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Wiki 3- page 3 After watching the Inside Job I was completely shocked on how those who committed fraud showed no emotions for all of those people who lost their life time savings. I definitely got a better understanding of what exactly happen in 2008. Watching the Toxie video gave a me a clear understanding of how everything went down. The stories revealed how corrupt our financial system is and how the rich people got richer off the poor people showing no remorse. All the stories are proof of how selfish and careless this top people are, they only cared about themselves, and they only thought of making more money for themselves. The videos also showed how the Wall Street government will not step down and it's just a cycle because all those insiders who committed fraud never got punished for it. They did not care about the impact it would have in us, the lower class population. Their abuse has cause inequality to grow. We live in a society where we either belong to the upper class or the lower class. We have a huge gap between classes and the middle class is rapidly disappearing. I believe it's extremely important for us to keep informed about this issues because we become aware of the corruption going on around us. It helps us make better decision and it can prevent us from being robbed by these greedy people. It's also good to be informed about this issues because we can take action to stop this cycle of corruption by coming together as a whole. (Erika Ayala)

In the //Inside Job// and //Toxie// I began to understand how investors were like parasites feeding themselves by leeching off those who either; doesn’t know any better or those who just want to live the American Dream. Investors and are sucking the money from everyone not caring about who or where the money comes from because they are ignorant of those who are lesser than they are and are greedy. This proves to the world that our capitalist nation revolves around Wall Street and not the greater part of the nation, which should be the most important. I believe we should know exactly what is happening to our money. I mean honestly I did not know anything about what was going on Wall Street in all I knew is that people were losing jobs, homes, and there isn’t any money circulating like it should in our economy. Not only do people need to know what is happening to their money but also like history information such as recessions could help the nation learn and try to prevent this from happening in the future. It is very important that people learn about what happened in 2008 to prevent themselves from being like me, ignorant of what was going on because I once believed that it wouldn’t affect me in any way but reality is that it did with tuition and decision making for my future career. (Jerica Guzman)

These stories revealed about inequality to me because it did not only showed the benefits that these massive corporations benefit from, but at the same time how they did not cared about the poor or working class communities. While the big corporations where earning money and writing checks to themselves, the middle, working class and poor society where suffering the consequences by losing their homes, be unemployed and in the worse cases become homeless. It is important to understand that due to situations like this, the rich people do become wealthier while the poor people can become homeless. Most of the people lose their homes due to the lack of knowledge and at the same time for trusting the back and the agents who in many cases took advantage of their trust. This was easy to do because of the lack of knowledge that most of us have in this subject. That is why it is extremely important to be informed and get ahead of the political and financial matters that might affects us in our lives. I do not know a lot about this subject but from what I saw and learned from the video laws should be more regulated it. The “Inside Job” video should be shown in a public event where people from different communities could see it. (Elizabeth Moreno).

Honestly I had no idea of the situation that was going on regarding the issues presented in the film “Inside Job”. I had no idea of the type of abuse and injustices that were behind the financial system. After watching this film, I was much more aware of what really is going on in the system. I can’t believe that the people, who suppose to be helping us, are the ones making frauds. What I got from the information given was that the rich are getting richer, but at the same time the poor are getting poorer. The short film that we watched about “Toxie” really helped put an image in my mind of the corruptions and traps that people practice on the people. As in this short film, they paint a beautiful picture to sell to us, but in reality it’s all just a false illusion. It really gets me frustrated to know that government give too much freedom to companies (deregulation), instead they should regulate for the better of our people. Regulation should be emphasized in order to check on these companies so that they won’t do what they want. It is extremely important for us as citizens to be informed about the crisis of 2008 because it provides us with an informatory analysis of what is behind big companies, banks, and our people who are managing our economy. It is essential to be aware of the mortgage frauds and of the people who are making money out of these corruptions and just walking out without penalties or any type of punishment. If we are all informed about this, then we can take action and step up together to fight this abuse and inequality in our financial system. We need to know where, how and to whom we invest our money so that we make sure we are protected. (Rosana Nunez)

