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Weird-Status-287 t1_j6if4u6 wrote

I like that movie, (except that unnecessary Kevin spacey dog subplot that was not necessary) but damn was that guy a scumbag. Ethics? Nah we need to SURVIVE!

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Starkydowns t1_j6ik6ok wrote

I hated the whole dog subplot the first time I watched it, but the more I think about it the more I feel like it explains his character a little more. Everyone else seems like they are fully invested in this company. Meanwhile, Stacey’s character is worrying about a dog. It compliments the scene where he says something it the effect “no I don’t want to hear this.. how do you think I’ve survived this whole time”. His character is somewhat aloof compared to the others, but that’s because he’s cynical to the industry and wants to get away. He only stays because “he needs the money”.

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Are_we_the_baddies_ t1_j6jk5rr wrote

Agreed. His dogs burial also seems symbolic to me. Is he burying some part of himself that existed before he crash? Is he finally burying his last connection to the outside world? He’s far more torn up about his dogs death than ruining the lives of other Wall Street traders, why (rhetorical q)?

Damn it’s like I’m in 7th grade English again

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InterstellarBlue t1_j6kfbyy wrote

I agree. At first, you might think that the dog is just a subplot and unnecessary to the character. But I think the dog is central to the story.

Spacey's character, throughout the movie, is the sort of moral foil to the other characters' moral atrociousness. His main role in the movie is to protest to the CEO against unloading the bank's position and causing a financial crisis. He's sort of the "good guy" of the movie.

But we see, as the movie ends, that he is slowly pulled in and corrupted. He's forced to go along with the CEO's plan. You can see it in the speech that he gives his team at the end. He says something about how everything they've done has been "for the greater good", but it's obvious both in his tone and his mannerisms that he doesn't believe it at all.

At the end of the movie, he feels completely sick and demands to leave the company, but then after the CEO talks to him, he realizes he is forced to stay because he needs the money.

Where does the dog come in? The dog is an extremely powerful symbol. It represents his moral character, his soul almost. His moral character gets sick and dies as the movie progresses, and the final shot is of Spacey's character burying the dog. He's fully aware that he will never leave the company, always coming up with new excuses for why he "needs the money" or something else. He's mourning the death of every good part of his moral character.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6lnzo4 wrote

Nothing the CEO did was morally wrong. Their counterparties were other investment banks, trading is a zero sum game.

Saying the fire sale was morally wrong is like saying bluffing other players in poker is morally wrong. Everybody in that movie was a shark, they just happened to be a smarter shark. What he did is no different from what people do every day on this sub - he bought and sold securities that he thought had a different true value than the current market price. That's literally what trading is!

The CEO is 100% that correct nothing they do could even slightly alter the course of the incoming economic shitstorm and all they can do is attempt to survive it. He did the right thing by fucking over the other sharks and giving his employees a fat severance.

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Legitimate-Source-61 t1_j6lulvw wrote

The CEO knew the end of the boom was coming. He's been round long enough to know the music stopped way before "Spock" entered the scene. He probably was positioning his exit. Why do you think the Risk Management guy was fired? It was to keep the plates spinning a bit longer! The CEO just played along that he knew nothing. Haha

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Fausterion18 t1_j6oldmk wrote

It's pretty clear from the film he wasn't aware of the issue.

Risk management guy was fired because investment banks were having layoffs in 07 and early 08 due to downturn in business.

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Diligent-Road-6171 t1_j6mnrjq wrote

> trading is a zero sum game.

thats not the case

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Fausterion18 t1_j6okngu wrote

The derivatives they were trading are 100% a zero sum game.

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Diligent-Road-6171 t1_j6ol7ja wrote

They were trading MBS, which is a perfectly useful and positive value financial instrument that gives both borrowers and lenders options they didnt have available to them.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6om8u1 wrote

They weren't investors, they were traders. From their perspective trading those were zero sum. Any gain they had was at the cost of the bank that traded with them.

