The Big Short: The Analysis Of Character Growth

This type of mortgage shown in the movie is called subprime mortgage which means these are loans that have very small possibility of being paid. This happens because the banks primarily target mostly the immigrants and the people who earn small or those poor people. These people are easily convinced to accept the deal from the banks since they know that the bank offers a low interest for the loan. But what the banks do is that after several years, they increase the prices after a period of time which is resulting to the inability of these people to pay their mortgage. With this investigation, Mark Baum only proved that the housing market will indeed fall down in the near future.

Another two characters were introduced in the movie namely Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley portrayed by the actors John Magaro and Finn Wittrock, respectively. They are two investors and they have founded the Cornwall Capital and eventually earned millions as what was mentioned in the movie. They wanted to participate with what the other does like Burry and Vennett which is to bet with banks because the characters said that they have read about the paper that Vennett wrote and researched about. But the money that they have is not enough to make a bet against housing market. So, to make this possible, they asked for the help of Ben Rickert, played by Brad Pitt, who is a retired and former banker. It was made easier to transact with banks with the help of Ben Rickert because he is trusted and a professional in this field. The plan of the two investors to bet against the market has become successful but on the latter part of the movie, there is a scene where Ben Rickert seemed to have gotten angry with Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley because although they are becoming successful with their intention to earn from America’s economy failing, Ben Rickert said that it is not a good reason to celebrate of a victory because they have to think and imagine of what the situation will be for a lot of American people especially since a lot of people will lose their job, more people will become poor, starve, and eventually would die. He said that thousand of people will be affected if what they think will happen soon would really happen.

Also, one of the highlight scenes of the movie is when the characters went to Las Vegas to attend a conference for subprime mortgage bond. Here, Mark Baum got the opportunity to talk with one person who is a CDO manager where he finds out and further proved that their depiction about the collapse of the housing market is really true and since this manager has no idea about what will happen, they took this as an opportunity to buy credit default swaps from him.

A lot of people do not believe what these characters are telling them thus they refuse to negotiate and buy credit default swaps from them. But little did they know that soon enough, the housing market would collapse. And as soon as it happened, many people have lost their jobs for the companies and institutions decided to fire these workers because they are becoming indebted. Also, the banks have fell into huge amount of debts. Upon knowing that the housing market is already falling, several companies are increasing their rate of mortgage bonds so that they can still sell it to investors without them knowing about the incoming crash of the housing market. I think it is considered a fraud and illegal since these companies do not want to lose big amount so they deceive people into buying bonds. And while the economy is collapsing, and a lot of people and businesses are falling down, the main characters, on the other hand, Mark Baum, Jared Vennett, Charlie Geller, Jamie Shipley, and Michael Burry have all earned lots of millions of money from taking advantage of what they have discovered even before it happens and the firsts ones to know before anyone else knew about it.

But even though these people have benefited from this tragic event that has happened for the first time in the history of financial economy, they do not seem to be happy with all the money they got because they gain it through the disadvantage of the majority of people. At the almost end of the movie, it was shown that Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley witnessed a lot of people coming out of the building carrying their things and crying because of losing their job. They even asked to borrow the ID of one of the former employees, so that they could enter the building. Once they were inside, they realized how tragic and severe this happening is in their economy.

I think what these characters did is to take advantage of the situation to make themselves benefit from it. And since they were the only ones who knows and believes that their discovery would surely happen, they secure and developed a plan in that wherein they will get something out of it by making bet with banks and selling credit default swaps to different investors. The strategy they did was brilliant, but I think it was not really ethical since a lot of people would be negatively affected by it and they know this information right from the start. But still, they continued on their plan because just like any other person, they wanted to earn money.