Compare and Contrast Posner's and Ferguson's Views on the Main Causes of the Financial Crisis - Essay Example

Many media outputs, including films, articles, and books have outlined various determinants of this economic disorder. One of the most prominent is Charles Ferguson’s film ‘Inside Job’, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary for its power filmmaking and investigative practices. Another prominent text is Richard Posner’s ‘Crisis of Capitalist Democracy’. This essay compares and contrasts the views of these two individuals -- Posner and Ferguson – in terms of their perspectives on the main causes of the financial crisis.

Analysis From the opening credits of Inside Job it’s clear that Posner and Ferguson agree on a number of substantial key contributing factors to the 2008 economic crisis. In these regards, both individuals identify the original spark of the crisis the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Another prominent aspect that both thinkers consider is the nature of financial deregulation as greatly contributing to the crisis. Both the film and the text provides historical accounts – both Ferguson and Posner’s exploration of the Glass-Steagal Act and Ferguson’s exploration of early era Wall Street – in demonstrating the tremendous shift that occurred in the 2008 economic climate as compared to a bygone conservative era. . Another of the most notable links between the two texts is the very notion that the American governmental structure may not be able to respond to the significant challenges of the crisis at hand.

While Posner emphasizes that a new model of Keynesian economics is needed, he also notes, “it is not that the economic challenges that we face are insurmountable but that we may lack the governmental structures and political culture requisite for meeting them” (Poster, pg. 7). One sees this echoed in Ferguson perhaps most prominently in the film’s analysis of the links between the financial sector and academia. Ferguson makes the profound and startling insight that the very people who provide the structural education of the economy are themselves on the payroll of these financial firms.

In both instances then – Posner and Ferguson’s – there is a profound nihilistic cynicism at the very structure of the American system. Still, as the film and Posner’s book develop it’s clear there are a number of distinguishing factors. There are a number of overarching considerations. In terms of contrasting elements, one considers the nature of the contrasting mediums. While Ferguson’s film is highly successful in articulating much of the complex process of the crisis, it lacks the in-depth and extended analysis a book can offer.

As such, one considers that while the two thinkers may not necessarily stand in theoretical conflict, Posner has the luxury of offering an extended analysis on many elements of the crisis. One trend in these regards is the increased emphasis that Posner places on the citizens that participated in the housing bubble. He writes, “by pushing up the value of common stock, which made people feel wealthier because their savings were increasingly