China Entertainment started in 2004

Chapter 409 Pain and Happiness
In "The Wolf of Wall Street", the main male characters account for more and the female characters are relatively few.

Mainly the protagonist's second wife, and first wife.

The role of the first wife is a minor supporting role, played by Stone Sister who is still a little girl.

The second wife is the heroine, played by Scarlett Johansson.

It is now 2008, and Scarlett Johansson has not yet been invited to play the role of Black Widow in the Marvel superhero movie, and has not yet become a world-famous actress.

Since her debut, she has been working in the field of art films.

It’s just that most of the American actors’ acting skills are so poor that Black Widow has been working in the field of art films for more than a decade, but has never made any progress.

He then took on some commercial films, which either failed or were on the verge of failure.

It was precisely because of her obscurity that Marvel invited her to play the role of Black Widow.

Marvel has always adhered to the principle of "picking up leaks" when selecting actors.

In short, the actors in Hollywood who can catch Marvel's attention are basically those who have been in Hollywood for many years, have gained fame and have some acting skills, but have failed and their value has plummeted.

Find actors with good acting skills to star in the film with low pay.

The actors who meet Marvel's casting requirements are Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson and other failed actors.

Although Robert Downey Jr.'s salary for "Avengers: Endgame" was as high as 5000 million US dollars, his actual salary for "Iron Man 1" was only 50 US dollars.

The reason why he was able to receive a salary of 5000 million US dollars later was because Robert Downey Jr.'s "Iron Man" had been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it was difficult for Marvel to change the role, so they could only offer a high salary.

In fact, whether it is DC or Marvel's superhero movies, apart from being cancelled due to box office failure, the rest are restarted because the actors' salaries have increased too high.

In the original timeline, if we had to make up a story about "Iron Man" starring Robert Downey Jr., we could have made up several more.

However, the pay of 5000 million yuan was too high, so the filming was completed and the team is waiting to restart.

Scarlett Johansson was chosen by Marvel because she was a failed actress.

The reason she was able to get the role of the heroine in "The Wolf of Wall Street" was also because she was an art film actress with a low salary.

He was paid $10 and appeared in many art films. Although his acting skills were not great, they were not bad either.

And even though this character is the heroine, her proportion is not large.

If the role was important, in the original timeline it would not have been possible for this role to be played by Harley Quinn, who had only been in the industry for a few years and had acted in a few movies.

mid-December.

"Shu, let's get together sometime in the future." Scarlett Johansson said to Wang Shu with a smile before leaving the crew.

As the shooting progressed, her scenes have been completed.

"Okay." Wang Shu agreed with a smile.

The young Black Widow has a curvy figure and her looks have not yet declined. Overall, she is still quite good-looking.

Matt Damon's team's casting is quite something.

In the original timeline, the heroine of "The Wolf of Wall Street" was played by Harley Quinn.

The young Black Widow has many similarities with the young Harley Quinn in terms of figure and sexiness.

If the casting of "The Wolf of Wall Street" was based on the original timeline, there would be nothing wrong with this character.

"It's settled then." Scarlett Johansson smiled back at Wang Shu, then turned and left the crew.

After leaving this time, I will not come to the crew again unless reshoots are needed.

"No problem." Wang Shu responded with a smile and watched Black Widow leave.

After a day of filming, Matt Damon went to have a drink with Wang Shu.

"Shu, do you know? Something big has happened, something big has happened in the stock market!" As soon as the two sat down, Matt Damon said with an exaggerated and impatient expression.

"What happened in the stock market?" Wang Shu looked confused.

Matt Damon was so excited, he certainly knew what was going on.

It's just that he was busy filming, so theoretically he was oblivious to what was happening outside, so he pretended not to know.

"Don't you know?" Matt Damon said excitedly, "Lehman Brothers went bankrupt!"

On the morning of September 2008, 9 (Monday), Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and U.S. stocks fell nearly 15%.

While the financial sector was hardest hit—bank and insurance company shares fell by about 10%—no other industry was spared.

Credit spreads soared and credit flows stagnated.

Over the next week, markets and policymakers struggled to analyze the ripple effects of Lehman Brothers, to no avail.