These stories reveal corruption within the financial system. Inside job exposed not only banks, but also insurance companies, rating agencies and even the government. The banks took too many risks when giving out loans because they profited whether the families could pay them back or not. They gained this money by bundling all the loans into CDO’s and sold them to investors. The rating companies helped sell these by giving a AAA rating to many of the CDO’s and received commission as an incentive. The insurance companies claimed to cover more than they actually could insure. Lastly, the government failed to regulate the amount of risks banks took and this lead to the crisis. Many responsible for the crisis advised the president and held important positions in the government which benefited the banks. As a result of all this, citizens lost massive amount money while the corporations became wealthier. After reading about the recent rise in gas prices, I learned that prices are rising even though more oil is available now compared to three years ago when gas was cheaper and demand has decreased as well .I learned that speculators are responsible for the rise in price because the government is not regulating them. They were ordered to limit the amount of oil they could trade but they did not so now they control nearly 80% of this market. Citizens need to know about the 2008 crisis because we are paying for their risky behaviors. Citizens are paying taxes so that the government protects us by regulating big corporation but they are not doing their job. If everyone understood what happened then we could push the government into being more aggressive and not allow it to happen again. (Patricia Perez)

Some investors made irresponsible decisions when dealing with actions of risky empty loans, without any regard towards the home buyers. These stories reveal that no punishment, consequences, and repercussion were taken in regard to the inequality and abuses in the financial system. It is important for us citizens to be informed about the crisis of 2008 so we can ask more detailed questions about how our money is being invested, investigate realtors, investigate the investors, and pay closer attention to the state of the housing markets. Some obstacles within the financial system were deregulation and no system of punishment. Some solutions to the crash of the financial system would be to have a strict system of regulation and punishment. Also, the hedge fund Magnetar is believed to assist the continuation of the bubble of the financial system. There is even speculation that it bet against the financial system, or promoted the failing of the financial system. This is an example of how investors were careless about the type of loans they were using at the home buyers expense. (Natacha Woodson)

I did not have a good understanding about the crisis of 2008, I had never pay attention to what was going on in the financial system, but after watching the “Inside Job” I was amazed on how these investors are. I do not have the best knowledge of the subject, but I think that it is extremely important for all of us citizens to be informed about the crisis of 2008 because all citizens had very hard times during this crisis. We all need to know what is happening to our money and also, what is going on Wall Street because we cannot trust them again. They did not care about us; all they wanted was to get rich out of our money. The lack of information and knowledge keeps all of us from protecting our privileges. It is easier for the investors to take advantages of us because of the lack and ignorance of what is going on in the financial system. This is relevant to inequality because they are taking advantages from all of us that were not well informing about this crisis and the financial system. (Blanca Guzman)

__Inside Jobs__ and __Planet Money’s Toxie Asset__ revealed how abusive the financial system is to the average American. Millions of people have lost their homes and jobs due to the financial crisis, and in turn the entire economy has lost trillions of dollars. Toxie represents the mortgages that many people bought during the housing boom. In addition, she represents the mortgages that people bought when they became cheap in 2010. There were large discounts, but the mortgages kept losing value. Some people kept paying, but others stopped and had to suffer foreclosure, which became increasingly more common. This is something many of us are aware of… I have lived in the same neighborhood for a decade, and every year there is at least two new foreclosures or otherwise vacant houses. __Inside Jobs__ showed statistics about mortgages, but it also showed how the system failed overall. The government moved many of America’s factory jobs overseas, and blue collar labor declined. Now, one must have a college education to hold a steady, well-paying job. Yet, college tuitions keep rising, which is something I am sure we are all painfully aware of. There is a large percentage of the population that cannot even afford to go to college, which in turn hurts them when they become involved in the jobs market. Both of these documents reveal the horrors of the American economic crisis, and it is important that we study it because we are dealing with the consequences of the crisis right now. Even though we did not necessarily cause it, we must do something to fix it. (Elizabeth Ingalls)

These stories revealed about inequality to me because it did not only showed the benefits that these massive corporations benefit from, but at the same time how they did not cared about the poor or working class communities. While the big corporations where earning money and writing checks to themselves, the middle, working class and poor society where suffering the consequences by losing their homes, be unemployed and in the worse cases become homeless. It is important to understand that due to situations like this, the rich people do become wealthier while the poor people can become homeless.

Most of the people lose their homes due to the lack of knowledge and at the same time for trusting the back and the agents who in many cases took advantage of their trust. This was easy to do because of the lack of knowledge that most of us have in this subject. That is why it is extremely important to be informed and get ahead of the political and financial matters that might affects us in our lives. I do not know a lot about this subject but from what I saw and learned from the video laws should be more regulated it. The “Inside Job” video should be shown in a public event where people from different communities could see it. (Elizabeth Moreno).

