WSMoreOrLess: Fact checking The Big Short
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 March 2016
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Every one percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?" says Brad Pitt playing a former investment banker Ben Rickert, in the recent Oscar-winning film The Big Short. Although based on a true story, the filmmakers admit there is some creative license in some of the scenes. But is there any truth to this statistic? It turns out it’s a figure that has been around for many decades. We explore its origins.
The debate over whether the UK should leave the European Union is heating up ahead of the referendum this summer. Many politicians have said that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world – is that a fair assessment? We look at the GDP figures.
(Image: Brad Pitt attends the premiere of "The Big Short" in New York 2015. Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of More or Less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Charlotte McDonald. |
| 0:15.0 | If you're wrong, you can lose it all. The banks and the fraud of the American people. |
| 0:18.0 | This is the trailer from the film The Big Short. |
| 0:21.0 | It was based on the book by Michael Lewis and it tells the true story |
| 0:24.8 | of a handful of investors who saw the signs of the impending economic meltdown in |
| 0:29.7 | 2008. They watched traders from the big banks buying and selling complicated financial products that were based on dodgy mortgages on overpriced houses. |
| 0:40.0 | These smart investors anticipated that everything would eventually crash. |
| 0:44.7 | It won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay at this year's ceremony in Los Angeles, |
| 0:49.2 | but one of the lines from the film was not in the book. |
| 0:51.9 | And well, they kind of surprised us here on more or less. |
| 0:54.6 | You have any idea what you just did? You just bet against the American economy. |
| 0:59.2 | This is Brad Pitt. He plays former banker Ben Rickett and towards the end of the film he says that every 1% unemployment goes up. |
| 1:10.0 | 40,000 people die. |
| 1:13.0 | A few people on our team saw the film, I thought, |
| 1:15.0 | really, 40,000 people die? |
| 1:18.0 | Did someone just make that up? |
| 1:19.0 | So I saw this number in the script and I thought, |
| 1:21.0 | oh, that can't be right. |
| 1:22.0 | That just doesn't sound right how |
| 1:24.2 | would anyone even know if 40,000 people die for every percentage point increase this |
... |
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