The American Dream Dies Where Power Lies – BillMoyers.com
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, filmmaker Eric Vaughan was approached by his friend and colleague, Patrick Lovell, one of nearly 10 million Americans who lost their home in the crisis, with a simple question: how did this happen? Thus began their nearly 10 year journey of making THE CON, a five-part documentary series and in-depth investigation into the origins and aftermath of “the largest criminal conspiracy in American history.” Featuring experts, whistleblowers, politicians, investigators, and law enforcement, and foregrounding the heartbreaking and tragic stories of ordinary Americans from all walks of life, THE CON pieces together a startling exposé of what went wrong … and how it could happen again.
Edited for content and clarity.
Billmoyers.com:
What compelled you and your filmmaking partner Patrick Lovell to investigate the origins of the 2008 financial crash in THE CON?
Eric Vaughan:
The biggest thing that compelled us to make this series was that what we were hearing in the news just wasn’t matching up with our lived experience and in particular, Patrick’s. For me, I managed to dodge a bullet. I was a happy renter when everything fell apart, but Patrick was not. He ended up getting swallowed in this tsunami, as it were.
We had been working as producers on a different show together, and we were constantly in contact. When [Patrick lost his house to foreclosure], he was starved for answers. He called me up with a bunch of articles, “Just read this stuff and get back to me.” I kind of rolled my eyes, “All right, Patrick.” I’m sitting here thinking that he’s becoming Captain Ahab. I said, “This is quickly becoming your white whale, Patrick.” Then I started looking at everything, articles from several different places, a few books, and I read them all and I called Patrick back up. And I said, “I think we may have something here.”
It was right around that point when Patrick made contact with the third filmmaking partner in this, Adam Bronfman. We were able to talk with him, and he seemed excited and thought that it was a story that needed to be told.
Watch The Con Trailer:
Billmoyers.com:
Your production company, Red Point Digital, is based in Ohio, and a lot of the stories in the film are Ohio-based. What did you discover about the effect of the 2008 financial crisis on Ohio?
Eric Vaughan:
It became pretty clear that the upper industrial Midwest, the Rust Belt, so to speak, was very much the proving grounds for the fraud schemes that led to the crash. When we think of 2008, so often we think of the sand states: California, Arizona, Florida. Before it ever reached there it was in the vulnerable neighborhoods of Cleveland and Akron and Detroit and Cincinnati and Columbus.
One of the things that we discuss in THE CON is how the S&L Crisis [Savings & Loan Crisis] directly led to the mortgage crisis, and most of the technology or innovation that caused the financial crisis was first invented during the S&L era. I think it was Charles Keating who said that basically they wanted to exploit “the weak, the meek and the ignorant,” which to them meant vulnerable, mostly minority communities. You’re dealing with communities that have fewer resources, there’s sort of a cultural component that comes into play there. You also have a lot of older people who have a lot of equity in their homes, and a lot of them are widows. As soon as you start ticking off the boxes of minority, widow, older, and women, that becomes the profile for the target. And there just happened to be an awful lot of [these communities] here in the industrial Midwest.
That’s where these fraud schemes first came in, because it was easy entry. And once it germinated in these more vulnerable communities and became a sure-fire cash machine, it was easy enough to adjust the products a little bit, lobby for the right laws here and there, and…
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