Before watching the //Inside Job// documentary and watching the Toxie clip, I never payed attention to what was going on in the financial world. Honestly, I never really cared to know. After watching them, I was amazed at how dirty these investors are and what they think they have to do in order to get rich. They do really crazy things and they seem to not feel bad about gypping people off at all. These stories reveal that those who are at the upper class Wall Street levels are too powerful. They have the mentality of “Survival of the Fittest” and they only worry about themselves, not thinking of what their actions could do to the rest of the world. I think that it is important for us citizens to be informed about this crisis of 2008 so that we are educated and we can find a way to try and regulate this crisis. We can be aware of where our tax paying money is going. After all, we are the ones who are most affected by this. (Moriah Gatson)
 * After watching the Inside Job and Toxie I learned that the financial system was not only abused, but abused by those who felt that they could take advantage of the financial system for their own greedy gains. Toxie is a symbol of how mortgage lenders played the market during the housing market boom. Lenders would be loaning home owners’ massive property/mortgage loans and in return would receive huge monthly payouts from the new homeowners. The problem with this is that with the housing market values were sky rocketing, more loans were made to people who were not qualified to buy these expensive homes. Banks were allowed to forge a individuals income making him/her qualified for a mortgage loan in hopes that the new home buyer would be able to make the necessary payments to remain in good terms with the bank. They offered fixed mortgages and adjustable rate mortgages to new home buyers hoping to entice them with two very good options. Most home buyers during this housing boom would choose the adjustable rate mortgage since the rate was dictated by the market. Since the market during that time was great, many people risked it thinking that the market would continue booming. **
 * Like many people say, what goes up must come down. The housing market soon crashed and with it were the banks that gave out those hefty mortgage loans. The people who forged their incomes to get home loans were refusing to pay their mortgages and in return those who were paying their mortgages saw their adjustable mortgage rates sky rocket. The banks had no choice because they needed someone to pay for their mistake and who better than those who were still paying their mortgages on the adjustable mortgage rates. Soon after even those who were still paying their mortgages could not afford to pay the monthly rate because it was so bad that people just gave up on their homes. **
 * It is important for citizens to be informed about the crisis because it is a lesson learned from those before us to not play around with the housing market. Banks should look at all aspects of a person’s credit history and job stability to insure that loans are given to the people who have the highest chances of paying it off. The housing market crash taught new homebuyers to always look for the best rate possible when buying a home to insure that they were getting their new home for the best possible rate. It taught a lot of people what to and what not to do with the housing market. With that said everyone did learn something and that is to be cautious when accepting a mortgage loan. [Mai Cha] **

I have to say that I was absolutely careless and inexperienced about the economy until we were introduced to “Inside Job”. And, of course a lot of this is still too much for me to process. What we saw in the movie showed that we are run by schemes, corruption, and greedy financial system. The most interesting part of the movie was when they described the cozy relationship between academia and Wall Street. There was a lot of intellectual support for privatization of finance and for the bailouts. It is apparently not uncommon to be paid great sums to work as a consultant or to serve on the board of a company if one is a professional economist. In one instance, a professor was paid $124,000 to co-author a paper on how stable Iceland was. I also watched “Before Toxie Was Toxic”. I don’t understand how the same people who ruined the economy are in the Obama administration? These are the people who oppose regulations, then how can there be improvement? When we did the exercise in class, we talked about how they are abusing the system by deregulations and making crazy money off of it. If I could dream big, I would definitely take away their assets and privileges and just fire them since they are living the American Dream. I think we should educate our voters, teaching them both the pros and cons of deregulations and regulations. I agree with Gabby Clyde that the main problem in our system is the rich are getting richer and poor keep getting poorer. It is very important for us as citizens to be informed about the crisis of 2008 because we need to know what is going on in our economy, we need to have at least some if not a lot knowledge of the economic system. (Humera Khan). * I don't know why the font of my first sentence is bigger than the rest. I try changing it, but it won't change here lols. I always type in Word first and then copy and paste here!!

I think that it is interesting how we put out trust in hands of several people that can make things good, worse, or bad in a matter of seconds with the decisions that they make. The results of those decisions affect the nations for years. I’ve always had difficulty and lack of interest in knowing how something as important of as the economy works. I think that many people like me lack that interest and we unaware of the actual things happening in the financial system. After watching “Inside Job” I got a better understanding of how things work in the world of economy. One thing that I learned is that there are a lot of corrupt and selfish people working in the system. There is a lot of abuse in the financial system which makes people who have money richer and people who are poor poorer. This gap divides class into two classes rather than three how it is usually structured; leaving us with only rich or poor people, but excluding the middle class in a way. For reasons like this we need to get more informed of what goes on with our money and how things work because the people working in the system tend to be selfish. They want to get richer; they worry about their well being, and have secure money and forget about all the rest of us. I wonder how many of them can sleep at night knowing all the bad things that they are doing that is affecting our society. That’s why after watching this video I plan to get more educated on how the economy system works and what it’s doing to improve society. -Sammy Rincon

