EFTA01790029

From: Sent: Sunday, February 6, 2011 9:35 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: You should see this movie/documentary seems very one-sided and as if the makers didn't quite see the bigger pict=re I'm not sure the finance industry really had too much of a choice Original Message From: Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> To: Sent: Sun, Feb 6, 2011 5:27 am Subject: Re: You should see this movie/documentary it is very unfair, and misrepresents tons of inf On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 3:26 AM, wrote: Inside Job (2010) NYT Critics' PickThis movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the fil= reviewers of The New York Times. Sony Pictures Classics Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner in the documentary =9Clnside Job." Who Maimed the Economy, and How By A. O. SCOTT "Inside Job," a sleek, briskly paced film whose title sugg=sts a heist movie, is the story of a crime without punishment, of an outr=ge that has so far largely escaped legal sanction and societal stigma. Th= betrayal of public trust and collective values that Mr. Ferguson chronic=es was far more brazen and damaging than the adultery in Nathaniel Hawtho=ne's novel, which treated Hester more as scapegoat than villain.=20 The gist of this movie, which begins in a mood of calm reflection and grow= angrier and more incredulous as it goes on, is unmistakably punitive. Th= density of information and the complexity of the subject matter make =80 Inside Job" feel like a classroom lecture at times, but by=the end Mr. Ferguson has summoned the scourging moral force of a pulpit-s=aking sermon. That he delivers it with rigor, restraint and good humor ma=es his case all the more devastating. He is hardly alone in making it. Numerous journalists have published books=and articles retracing the paths that led the world economy to the precip=ce two years ago. The deregulation of the financial services industry in=the 1980s and '90s; the growing popularity of complex and risky=derivatives; the real estate bubble and the explosion of subprime EFTA_R1_00117353 EFTA01790029 lending=— none of these developments were exactly secret. On the contrary= they were celebrated as vindications of the power and wisdom of markets.=Accordingly, Mr. Ferguson recycles choice moments of triumphalism, courte=y of Lawrence H. Summers, George W. Bush, Alan Greenspan and various cabl= television ranters and squawkers. Even as stock indexes soared and profits swelled, there were always at lea=t a few investors, economists and government officials who warned that th= frenzied speculation was leading to the abyss. Some of these prophets wi=hout honor show up in front of Mr. Ferguson's camera, less to glo=t than to present, once again, the analyses that were dismissed and ignor=d by their peers for so long. Dozens of interviews — along with news clips and arresting aerial=shots of New York, Iceland and other disaster areas — are folded=into a clear and absorbing history, narrated by Matt Damon. The music (an=opening song, "Big Time," by Peter Gabriel, and a score=by Alex Herres) and the clean wide-screen cinematography provide an aesth=tic polish that is welcome for its own sake and also important to the mov=e's themes. The handsomely lighted and appointed interiors convey=a sense of the rarefied, privileged worlds in which the Wall Street opera=ors and their political enablers flourished, and the elegance of the pres=ntation also subliminally bolsters the film's authority. This is=not a piece of ragged muckraking or breathless advocacy. It rests its out=age on reason, research and careful argument. The same was true of Mr. Ferguson's previous documentary, =9CNo End in Sight," which focused on catastrophic policies carrie= out in Iraq by President George W. Bush's administration just af=er the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But whereas that film concentrated on=a narrow view of a complex subject — the conduct of the war rathe= than the at least equally controversial rationale for fighting it =94 "Inside Job" offers a sweeping synthesis, going as far=back as the Reagan administration and as far afield as Iceland in its ana=omy of the financial crisis. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the highest-profile players declined to be=interviewed. Mr. Summers appears only in news footage, and none of his pr=decessors or successors as Treasury secretary — not Robert E. Rub=n or Henry M. Paulson Jr. or Timothy F. Geithner — submit to Mr.=Ferguson's questions. Nor do any of the top executives at Goldman=Sachs or the other big banks. Most of the interviewees are, at least from=the perspective of the filmmaker, friendly witnesses, adding fuel to the=director's comprehensive critique of the way business has been do=e in the United States and the other advanced capitalist countries for th= past two decades. Both American political parties are indicted; "Inside Job"=is not simply another belated settling of accounts with Mr. Bush and his=advisers, though they are hardly ignored. The scaling back of government=oversight and the weakening of checks on speculative activity by banks be=an under Reagan and continued during the Clinton administration. And with=each administration the market in derivatives expanded, and alarms about=the dangers of this type of investment were ignored. Raghuram Rajan, chie= economist at the International Monetary Fund, presented a paper in 2005=warning of a "catastrophic meltdown" and was mocked as a="Luddite" by Mr. Summers. Meanwhile, some investment bankers — at Goldman Sachs in particula= — were betting against the positions they were pushing on their=customers. An elaborate house of cards had been constructed in which bad=consumer loans were bundled into securities, which, were certified as sou=d by rating agencies paid by the banks and then insured via credit- defaul= swaps. One risky bet was stacked on top of another, and in retrospect th= collapse of the whole edifice, along with the loss of jobs, homes, pensi=ns and political confidence, seems inevitable. How did this happen? Mr. Ferguson is no conspiracy theorist; nor is he inc=ined toward structural or systemic explanations. Markets are not like tec=onic plates, shifting on their own. Visible hands write laws and make dea=s, and in this case a combination of warped values and groupthink seems=to have driven very intelligent men (and they were mostly men) toward fol=y. In addition to business and government, Mr. Ferguson aims his critique=at academia, suggesting that the discipline of economics and more than a=few prominent economists were corrupted by consulting fees, seats on boar=s of directors and membership in the masters of the universe club. When he challenges some of these professors, in particular those who held=positions of responsibility in the White House or in the Federal Reserve,=they are reduced to stammering obfuscation — Markets are complica=ed! Who could have predicted? I don't see any conflict of interes= — and occasionally provoked to testiness. Mr. Ferguson, for his=part, cannot always contain his incredulity or rein in his sarcasm. Occas=onally his voice pipes up from off camera, saying things like, "Y=u can't be serious!" But it is hard to imagine a movie more serious, and more urgent, than =80 Inside Job." There are a few avenues that might have been ex=lored more thoroughly, in particular the effects of the crisis on ordinar=, non-Wall-Street-connected workers and homeowners. The end of the film=raises a disturbing question, as Mr. Damon exhorts viewers to demand chan=es in the status quo so that the trends associated with unchecked specula=ion of the kind that caused the last crisis — rising inequality,=neglect of productive capacity, endless cycles of boom and bust —=might be reversed. 2 EFTA_R1_00117354 EFTA01790030 This call to arms makes you wonder why anger of the kind so eloquently exp=essed in "Inside Job" has been so inchoate. And through=no fault of its own, the film may leave you dispirited as well as enraged= Its fate is likely to be that of other documentaries: praised in some qu=rters, nitpicked in others and shrugged off by those who need its message=most. Which is a shame. "Inside Job" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned).=Some drug and sex references and pervasive obscenity, though not the verb=l kind. The information contained in this communication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. It is the property of Jeffrey Epstein Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by return e-mail or by e-mail to [email protected], and destroy this communication and all copies thereof, including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved 3 EFTA_R1_00117355 EFTA01790031