Greed, Arrogance Fuel Subprime Disaster in ‘American Casino’

In January 2008, when Andrew Cockburn and his wife Leslie started making a documentary about the subprime mortgage crisis, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was above 13,000, the U.S. unemployment rate was under 5 percent and Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were still big names on Wall Street.

During the next 11 months, the Dow plunged 43 percent, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapsed and the U.S. economy fell into its worst slump since the Great Depression.

“It was a big story when we started, but it got even bigger as we were making the film,” Andrew Cockburn said.
Read more about the film, American Casino…

Student Filmmakers Expose Subprime Loan Scandal

Aha! Sarah Friedland saw the pink slip in her mailbox, a notice that the post office was holding an item for her. Ms. Friedland, a graduate student at Hunter College in Manhattan, was sure a friend had sent her a package. But the mail turned out to be a registered letter from a lawyer who was very unhappy about a documentary film she is making on a subprime loan scandal in Brooklyn.

One sentence near the end summed up his message in boldface capital letters: “You are hereby ordered to cease and desist” saying unpleasant — and what the lawyer maintained were untrue — things about the developers he represents.

“At first,” said Ms. Friedland, 29, “I was a little intimidated. Then I got mad.” Soon, she heard that the same letter had gone to two other students who were collaborating on the film, Kahil Shkymba and Joy Nayo Simmons. Read more about the subprime loan film…