Before I watched //Inside Job// I was uneducated about the financial fall in 2008. I knew the recession was bad but I never fully understood why the recession resulted in people losing their jobs and homes. Luckily, the //Inside Job// was extremely informative and piqued my interest to learn more about the economy. In the film they used a term I never heard before; deregulation. In essence, deregulation allows investors to cover up their dirty work without being tracked down by the government. I couldn’t believe how easy it was for financial institutions to lead their clients to believe that they were investing their money into something profitable. Essentially, the clients actually were investing their assets into something that was profitable – profitable for investors. It made me angry when I learned that the investors “paid off” lobbyist and well known economist to support their schemes. As a result, greedy investors continued to make fraudulent deals with their clients while multiplying their salary at no cost. Unfortunately, this cycle will only perpetuate if nothing changes. In relation, I would have to agree with Bernie Sanders on the Occupy Wall Street video clip, that we have not made any substantial change economically. It is important that citizens (of any country) educate themselves on how their economy works and find out where their money is going. Otherwise, the rich will continue to flourish and the poor will continue to suffer. -Sara Markus

I always wondered why there were so many people going bankrupt, and a lot of houses going on foreclosure; after watching //Inside Job// i was able to understand why it happened. All of those people who worked in the big banks, specially those with a lot of power in the banks, wanted to make more money; they were greedy people who wanted to become rich the easy way, by lying. The financial system is ran by those who have the power to do so. The Government always says they will take care of the people, and that everything they do is for the benefit of the people. The truth is that those who were really benefiting were the bankers and got so much money out of it. The financial system was ran by the greed of the men behind the crisis, all they did was manipulate the people into believing that what they were signing and getting was something worth it. So many of these men committed fraud, yet most of them did not get punished for it, instead they were hired by the presidents and other companies to work with them, advice them. These men were so smart at doing what they did, that the Government may think it better to have them close than far. Hopefully the regulators finally get involved and regulate the banks to make sure they don't try to take advantage of the people. After this crisis it is very important for people to be informed so that as a group we can push for regulation. If we are informed, we would no longer be ignorant, and they will not be able to take advantage of us again. Some of the obstacles that we would face are the power of Wall Street and the Government put together. Most of the power that the Government has is, because of Wall Street, and now they owe them favors, so it will be hard to get away from these men. -Guillermina Hernandez

All the information I had known about the 2008 financial crisis was that the stocks had crashed and it affected the economy in an extreme way. The stories from Inside Job and the links shown in class really told the true story of how corrupt and abusive the financial system is the people with all the power and the people in charge work with each other to benefit each other and not peoples well beings. Its crazy that even though people are aware that these people who ran these companies into the ground and trashed the economy they still are allwed to remain in powerful and crucial job positions. It seems that this is going to be an ongoing abusive cycle if the same people are incharge. Just because they get moved around doesnt mean that they disapear. They need to be in jail for their criminal acts. People’s hard work and lifelong saving were thrown around and used for personal gain. Greedy and manipulative people abused the system and lied and stole from millions of people. I think it’s really important to learn and understand what mistakes we have made in the past so we can know how to change them in the future. If I had to come up with a solution to make everything better I would think that the best thing to do would be to erase everything and start all over from the beginning and give everyone an equal amount of money. Even though this starting over and erasing everything wouldn’t actually happen, I wouldn’t see any other way that we would be able to recover from the economic mess.


 * Toxie’s story (Planet Money’s Toxic Asset) is just a simplified story of the downturn of the U.S. economy, more specifically, the fall of housing market. Toxie is a cute little fuzz ball character who was thought as a promising pet that can cough up a lot of money for the bankers and please the homeowners and future buyers alike. Toxie’s vital organs are made of prime and subprime mortgages, homes found across the United States, which was thought to be profitable in the long run. These homes were worth three as much three years ago. The banks were being greedy and trying to make a quick buck. The Toxies were sold at a very small price to make a quick buck for the banks. Isn’t that American capitalism???**
 * As U.S. citizens, we need to be careful with Toxie, the failure of the house marketing because her creator is not only greedy, but diabolical. It is also because we do not want to cough up our hard earned money due to one’s failures, in other words, picking up the pieces. As it is, we have our problems such as debt, bills, responsibilities and obligations, duties, etc. Why do we need any more stress in our life? We also need to be cautious how rich and powerful corporations in general abuse the financial system. It sad that they could get away from many things and not suffer any consequences while everyone else, the Toxie owners, suffer. (Ronnie Randy Serquinia, Jr.)**

