Wallstreet

I recently read The Film Club by David Gilmour. In this memoir, he chronicles the story of allowing his son Jesse to drop out of school as long as he watches three movies weekly with this father. David Gilmour is a former film critic and television host. Rather than letting his son troll the streets, he starts a father-son film club. As they cover various styles and classics, they also discus a lot about life, Jesse's girlfriends, and his friends. From the book I picked up a list of classic movies I have yet to watch:

• Duel by Stephen Spielberg
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Sean Penn
• Jungle Fever by Spike Lee with a young Samuel L. Jackson
• Breakfast at Tiffanies
• Mean street by Martin Scorsese
• The shining by Stanley Kubrick
• Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock
• Dity Harry Magnum Force
• Wallstreet with Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen

Amidst all the financial mess, I decided to start at the bottom and got Wallstreet by Oliver Stone from Netflix. It couldn't have been more timely. The news broke last week that Bernard Madoff's hedge fund was a giant $50 Billlion ponzi scheme. 

After learning about bail-outs, derivatives and credit default swaps from NPR's Planet Money blog, or after reading Michael Lewis' article about the financial mess you conclude that not much has changed. Financial companies will keep inventing products which are hard or impossible to understand. In the process, the ignorant will end up holding the bag. Even those who are cognisant they are ignorant and don't want to play, will end up holding part of the bag.