Because the various connections and risk exposures are too complex and too opaque.

At the same time, various reports show that the financial crisis is hitting the economy, causing a sharp downturn.

As the producer and leading actor of "The Wolf of Wall Street", Matt Damon also has money to invest in the stock market, so he has always been paying attention to the stock market.

As 2008 began, cracks began to appear in the economy and markets.

U.S. manufacturing, retail sales and employment report data were all relatively poor.

Then, inevitably, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch announced losses, recording large write-downs of $222 billion and $141 billion, respectively.

Ambargo Financial Group and American Municipal Bond Insurance Co., which together insure about $1 trillion worth of bonds and have large exposure to subprime securities, had their ratings downgraded.

As of January 1, the S&P 20 was down about 500%.

The situation in global stock markets is even worse, with larger declines.

On January 1, the Federal Reserve held an emergency meeting and cut interest rates by 22 basis points (or 75%) to 0.75%, citing "a weakened economic outlook and increased downside risks to growth."

A week later, the Fed cut interest rates again by 50 basis points, citing "considerable stress" in the financial sector, "intensifying contraction" and credit tightening for "businesses and households."

The two rate cuts amounted to the biggest monthly reduction in short-term rates since 1987.

The Senate also passed a package of economic stimulus plans (about $1600 billion), implementing a tax rebate policy for middle- and low-income families to stimulate demand.

Stocks have rebounded somewhat, but the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate cuts have failed to reverse earlier losses.

By the end of February, the stock market was back to where it was before the Fed intervened. Credit and economic conditions continued to deteriorate.

Banks that announced large write-downs included AIG ($110 billion), UBS ($140 billion) and Credit Suisse ($28 billion).

In the first 3 days of March, stocks fell about 10%.

The U.S. stock market has always been booming, and even with this fluctuation, most people don't think there will be a financial crisis.

Then the Fed announced a new $2000 billion program, called the Term Securities Lending Facility, that allows financial institutions, including large brokerage firms, to borrow cash or Treasuries against collateral of risky assets, including non-government mortgage-backed securities.

The market responded enthusiastically to the liquidity injection, with U.S. stocks recording their biggest one-day gain in five years (about 5%).

This dose of chicken blood made American stock investors excited.

However.
The Fed has $2000 billion in non-performing assets to backstop, and the value of these high-risk assets will be greatly reduced as home foreclosure rates and debt default rates soar.

And this bottom-line money is taken from the people, using the poor's money to fill the holes of the rich.

If the money increases (for example, the Federal Reserve prints money), but people's income does not increase, then everyone's purchasing power will decrease, and each person will be allocated fewer resources, which is actually equivalent to being robbed of wealth.

The economic situation continued to weaken, as reflected in economic data that was lower than expected.

Unemployment continues to rise, consumer confidence continues to decline, borrowing growth continues to slow, housing defaults and foreclosures continue to rise, and manufacturing and service industry activity continues to shrink.

At the same time, financial institutions announced a new round of write-downs, including $190 billion for UBS, $40 billion for Deutsche Bank, $24 billion for American Municipal Bond Insurance, and $78 billion for AIG.

Oil prices continued to climb (reaching $5 per barrel at the end of May) and the dollar continued to fall.

These developments exacerbate the Fed’s dilemma.

On the one hand, the Federal Reserve needs to maintain loose monetary policy to avoid economic contraction and further deterioration of the financial environment.

On the other hand, they need to deal with concerns about price stability.

This was reflected in the minutes of the Fed’s April meeting, with the committee acknowledging that “the appropriate stance of policy is difficult to grasp under current circumstances.”

The S&P 6 fell 500% in June as surging oil prices led to a sharp rise in inflation, as well as renewed credit problems in the financial sector and poor economic data.

As for credit issues, at the beginning of the month, Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, saying it had lost confidence in the ability of these banks to repay their financial debts.

Then there were rumors that Lehman Brothers was seeking emergency funding from the Federal Reserve.

Moody's announced that American Municipal Bond Insurance Company and Ambargo Financial Group (two of the largest bond insurers in the United States) may lose their AAA ratings (which will seriously damage their ability to provide new insurance).

