My Thoughts on “Money Monster”

 

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I just returned from a movie with my mom. It was one of those Mother-Daughter days, we did a little shopping and decided to see a flick. Below is my reaction to the movie, it contains spoilers so continue reading at your own risk. 🙂

We went to see “Money Monster.” It was directed by Jodi Foster and starred George Clooney and Julia Roberts. It was an action packed show and it reminded me of “The Big Short.”

 

 

It’s the story of Kyle Budwell. A young man who’s trying to make ends meet with a fourteen dollar an hour job in New York City. His girlfriend’s pregnant and his mother dies, leaving him some money. He starts watching “Money Monster,” a stock tip television show hosted by Lee Gates.

Kyle listens to Lee’s advice and invests in a company called IBIS. Their stock has been on the uphill climb and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. But there’s a “glitch,” and the stock plummets. Kyle loses all of his money.

He’s angry, frustrated, and wants some answers. So do many Americans who’ve lost money in the market. Kyle takes matters into his own hands and crashes Lee’s show, with a gun and a bomb. The saga begins and we learn Kyle’s story. We also learn how Wall Street is operating. This is not only a great movie, but it also educates people on what’s really happening on Wall Street.

That’s what I loved about it. I learned how these people manipulate the market to make more money for themselves while ruining other people’s financial lives. There are always victims in these manipulations and that’s the upsetting part of all of it.

 

Photo credit: Perpetualtourist2000 via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

 

These CEO’s are millionaires already, and they maneuver their holdings to make more. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but they ruin lives in the process. When is it going to be enough? Why don’t they do some good with the money they make? Give some to charity, or help starving children. I mean really, how much money does one person or one corporation really need?

Which brings me to the regulatory part of the market. In the movie, the CEO of Ibis took eight hundred million dollars from his fund and called it a “glitch.” No one but him knows where the money is. He goes to South Africa where there’s a coal mine and the miners are on strike. The mine’s stock has plummeted, and he buys a lot of shares. He tries to pay off the organizer of the strike. If he succeeds the strike will stop, the miners will return to work, and the stock will rise. The CEO will make a tidy sum of money on his investment when he sells his shares. He could choose to return the eight hundred million dollars to the fund that he took it from and everyone would be happy.

In the above scenario, no one says anything because no one lost anything. It’s only when the scheme doesn’t work, like in the movie, when the strike organizer couldn’t be bought. The mine’s stock remained low and the CEO himself lost some money because he couldn’t sell his shares for a profit. He didn’t put the eight hundred million dollars back into his company either.

There are regulatory laws, but the thing is, no one says anything until lives are ruined, and when someone takes money overseas, things get complicated very fast.

Photo credit: Images_of_Money via VisualHunt / CC BY

Why aren’t the politicians screaming about this? Because they’re the ones who receive campaign contributions from these CEO’s. So you see, it’s a vicious cycle. What can we do to stop this? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Slice of Life: My Thoughts on “The Big Short”

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with another Slice of Life Post. I’m so excited because we have a little over a month left of school and then it’s summer break. I’m really looking forward to it this year. Even though we had a mild winter, it just seems like we’ve had cold weather for a very long time. It’s just starting to warm up here in Michigan.

Hubby and I watched a movie over the weekend, “The Big Short.” It was about what happened in the banking industry around 2006-2007. It was eye-opening to say the least. I’m going to watch it again, it was that good.

The premise of the story is how the banking industry committed fraud by bundling mortgages together and claiming they were rated highly (which means they were safe), when in actuality they were junk. Those same people made millions by betting these bundled mortgages would fail. They knew they would because they created the bundles with junk in the first place, yet none of them went to jail or even had a trial. How can this be?

Things like this happen all around us. Yet it seems to me the American people get distracted by superficial problems. Like the bathroom issue regarding transgendered people or a certain celebrity behaving badly. These problems are screamed about via the media and the corruption gets swept under the rug.

The thing is if it’s happening at that level, it’s got to be everywhere. Who does this hurt? Us. The middle income wage earner. Many people lost their homes and jobs during that time because they defaulted on their loans. The housing bubble burst and home values took a nose dive. Many people who tried to sell their home couldn’t price it properly to cover the mortgage amount they owed.

All this time the people who perpetrated this fraud made millions. That makes me sick to think they were so greedy, they allowed innocent people to lose their homes. We need to become more aware and better educated so this doesn’t happen again.