Kinda like how leaps and synthetic longs are perfectly useful instruments for long term investing, but options trading is always zero sum.

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Diligent-Road-6171 t1_j6on8va wrote

2 things:

1 - The firm in the movie wasn't purely a trading firm. They were the originators of the MBS, and that's how they made money, there would be no MBS without them. In fact that's a core reason why they took too much risk and had to liquidate. It's a key plot point!

2 - Even pure traders are not zero sum. There is value in providing liquidity and in making the market more efficient.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6onrgw wrote

  1. Two separate departments. The trading desk was zero sum.

  2. Yes they are lol. The gains and losses come purely at the expense of the counterparty. Liquidity and efficiency isn't relevant to whether the market is zero sum. This is like saying Texas holdem isn't zero sum because there's value in entertainment.

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Diligent-Road-6171 t1_j6oovrm wrote

What a dumb fucking argument, do you think that they'd be originating the MBS if they couldn't sell them?

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Fausterion18 t1_j6opilp wrote

They don't fucking sell the MBS to other investment banks through the trading desk dumbass. They sell directly to investors.

In the fire sale scene they even talk about this. The traders said things like "oh we bought too many, oh we bought this at 95, etc".

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Diligent-Road-6171 t1_j6oqinf wrote

You dumb ass they were talking about the par value of the lots that compose the MBS.

They weren't just selling the MBS in the firesale, they were selling the mortgages they used to make the MBS

This is literally spelled out for you in the board meeting.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6otu08 wrote

> You dumb ass they were talking about the par value of the lots that compose the MBS.

You dumbass the par value is always 100. The traders were lying and claiming they bought it at 97 or 95 whatever.

Goddamn you clearly don't know shit about bonds. img

>They weren't just selling the MBS in the firesale, they were selling the mortgages they used to make the MBS
>
>This is literally spelled out for you in the board meeting.

You can't sell a mortgage over a trading desk like this idiot.

They were selling their own originated MBS and pretending like they bought them for trading purposes.

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InterstellarBlue t1_j6mvko2 wrote

If you think that the movie was not intended as a criticism of some of the characters, you completely missed the point of the movie.

There are so many scenes that represent this, where characters regret spending their careers at the bank (Stanley Tucci's character talking about building a bridge and implicitly lamenting not spending more time doing something worthwhile, Kevin Spacey's character's speech to his team where he disappointingly assures his team that what they've done has been "for the greater good" when he of course doesn't believe it, Kevin Spacey's character "wishing" that he had spent his time digging trenches so that "at least there'd be some holes in the ground to show for it) where characters get fucked over and discarded (Stanley Tucci's character, Demi Moore's character), and other scenes (e.g. Zachary Quinto's character telling Kevin Spacey's character that his son is "a good person", strongly implying that many of the characters we've seen are not). Not even mentioning all the scenes that are meant to bring out the selfishness, ruthlessness, and greed (As Paul Bettany's character reminded us, "Whatever they do, this firm does not lose money.")

The tonal climax of the movie is Kevin Spacey's character protesting to Jeremy Iron's character about selling their securities and kickstarting the financial collapse during the board meeting. Just look at the scene right after the sale scene where Jeremy Irons's character literally goes through a list of disasters that were arguably caused by shortsightedness and greed, and literally saying something like "we never learn". Some of the best acting I've seen is Jeremy Irons trying to justify what they did, saying something like, "It's just money. It's not wrong". Cut to Kevin Spacey looking absolutely disgusted.

This movie was absolutely a moral indictment of the characters in it, and Kevin Spacey's character represented a protest to Wall Street greed, excess, and myopia. His dog dying represents his own corruption and the death of his conscience and soul, as he realizes he's never going to escape. Trading is absolutely a zero sum game and the movie was a criticism of it and everything Wall Street represents.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6okhqv wrote

Cool story, the fact remains that the CEO is completely correct and the fire sale was not morally wrong.

That the director and writer didn't understand that is irrelevant.

