When I first joined the Innovation Academy, I vividly remember Mr. Topf asking us what we wanted to have learned after two years. Despite being in a room full of people with completely different interests, there was one thing we all wanted to learn, or better said, become.
CULTURED.
Throughout elementary and middle school, I learned a lot about subjects like science, math, and english, but I never really learned much about the world around me. I wanted to know the difference between a democrat (liberal) and a republican (conservative), I wanted to know what happened when the U.S market crashed in 2008, I wanted to be able to understand an adult conversation without getting lost halfway through it.
CULTURED.
Throughout elementary and middle school, I learned a lot about subjects like science, math, and english, but I never really learned much about the world around me. I wanted to know the difference between a democrat (liberal) and a republican (conservative), I wanted to know what happened when the U.S market crashed in 2008, I wanted to be able to understand an adult conversation without getting lost halfway through it.
Today in Innovation I feel as though we did exactly this, we got a step closer to becoming cultured people. We looked at the differences between democrats and republicans and watched part of a documentary called Inside Jobs, where learned about the 2008 U.S financial crisis.
What I first came to discover was that although I lean more towards being a democrat than a republican--because I highly believe in equity--there are certain beliefs for different issues within each party that I find contradicting. For instance, a conservative doesn't believe in abortion because they claim to be pro-life, so why do they support the death penalty?
To be honest, I have equal respect for both parties, and there are certain beliefs I agree with, and other which I don't, thus, if you were to ask me personally, I would consider myself an independent, because my ideal party would be a mix of both liberal and conservative beliefs.
What I first came to discover was that although I lean more towards being a democrat than a republican--because I highly believe in equity--there are certain beliefs for different issues within each party that I find contradicting. For instance, a conservative doesn't believe in abortion because they claim to be pro-life, so why do they support the death penalty?
To be honest, I have equal respect for both parties, and there are certain beliefs I agree with, and other which I don't, thus, if you were to ask me personally, I would consider myself an independent, because my ideal party would be a mix of both liberal and conservative beliefs.
For someone who knew nothing about the 2008 financial crisis, the thirty minutes that we watched of the documentary "Inside Jobs" (which resulted in a 2 hour discussion) were by far the thirty most challenging minutes of my day. There were so many words and people involved that I had never even heard of before, that it was hard for me to keep track of what happened first, what caused what, who where the "mean guys" and who where the "good".
In a short summary, I learned that the financial crisis began because lobbyist's managed to bribe the government. The Glass Steagall Act--which regulated banks--was replaced with the Gramn-Leach-Billey Act, which called for deregulation. Deregulation allowed banks to form a monopoly, gain power, and even more money.
But that's just the beginning of it. The rest of it can be viewed upon as a chain:
In a short summary, I learned that the financial crisis began because lobbyist's managed to bribe the government. The Glass Steagall Act--which regulated banks--was replaced with the Gramn-Leach-Billey Act, which called for deregulation. Deregulation allowed banks to form a monopoly, gain power, and even more money.
But that's just the beginning of it. The rest of it can be viewed upon as a chain:
HOME BUYERS LENDERS INVESTMENT BANKS INVESTORS | 1. The lenders had an incentive to give large home mortgages to people who couldn't afford to pay them back. Why? Because the lenders ran no risk, they were making money by selling these mortgages to investment banks. Thus, they didn't care whether or not the homebuyers could afford to pay back the loans. 2. Since loans were given out with such ease, the demand and price of housing boosted drastically. As prices rose, people expected them to continue to rise, thus, demand continued to increase, and a housing bubble was triggered. 3. Once the mortgage had been "passed on" to investment banks, the banks combined thousands of these mortgages (car loans, student loans, credit car debts) to create a CDO's (colateralized debt obligations). Since these CDO's were made up of very risky loans, investment banks payed rating agencies like Moody's to give the loans a triple AAA (highest ranking) rating. 4. Investors saw these highly ranked securities and bought them from the Investment Banks. |
The big problem arose when homebuyers couldn't afford to pay back the mortgages that were originally given to them by the lenders. Homebuyers could either wait for the bank to deprive them the right to their property (for not making the payment), they could renegotiate their loan, or simply walk away from the home.
A financial crisis was inevitable, and everyone was prone to lose something; investors lost millions of dollars, banks went bankrupt, people lost their homes and the money they had invested into them, and the U.S was basically looking at trouble.
A lot of trouble.
Now there's still a long way to go to for us to finish the movie, but what I've watched so far has made me realize how so much of our lives revolves around our urge for money. The crisis was a result of people (who were already wealthy) craving more money, and doing what was at their best interest to get it.
It's scary to think how involved the government was in all of this, and how many times, the people we are suppose to trust, in this case the government, are actually the people trying to get around us.
A financial crisis was inevitable, and everyone was prone to lose something; investors lost millions of dollars, banks went bankrupt, people lost their homes and the money they had invested into them, and the U.S was basically looking at trouble.
A lot of trouble.
Now there's still a long way to go to for us to finish the movie, but what I've watched so far has made me realize how so much of our lives revolves around our urge for money. The crisis was a result of people (who were already wealthy) craving more money, and doing what was at their best interest to get it.
It's scary to think how involved the government was in all of this, and how many times, the people we are suppose to trust, in this case the government, are actually the people trying to get around us.