The+Great+Gatsby

It was kind of difficult at first for me to find a lot of connections between The Great Gatsby, and the film Inside Job. However after thinking about it more I was able to find a few more connections. The Bubble for the film is kind of when The Great Gatsby took place in that time period. It was during a time when people were very obsessed with material things, which is exactly how the film described the bubble. It also talked about the American dream in relation to housing, which doesn't connect perfectly with Gatsby, but it is talking about people trying to get their American dream. I also think that the bankers pushing the economy so far till the collpse were mainly obsessed with getting money, and becoming rich and powerful. It was almost like that was their dream, and they were willing to go that far to keep it. I think this is a lot like when Gatsby left Myrtle after running over her just because he knew that Daisy would get in trouble, and that could ruin his dream. He didn't really seem to care about what happened to Myrtle.
 * My First Thoughts:**

In the speach Greed is Good Gekko is trying to convince the shareholders to vote with the board, and take their right as the head of this company. By saying Greed is Good he means that if you take risks, then you will get more in return, so being greedy can actually get you farther in life than not being greedy. I think this relates to Gatsby in how Gatsby, and even Tom were very greedy. For both of them no matter what they had they wanted something more. For example even though Tom had Daisy, and a family he still got a mistress. It also relates to Inside Job however not in the best way. In Inside Job they took lots of risks, and got what they wanted for a little while, but then everything blew up their faces. So for the bankers in Inside Job their greed didn't pay off as well as they had hoped.
 * Greed is Good:**

This reminded me a lot of Wilson. I just thought about how showing this different, and less glamorous side of America created a lot of contrast. I think that is shows how like Wilson, Barbara was just kind of unwanted, and easily replaceable. It was more of how she just happened to be there, and needed at the time, but she wasn't an actual person. I think that the reason Wilson was so just tired, and boring at the beginning of the book was because he was tired of being treated like that, but he didn't really know what to do about it so he had kind of moved on and accepted it.
 * Nickel and Dimed:**

This was interesting, I had never really thought of the economy working this way. However I think it relates a lot to the "Greed is Good" speech also. It shows how if there is a need for something, and you can make money off of it then it motivates people to fix the problem, and change something. I think this is a lot like "Greed is Good", because it's talking about how money is motivating them to make certain choices that they might not make otherwise. I think it also relates to The Bubble, in how for a while everything was perfect because people were pushing things to make stuff work for everyone.
 * Miners:**

I thought this was very similar to what was said in Inside Job. It showed even more how bad these companies got, and how they clearly lead us into the problem we are in today. It also reminded me of Tom and daisy, and how careless they were, and how they never even got in trouble for anything they did. Sometimes Tom and Daisy even gained things for the bad things that they did, and that's a lot like what these company owners did.
 * In Goldman and Sachs We Trust:**

This article was a little confusing, and difficult for me to follow. However I did notice that Goldman and Sachs were once again a big player in this article, and I thought that that was interesting. They must have been a pretty big reason for the current economic crisis. It also seemed to go a lot like the film on how rating agencies were unreliable, and how Investment bankers were selling loans to investors.
 * Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope:**

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I think the most important, and most common cost was the character's integrity. Every character at some point I felt had to sacrifice some of their morals. Nick gave away his when he became involved with Gatsby, and his scheme to get Daisy back. Gatsby had to sacrifice morals to get the fortune that he ends up with. Although it never says throughout the book it is assumed that Gatsby was involved in some shady deals to gain his fortune. Tom gave up his morals long ago when he began cheating on his wife, he also gave up his chance at having a genuine relationship with Daisy. Wilson gave up his morals when he killed Gatsby. I don't think he ever really wanted to kill someone, he was just overcome with grief.
 * Common Cost:**