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Inside Job is the new documentary by Charles Ferguson that examines the financial crisis that erupted in 2008…
Ferguson, with his Ph.D. from MIT, had extraordinary access to influential people…There is an extraordinary conversation between Ferguson and former Bush adviser Glenn Hubbard, who just so happens to be the current dean of Columbia Business School. An important point that Ferguson makes in the film is that the academic culture in the nation’s most influential business schools has not only permitted the distortion of the study of economics, but has transformed the purely political and ideological view of deregulation into legitimate economic theory. The shuttle of academics between business schools, private industry, and the apparatus of government—the Federal Reserve, the White House, and Congressional hearings—paid for by the players who want to be freed from government interference shames the very idea of scholarship.
In an interview with NPR, Ferguson described what he learned from making the film: “Very prominent professors of economics, often people who’ve also held high government posts, are paid to testify in Congress,” Ferguson explains. “They are paid to be expert witnesses in both civil and criminal trials. They’re often paid to write papers that praise the financial services industry, and argue on behalf of deregulation of the industry. They make millions, in some cases tens of millions of dollars, doing this. And this is usually not disclosed.”
Filed under: economy, film, social & economic justice Tagged: | academia, capitalism, Charles Ferguson, corporate greed, Deregulation, economic professors, economics, Inside Job
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