I also wonder why they got away with it. Why aren’t they being held accountable? If anyone can explain it to me, I’d love hear it. Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. And check out this movie, it was very well done. I’m going to watch it again, that’s for sure.

Thanks for stopping by! If you’d like to read other Slice of Life Posts, click here.

 

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”

 

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today with something a little lighter than my previous posts these last few weeks.  Something a little more fun. 🙂

 

I’ve got a movie review for you. Yes, I’ve watched this movie many times (I’m actually watching it now as I write this post) and it’s one of those funny, with a deeper message movies. I fell in love with the main character and I’m sure you will, too.

 

The movie is “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” It came out in 2013 and I just got around to watching it last year. I’m not sure why, probably because I was busy writing. Anyway, the blurb is below.

 

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller), an employee at Life magazine, spends day after monotonous day developing photos for the publication. To escape the tedium, Walter inhabits a world of exciting daydreams in which he is the undeniable hero. Walter fancies a fellow employee named Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) and would love to date her, but he feels unworthy. However, he gets a chance to have a real adventure when Life’s new owners send him on a mission to obtain the perfect photo for the final print issue.

 

The reason I love this movie so much is because Walter (the main character) is kind of the underdog. He’s a nice guy that puts aside his dreams to help his family out when his father dies and he continues in this vein all his life.

In the movie Walter is a grown man and he’s a negative asset manager for Life Magazine. He’s kind and gentle. So when the company decides to transition from a paper magazine to an online magazine, he’s not prepared to handle the bully who’s responsible for managing the transition.

It’s a great story and it illustrates the underdog does win sometimes. One of my most favorite themes in life. It’s a good movie to watch with your family and Ben Stiller does an excellent job. I highly recommend it. How about you? Have you seen any good movies you’d recommend? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

 

 

My Thoughts on “The Martian”

Last week hubby and I watched “The Martian.” I haven’t read the book yet. It’s on my TBR pile, but my pile is getting bigger and bigger and my days are getting busier and busier. Sigh. I’m sure you know how that goes.

Anyway, I’m not into Sci-Fi, but this movie caught my attention. The thing that I liked about it is the fact that this situation isn’t out of the realm of possibility. It was believable. That’s one of the things I don’t like about Science Fiction, some of it’s so way out there it’s hard to believe in the possibility of the events even happening.

Not only did I like the story line, I also liked Matt Damon’s character Mark Watney. He’s a botanist and he’s left behind on Mars. He’s all alone and the story is about how he manages to survive and how he returns to Earth. As you may have guessed, obstacles come up along with some triumphs and you have to wait until the very end to see if he makes it.

So, if you’re looking for a great movie. I’d recommend it. It’s a science fiction story without a totally “sciencey” feeling to it.

If you want to read the book first. Here’s the cover, blurb, and buylink.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Buy from Amazon

How about you? What movies have you seen lately that you’d recommend? Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

The Movie “Now You See Me”

Hello everyone! I hope all is well with you!  Today’s post is short and sweet, so if you don’t have a lot of time then this one’s for you.

A few weeks ago I went to see the movie “Now you see Me.” I was expecting a thriller and I was all geared up to be jumping out of my seat. Well…that didn’t happen, but I loved the movie anyway.

It was a movie about magic and how five magicians worked together to right a wrong that happened years ago. It was totally unexpected and a very good movie. I’d highly recommend it. 🙂

It was nice to go to the theater and get something unexpected. I don’t know about you, but for me that hasn’t happened in a long time. With so many different flicks out there it was nice to be pleasantly surprised. I don’t want to say too much more about it because then I’d have to give up the plot and I don’t want to ruin for anyone.

The actors did a great job. I’m a big fan of Woody Harrelson, ever since his Cheers days, and his acting was superb.  I’m also a big fan of Mark Ruffalo. He’s too cute for words. 🙂 (I know I’m gushing like a school girl…but hey what can I say!)

I liked Jesse Eisenberg’s character in this movie much better than the one he played in “Facebook.” So, he’s growing on me as an actor. I’ll definitely keep my eye out for him and check out his next movie.

Well…that’s about all I have to say about “Now You See Me.” I enjoyed it and if you’re looking for something a little different, you will too.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Have you seen a good flick recently? Please share I’d love to read your comments. 🙂