The Bull Laid Bear

The Bull Laid Bear by Zanny Begg (Sydney) and Oliver Ressler (Vienna) examines an economic fraud and illegitimate debt concealed in the formulas of the rescue of financial institutions implemented in the countries like Ireland and the United States, but which also applies to all of Europe. Through a series of interviews with economists, white-collar criminologists, and activists, the video portrays the financial system as a giant house of cards in the state of an imminent collapse.

The film brilliantly combines a detailed analysis of the development of the recent economic recession and crises (bear market) with deeply ironic animations that illustrate the obscenity and sordidness of the financial capitalism. A hypothetical trail which the large banks are subjected to in the video not only forcefully dismantles main arguments in the defense of the economic policies of the investment sector (efficiency of the free market, impossibility of the collapse of financial institutions, among others), but also makes visible the enormous influence of the financiers on governments, that weakens democratic principles and transfers unsustainable debt to ordinary people.

The video depicts a scandalous situation of the new transnational modalities of theft and extortion through artificial prices, in the face of which the governments prefer to celebrate and sustain the criminal conduct. The Bull Laid Bear clearly shows the backstage of the financial crisis and the manner in which unlawful policies are implemented for the benefit of banks and corporations, crashing daily with the expectation of an equal social distribution and the idea itself of a real democracy.
(Miguel A. López)