Seeing The Financial Crisis Through 'The Big Short'

Published January 15, 2016 at 12:40 PM CST

Goldman Sachs agreed late yesterday to pay $5 billion to end investigations into claims that it knowingly sold faulty mortgage bonds in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup have already settled.

This comes during a week that the financial crisis has been in the news for other reasons. Yesterday, “The Big Short,” based on the Michael Lewis book that documents the events that led up to the 2008 crisis, was nominated for five Oscars.

Here & Now‘s Robin Young takes a look at the film and how things have changed since 2008, with Barry Ritholtz of Ritholtz Wealth Management and Sylvia Alvarez of the Housing & Education Alliance.

Guests

Barry Ritholtz, chairman and chief investment officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management in New York, and the author of “Bailout Nation.” He tweets @ritholtz.
Sylvia Alvarez, licensed realtor and executive director of the Housing & Education Alliance in Tampa Bay, Florida. She also serves on the advisory board for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She tweets @SylviaAAlvarez.

In "The Big Short," Christian Bale plays the eccentric real-life trader Dr. Michael Burry, one of the few who figures out how unstable the housing market is. (Paramount Pictures)