Raghuram Rajan- The Hollywood Avatar

By International Monetary Fund – 2004 Spring Meetings, IMF, 69MS040421048l.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5633480

 

We Indians have a penchant for hounding out talent from our midst. It is no surprise that our best people migrate to the US and win accolades whereas they are treated badly while they are here. A prime example is the former Reserve Bank of India Governor Mr. Raghuram Rajan.

 

Imagine my surprise to see him being interviewed as the chief economist of the IMF and this interview is used in an eye opening documentary movie-Inside Job about the Financial crash of 2008 centered around the subprime loans.

 

It would be heartening to know for Raghuram Rajan’s supporters that he was the whistleblower on these dangerous loans which led to the demise of Lehman Brothers. Of course no one listened to him. Today it is so encouraging to know that we have such honest talent lurking in the sidelines willing to help the nation.

 

The narrator of the movie is Matt Damon and it is a very precise inquisitive documentary which should not be missed by anyone who is even a least bit interested in the world of finance and its spinoffs like dangerous derivative trading.

 

And if you are prone to taking the recommendations of Credit Rating Agencies seriously then have a look at this movie. Millions of dollars are spent by companies for esoteric but money making reasons to boost their own ratings so caveat emptor–buyer beware and forget the ratings read the balance sheet but that too with a pinch of salt.

 

“At the Federal Reserve annual Jackson Hole conference in 2005, Rajan warned about the growing risks in the financial system and proposed policies that would reduce such risks. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called the warnings “misguided” and Rajan himself a “luddite“.^[5]However, following the 2008 economic crisis, Rajan’s views came to be seen as prescient and he was extensively interviewed for the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job(2010).”–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghuram_Rajan