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InterstellarBlue t1_j6omepj wrote

It sounds like you're completely and deliberately missing the point. The greed, shortsightedness, and ruthlessness on Wall Street are 100% morally wrong. They cost American taxpayers trillions and are representative of how the wealthy wield disproportionate power in this country.

All of the things I pointed to, from the movie, in my comment above are criticisms of that. The whole movie worked to criticize Wall Street. It's like you're insisting that someone who wins at poker isn't doing anything wrong, and I'm trying to explain to you that the whole point is that the game is messed up and all the players in it are greedily trying to screw each other over, while costing the audience their money and livelihoods.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6omllc wrote

Cool story, nothing you said is even remotely relevant to my post, which is the fire sale itself that Kevin spacey had so much trouble with was not morally wrong.

There is nothing "messed up" about trading, just like there's nothing wrong with poker. Otherwise why the fuck are you here? What they did is no different from what all of wsb does.

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InterstellarBlue t1_j6p02dr wrote

Honest question. Do you think that the many individuals working at big banks during 2008 did something wrong? I think there is a huge difference between what individual retail traders do and what is done at the big banks on Wall Street.

This movie was an indictment of that. I'm surprised you're not seeing that. That is what my original point was in my first comment.

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Fausterion18 t1_j6p2ugs wrote

Totally irrelvant, I'm only addressing the fire sale and the CEO speech.

> I think there is a huge difference between what individual retail traders do and what is done at the big banks on Wall Street.

There is zero difference from a wsber selling an option and one of the traders in that scene selling a bunch of mbs.

> This movie was an indictment of that. I'm surprised you're not seeing that. That is what my original point was in my first comment.

Your original point is a red herring.

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Weird-Status-287 t1_j6iqx0h wrote

Yeah I get it, I just thought it was shoehorned in there. Then at the end showing up at his ex wife's house, it was cringey I think. But I mean it's got alot of that stuff going on. I wish they explained a few things a bit more, just to fill in some peices.

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ihaveathingforyou t1_j6irn6p wrote

Cringy?

I think it was to show that he’s working to pay for his wife to live in a beautiful house. Prob got divorced because he works too much.

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armen89 t1_j6j0wq4 wrote

It was where he lived. The ex wife even says, “ Sam, you don’t live here anymore.”

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ihaveathingforyou t1_j6j1ef9 wrote

I’m aware, but he’s still paying for it, so his ex wife can now live there.

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kingdroxie t1_j6jssk9 wrote

The dog was meant to ground their perspectives.

The guy knowingly participates in the fire sale and subsequent economic collapse of the United States, but it still doesn't hang over his conscience more than his dead dog.

The movie ends with him burying his dog. At the end of the day, the death of his dog was more important to him than what he's done to the economy.

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Weird-Status-287 t1_j6k13ir wrote

Yeah I get it i just didn't think it was fit in well that's all. I think without it the movie still stands on it's own.

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kingdroxie t1_j6k1rjy wrote

The whole subplot is just a small comment. The movie stands well on its own, but that subplot further solidifies a smaller theme many people may not have picked up on without: the experienced and the leaders didn't really give a shit about the consequences.

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odischeese t1_j6iylgu wrote

That’s why he gets paid DA BIG BUCKS. Why he’s on TOP.

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SchnitzelAndCholado t1_j6im5db wrote

What's the movie called?

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Cody6781 t1_j6k00t7 wrote

"so that we may SURVIVE" was probably the most badass line in the movie tbh

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Weird-Status-287 t1_j6k0xy7 wrote

I liked when Sylar was like "yeah bro I'm a rocket scientist" and The Mentalist was like "you aint smart". Then Jarvis was like Ono ima jump but not today".

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Fausterion18 t1_j6lnkcc wrote

What ethics lol? All these IB guys are sharks, they just happened to eat the other sharks this time around.

It's not like their counterparties are grandma, it's big banks like Deutsch, Merrill, etc. What he did was sell securities that he thought was worth less than the current market price. No different from some wsber doing the exact same thing. This is literally what trading is.

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