Wow!  Yesterday I saw ‘The Big Short’.  It’s based on Michael Lewis’ eponymous book, and the screenplay was ably co-written by director, Adam McKay.

It’s a most entertaining encapsulation of the US 2007 – 2008 financial collapse—for which some of my scribbling on the Australian real estate market stands as a proxy—and I’ll want to see it again, to enjoy the workmanship and pick up more of the nitty-gritty.

Quirky drama, action, characterisation and comedy manage to skirt around preaching, to display McKay’s abhorrence at the crookedness coming out of Wall Street.

Yes, finance, insurance and real estate—the FIRE sector—did bundle up a housing bubble into contaminated “AAA securities”, but it would be great to see a director with similar ability tackle the incredible puzzle of why we continue to allow the FIRE sector to rent-seek in land prices! Because this is the fundament of impossible mortgages on which the dregs of Wall Street rely for obscene super profits which crash the US economy every 18 years!  Can’t this truth be told?

Unlike McKays’ brilliant tirade, mine amounts to a rant, but it’s cathartic.