The Big Short

"In the fallout of the Great Depression, FDR closed all the banks for a bank holiday, and then he reopened them in stages when they were reported to being sound. Later, historians discovered what we in this room now know, that those reports, they were mostly lies. Nevertheless, it worked. It worked because the public believed the government had everything under control. You see, that is the business model for this great nation of ours. Every business day when that market bell rings, we con people into believing in something, the American dream, family values. Could be freedom fries for all I care. It doesn't matter as long as the con works and people buy and sell whatever it is we want them to. If I resign, then any scrap of confidence the public is already clinging onto will be destroyed, and we all know a con doesn't work without the confidence."