Movieclips
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2020–2023
3:42 · 5.7M views · Jan 15, 2014
A clip from the 2011 film Margin Call in which a firm's CEO, played by Jeremy Irons, tells a senior executive about the cycles of financial crashes. Kevin Spacey's character says he wants out, and the scene ends on the line that it is just money.
HN shares it in bubble and crash threads as a memorable scene about market cycles and about information work versus physical labor.
5 comments from Hacker News
Have you seen the movie Margin Call? There’s a great scene where the CEO of a Goldman-style bank is recapping the last 100+ years of global financial collapses and he mentions, “we just can’t help ourselves.” this video One of the best banking movies I’ve ever seen. Jeremy Irons absolutely nails his role.
I'd love this scene from Margin Call. I'm not familiar with each of these economic crashes that are mentioned, and I'm curious about the percentages never changing....seems to be very true. this video It's a great scene and line that's always stayed with me. "It's certainly no different today than it's ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 1837,1857, 1884, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1937, 1974, 1987, Jesus didn't that fuck me up good, 1992, 1997, 2000, and whatever we want to call this, it's all just the same thing over and over, and over again. *We can't help ourselves*. And you and I can't control or stop it, or even slow it. We just react. We make a lot of money if we get it right, and we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. There have always been, and they always will be *the same percentage of winners and losers*. Happy fucks and sad sacks, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. There may be more of us today than has ever been, but *the percentages they stay exactly the same.*"
Supermoney by George Goodman - he wrote under the pseudonym "Adam Smith". p.s. You might enjoy watching "Margin Call", if you haven't seen it before. This clip is particularly relevant: this video
this video - John Tuld ( Jeremy Irons ) If you haven't I do recommend watching the whole movie, or more like a mini documentary. Much Much better than the Big Short.
This is probably traceable to the amorphous nature of modern work. In the past, working all day meant you had a physical result, whether that’s a clean garden or a pile of widgets to sell. These days in the information economy, working all day mostly just gets you more words on a screen. Humans are physical creatures but our contemporary work style treats them as pure spirit. Reminds me of this scene in Margin Call , about the 2009 financial crash: "You're one of the luckiest guys in the world, Sam. You could have been digging ditches all these years." "That's true, and if I had, at least there'd be some holes in the ground to show for it." this video