A more likely conclusion: they wanted to have characters they could place in the thick of the action rather than outside observers. Or think of it this way: Saving Private Ryan would not be a classic if it was filmed from the perspective of a journalist writing a human interest story after the fact.

An even more likely conclusion: there was a book already, conveniently titled "The Big Short", that tells the story in a compelling manner. Huh.

No "the man is burying from the marxist perspective" conspiracy theory needed.

Well, if the Marxists or heterodox boffins had before the fact employed a fit woman—an hetero-doxy!—in a bubble-bath to explain the situation I should have listened.

Or maybe we'd pay more attention to a clock - of any manufacture Mr. Mudede - if we knew whether or not it was right more than twice a day. You idealogues always spoil your genius with this kind of vindication spiel. I'd listen to anyone of any political persuasion who could show me a consistent track record of 60%+ frequent forecasting accuracy (and they do exist btw). What are we supposed to do with a one-off I-told-you-so from an "expert"? Feel bad that Thomas Bayes is rolling over in his grave?

But yes, Charles, good point: celebrating the people who bet everything that we were all screwed (as opposed to the pundits who bet nothing) is still pretty twisted. At least the movie's ending does a good job of pointing out how so little has changed. It's definitely worth seeing.

>"celebrating the people who bet everything that we were all screwed (as opposed to the pundits who bet nothing) is still pretty twisted"

Couple of points. First, there is a scene (perhaps added for this very reason) in which the kids shorting the housing market are schooled on the human toll that it represents if they win their bet. Second, the movie goes to some pains to make it clear that the supposedly uber-successful financial people--including Greenspan and Bernanke--were either deluded or unbelievably cynical about the market and about their clever CDO scheme. Second-and-a-half, the movie calls out what was a lot of mutual backscratching, idiocy, or outright fraud that is represented by things like Standard and Poor's rating the junky CDOs as AA or better. It's a pretty strong indictment of the financial industry as a whole. The fact that it's all just bidness as usual and no one went to jail is explicitly noted for the audience's benefit.

Sure, the guys who shorted the market came out well on the backs of other people's misery. Does that make them evil or just people who were smart enough to play the market. It's not as if the crash wouldn't have happened unless these guys shorted the housing market.