‘Inside Job,’ Documentary That Skewers Banks and Economists, Wins Oscar

February 27, 2011, 10:51 pm

The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature was presented Sunday night to Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs for the film Inside Job, about the causes of the 2008 global financial meltdown. In his remarks from the stage of the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, Mr. Ferguson said: “Not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that is wrong.” Mr. Ferguson, the film’s producer and director, wrote about the former Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers and the convergence of academic economics, Wall Street, and political power for The Chronicle Review last year.

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11134078

I doubt that I would have gone near the event. For that matter, I doubt that I would go near Tyndale. But cancellations of this kind are always regrettable. There seems to be here a refusal to listen to those you disagree with. I hold no brief for Bush who I think may well be a war criminal, but that is not the point.
willynilly

Of course, the reason given publicly is not the real reason. Several people i.e. staff and students listened to some of Bush’s previous speeches and concluded that this man is actually illiterate – a fact that most US higher educational instutions chose to ignore. Rack up a huge PLUS for Tyndale.
chuckkle

We can’t know the behind-the-scenes, but Bush himself would likely not be happy with drawing attention to a significant protest: it might give other venues the same idea and establish a notable start for ongoing public criticism of him and his policies. He might be the one who took the initiative of withdrawing by “scheduling”.
cwinton

Given that Bush is viewed by many abroad as someone subject to prosecution in the World Court for war crimes, I’m a bit surprised he scheduled anything outside of the US, where protection from arrest is potentially problematic. Once the knowledge of his scheduled visit became public, one can easily surmise that those outside the US interested in seeing him arrested could have mustered means to do so, even in Canada. I suspect Bush merely did the prudent thing, whatever the official excuse for the cancellation.
vatican

There is a saying that goes ”Keep an open mind –
but not so open that your brain falls out”.
chandrak

It is a shame that Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto has cancelled President George W. Bush’s visit. An educational higher institution don’t practice what they preach. Where is freedom, democracy, intellectualism, and all that crap. I have no respect for the administration, students, faculty and other staff who work at Tyndale University College and Seminary. Shame on you!!!
thedoctorisin

I cannot believe the blind bias of some in academia. You repeat the same old weary lines about George Bush or whomever else you happen to dislike. What are you afraid of, anyway? Are your ideas so weak that you cannot stand an opposing viewpoint? It appears that way to me. Maybe that’s why there is so much distrust of teachers and education in general these days.
awegweiser

You can bet your pension that Bush Jr would have received a very healthy remuneration
for all to hear more of his ignorance. I do believe it was he who cancelled considering the arrest warrants out for him in many places except the the USA where it should have been issued – and to include his buddy, the not ignorant but truly evil Cheney.
peterwwood

atana09, although we have different perspectives, we agree more than we disagree. I don’t know when those “halcyon days prior to the de facto takeover of student funding by privatized interests” were supposed to have occurred. Private interests were designed into the Title IV system from its start in 1965. The industry grew up on the trellis of federal regulation. Was “the life of the mind” sold on the corporate model? Yes, exactly.

Titus Andronicus suggests a gorier denouement than I anticipate for America’s system of higher education. The unsustainable financial model that underlies most colleges and universities and the distortions of personal incentives more strongly suggest the end of yet another play: Timon of Athens. Timon, who was once infatuated with his own generosity, runs out of money and only then bitterly learns how much he had deluded himself. He dies alone in a cave cursing all of humanity.

Peter Wood
chuckkle

Wood has a charming way of ducking obvious issues all the time. A recent example: bemoaning the loss of brick and mortar used bookstores. Full of nostalgia, sentimental journeys, and no reflection whatsoever on the how this change is an example of market capitalism.

Although Wood claims that the funding isn’t secret, clicking on the link he provides brings you to an article on something totally different: that the NAS California chapter has filed an amicus brief. So, perhaps the information is there, somewhere, but we’re still waiting for the correct link or some other form of citation. When I first read about this on the NAS website there was no information about the donor.

What my brief remarks (that is the protocol here, isn’t it?) were pointing at was how Wood and the NAS carefully cherry pick what they will study and how they will study it. Ok, we get it, you’re going to trash Bowdoin for being too liberal. But nothing to say about Governors Scott and Perry in terms of their higher ed policies?

Chuck Kleinhans