There is no question that the Global Financial Crisis sucked. Some people lost their jobs, their homes and their retirement savings. They basically lost everything. Yet, there is a sense that there were a small number of super-rich individuals that didn't suffer at all but in fact actually made a profit out of the whole damn mess.

How does that work? This whole politics and economy thing seems like a complete mystery to me. Considering it has such a massive impact on my welfare you think I would be more interested, right? But to the uninitiated like myself it all seems so difficult and apathy beckons as usual...

In the mean time, these are the basics I have been able to work out. So, there is this thing called Capitalism, which is all about individuals being able to pursue their own self-interest. In its purest form the goverment lets it regulate itself without any intervention.

However, it quickly becomes apparent that what ends up happening is that two groups of people emerge. There are a small number of people who own most of the capital (all the money, land, means of production, etc) and the rest of the people who work for them in the hope of catching some crumbs along the way.

It is in the self-interest of the owners of this capital to accumulate even more capital. One of the ways they can do this is by exploiting workers. Therefore, people started to question the hands off approach of Capitalism. Maybe it was necessary for the goverment to step in and put some measures in place to protect the rights of workers after all.

And so instead of a completely laissez-faire style free-market form of capatilism, most nations now have some kind of mixed economy, part free and part regulated. This regulation also came to include such things as environmental responsibilities, the prevention of monopolies and fair trading practices for consumers.

There is a heck of a lot more complexity than thid, which I dont even begin to understand such as corporations, stock markets, currency, interest rates, investment instruments, and high-frequency trading. Im basically just spitting out barely understood terms here but I think I have captured the bare bone fundamentals in the paragraphs above.

So what's gone wrong? Not really sure but I suspect it has something to do with inequality, corruption and some of the challenges of globalisation.

Where there a small number of people with a shit load of money they can fund a lot of pressure to lobby for change. This often means dismantling and removing legislation and the mechanisms that have been put in place to protect the average person. This then leaves the super rich to run rough-shod over anything they want without consequence because they are no longer breaking any laws.

Rich people can also use their money under the table by palming off big fat wads of cash to the various people that are meant to be responsible for making sure everyone is playing nice, with a tacit understanding that in return these responsible fellows will look the other way when the rules are being broken. Bribes, kickbacks and "donations" all undermine the system put into place to protect society as a whole.

Globalisation is not a problem on its own. However, every nation has its own version of a mixed economy with varying degrees of political interference in economics. So, if there are some rules stopping workers from being exploited at home, then there is bound to a labour market they can tap into somewhere else in the world that doesnt have those rules. This then forces nations to dismantle their own protections for the worker so that their labour market can stay competitive until the whole world matures their labour laws and there is nowhere left to exploit.

Now, I have still got heaps of stuff to learn about this economy and politics thing. And I sure as hell have no solutions for any of the problems I mentioned. But what better way to understand it all and come up with some ideas for fixing things than by watching lots of movies about it.

I have compiled a short list of a few related movies. Does anybody have further suggestions for movies about economic crisis, inequality, corporate irresponsibility, corruption, globalisation, etc?