At the end of the month, Moody's downgraded the ratings of both insurers and placed Lehman Brothers under credit review, while home foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies (the underlying factors causing the stress) continued to accelerate.

As credit tightened, unemployment soared to 5.6% (the biggest monthly increase in 20 years), manufacturing activity fell for four consecutive months, and the consumer confidence index hit a 4-year low.

Meanwhile, the consumer price index showed that overall inflation rose to 5% in May, the biggest increase in six months.

Poor economic growth and rising inflation expectations have exacerbated market concerns about stagflation.

The market continued to slide in the first two weeks of July, with higher oil prices, a string of credit ratings downgrades for financial institutions, mounting write-downs and poor housing data.

Financial stock prices entered a free fall.

In mid-July, markets rebounded as oil prices fell sharply (increasing the Fed's room to ease) and policymakers took a series of interventions to boost market confidence in the financial sector, most importantly the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As of July 7, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock prices had fallen nearly 15% in less than a year.

The crisis was undeniably imminent and needed to be addressed. After intense behind-the-scenes negotiations, the Treasury Department persuaded Congress, and on July 7 Congress passed a bill authorizing virtually unlimited (Paulson chose the term “unspecified”) funds to bail out Fannie and Freddie (up to the overall federal debt limit) and expanding regulation of Fannie and Freddie.

The Treasury Department was essentially given a taxpayer-backed blank check to do whatever it took to keep Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac solvent.

In early August, lower oil prices and unprecedented intervention by the Treasury Department brought a brief reprieve, with U.S. stocks rising slightly (about 8%) in August, financial stocks falling only 8%, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's share prices stopping their free fall.

This is the key point. After a series of measures, the root cause of the credit problem and its feedback mechanism on the real economy have not changed, but the stock market has stabilized!!!
Therefore, American stock investors increasingly believe that the financial market is stabilizing. Many people are confident in the long-lasting U.S. stock market and do not believe that a financial crisis is imminent.

Then, in the first week of September, oil prices fell sharply, which was both good news and bad news.

On the one hand, falling oil prices ease inflation concerns and are also beneficial to US consumer spending, with airlines and retailers particularly benefiting.

On the other hand, falling oil prices reflect weak global economic growth.

Furthermore, the U.S. stock market only fell 2.5% this week, which is not unacceptable given the sharp drop in oil prices.

At this time, many people, including Matt Damon, still have confidence in the long-lasting growth of the US stock market.

Unexpectedly, on September 9, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, some prime money market funds suffered losses, especially the Main Reserve Fund, whose net asset value fell below $9 on September 16.

Investors pulled their money out amid concerns that other funds would also lose money.

As money flowed out, funds had to liquidate their commercial paper holdings.

As a result, within a few days, hundreds of billions of dollars supporting daily business operations were depleted.

A string of bad news followed after the main reserve fund's net worth fell below $1.

Ken Wilson of the Treasury Department received a call from Northern Trust at 7 a.m., followed by calls from Black Rock, State Street, and Bank of New York Mellon, all of which said their money market funds were experiencing runs.

At the same time, General Electric broke the news that it was unable to sell the notes it held.

Then, Coca-Cola Chief Financial Officer Muhtar Kent called and said the note could not be rolled over and that the company would not be able to pay its $8 million quarterly dividend this weekend.

Even AAA rated industrial and consumer products companies cannot roll over their notes!

The crisis quickly moved from Wall Street to Main Street.
By this time, anyone with some information channels realized that something was wrong.

This is also the reason why Matt Damon was so excited, so excited that he could even accept the loss of stocks.

The U.S. stock market is experiencing a major earthquake and a financial crisis is looming.

During this period, he happened to be the producer and starred in the finance-related film "The Wolf of Wall Street".

This is so fucking appropriate.

Although the lower the stock fell, the more he lost.

But Matt Damon was in pain and happy, and even hoped to fall as hard as possible.

Because the worse the U.S. stock market gets, the more relevant "The Wolf of Wall Street" becomes.

(End of this chapter)