The economic recession of 2008 was a historic as well as devastating political and financial crisis. This meltdown literally destroyed decades of American economic prosperity and significantly changed the American Dream. Millions of people lost their homes, their jobs, and their livelihood. What is most shocking and disheartening about the crisis is that our government and the banks saw it coming; it could have been prevented. “Inside Job” reveals the governmental economic policies and the abuse of the financial markets by banks throughout the 1980s and 1990s that ultimately created the housing bubble of the 2000s (which ultimately burst). In essence, banks began to use a new model to offer mortgage loans to home buyers and homeowners; this model was manipulative and predatory but completely legal. The federal government began a devastating trend of deregulation during the Reagan Administration and most significantly during the second Bush Administration; the practices of the bank were protected by the government, which was being run by many “retired” bankers and former CEO’s. It is very easy to understand that at the heart of the crisis is greed; it is more difficult to understand the means banks took to satisfy their greed and this documentary does a great job at informing the general public. At an even more elementary level is the short film “Toxie” which uses a cartoon and simple terms to help the American public understand the crisis and grasp its impact. Every American should be concerned about the crisis and must try to understand its devastation because everyone has been affected on some level. (Gilbert Felix)

People saw the 2008 financial crisis coming. I didn't. I don't understand economics. All these stories reveal the abuse going on in are financial system. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer. Those getting rich are experts that understand the policy's and procedures of how wall street and anything related to the financial system works. Those uneducated about finance learned the hard way by losing hopes and dreams. Inside job provided statistics and a view of how the system failed with its flaws. After watching this and learning more about finance, I'm differently going to do my homework when making a major purchase. (Jorge Carrillo)

Before watching Inside Job I had no idea of what was going on. I was clueless to everything that was going on. The stories revealed that there is a lot of fraud going on from companies that are high up. These companies are trusted by millions of people and in no way should they be able to even think about fraud and get away with it. With the fraud that has taken place it shows a great deal of inequality. It is not fait that people who do not know about the mortgage fraud is getting ripped off out of their money. The financial system is very corrupt and unfair. It is important for people to know what is going on so they will be able to avoid being caught up in the scandles that are going on. It amazes me how long this went on and how many people were affected by it. ( Sharita Henderson)

The documentary //Inside Job// and short film //Planet Money’s Toxic Asset// both shed light on issues surrounding the housing crisis. The documentary puts a spotlight on the people that many feel are to blame for this crisis. They took advantage of the system and many of them backed out, unharmed financially with no real repercussions. The worst thing too is that many of the people involved with this crisis still hold their current positions in businesses and in the congress. The short film helped to describe why so many people found themselves on the bad end of the stick after the housing crisis. Many people were confused as to how all of this happened. By being informed about these issues, the common person will be more careful about buying a house. They will hold agencies to their word to provide a safe, secure investment in their homes. (Amber Bowen)

===Inside Job and Planet Money's Toxic Asset allowed me to really process what actually happened in the 2008 financial crisis. It is important to be informed of the financial crisis because if people don't understand and see a problem, how is it going to change? If people are in informed, how will they know how to change their personal financial crisis, let alone the nation's? Before these films, I was aware of the damage that was caused but had no idea of how or with what money or what Wallstreet decided to do about the debt we were now in as a nation. I am in awe of the amount of Wall Street big wigs that are still employed and some even by the government! There is no regulation which creates less structure for Wall Street to operate. Some potential solutions would be to take Wall Street out of the government and vice verse. Banks should stop issuing loans to people who cannot afford to pay them and give loans only to people who have the financial stability to repay. The government needs to begin to regulate Wall Street transactions. We also need to educate the public about the reality and severity of the Wall Street problems and teach them to rely less on large corporations and more on themselves and their local community. -Ashlee Hickey ===

Inside job brought to my awareness the many things that have been taking place in our communities. As a sophomore in college at the time i had only heard about the mortgage fraud and the global recession. For me, there was never a clear understanding of this had taken place. Now, i am fully aware of the economic recession and the reasons for it. The stories revealed in the documentary made me aware of inequality, and the abuse in the financial system as well as the carelessness of certain individuals on wall street. It seemed that these individuals were not concerned about the needs of others but make money for themselves. It was important to know that this issue had been taking place in our economy. This will allow individuals to be more aware and allow them to make better decisions concerning their finances. (LaTashia Williams)