butcher it.
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23 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 18 Oct
It seems that the director and writer for Starship Trooper had a specific political statement they wanted to make about fascism, rather than just do the book. It was better than a sharp stick in the eye but I could watch it and even capture it to DVD.
Atlas Shrugged was done in three movies with three different directors. Here again, books and movies are different media, but that does not justify what they did to the movies. Maybe the books were just too dense with plot and characters.
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