Mark Baum Quotes in The Big Short (2015)

Mark Baum: I don't get it. Why are they confessing?

Danny Moses: They're not confessing.

Porter Collins: They're bragging.

Mark Baum: I have a feeling in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks. They will be blaming immigrants and poor people.

Danny Moses: You're completely sure of the math?

Jared Vennett: Look at him, that's my quant.

Mark Baum: Your what?

Jared Vennett: My quantitative. My math specialist. Look at him, you notice anything different about him? Look at his face.

Mark Baum: That's pretty racist.

Jared Vennett: Look at his eyes, I'll give you a hint, his name is Yang. He won a national math competition in China he doesn't even speak English! Yeah I'm sure of the math.

Mark Baum: We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food, even baseball... What bothers me ins't that fraud is not nice. Or that fraud is mean. For fifteen thousand years, fraud and short sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once. Eventually you get caught, things go south. When the hell did we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really did.

Mark Baum: [on the phone] Ok, I want you to walk back in there and very calmly, very politely tell the risk-assessors to fuck-off!

Vinnie Daniel: [Walks into the room] Gentlemen, I just spoke with Mark Baum and he says to 'fuck off'.

Mark Baum: Short everything that man has touched.

Jared Vennett: [pulling blocks from a Jenga tower] As, zero. Bs, zero. Double Bs, zero. Trible Bs, zero...

[the tower topples]

Jared Vennett: And then that happens.

Mark Baum: What is that?

Jared Vennett: That's America's housing market.

[Baum's team stares in utter shock]

Jared Vennett: Thank you.

Jared's Assistant (Chris): [delighted] Fuckin' A, Jared.

Jared Vennett: Shut your fuckin' mouth.

[Chris' face falls in embarrassment]

Mark Baum: We're going to wait and we're going to wait and we're going to wait until they feel the pain, until they start to bleed.

Mark Baum: And I'm getting madder and madder and I ask this guy how he sleeps at night knowing he's ripping off working people and he just leaves. He doesn't say a word. He just walks away from the lunch. So am I fucked up or is he?

Mark Baum: I'm going to find moral redemption at the roulette table.

Mark Baum: The banks have given us 25% interest rates on credit cards. They have screwed us on student loans that we can never get out from under. Then this guy walks into my office and says those same banks got greedy, they lost track of the market, and I can profit off of their stupidity? Fuck, yeah, I want him to be right!

[last lines]

Mark Baum: Okay. Sell it all.

Mark Baum: [of Collateralized Debt Obligation funds] So mortgage bonds are dog shit. CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit.

Mark Baum: [on cell phone] Hey... excuse me! Let me ask you this: What company treats its customers that shittily and succeeds?

Jared Vennett: [inaudible]

Mark Baum: [on cell phone] Fine... ok... Goldman...

Mark Baum: It's time to call bullshit.

Vinnie Daniel: Bullshit on what?

Mark Baum: Every fucking thing.

[repeated line]

Mark Baum: I love my job.

Mortgage Broker: So, is Morgan Stanley recruiting us? Is that...

Porter Collins: Oh, no. No. The bank owns our hedge fund but we're not really a part of it. We invest in financial service companies and we're trying to understand the residential mortgage business.

Mark Baum: How many loans do you write each month?

Mortgage Broker: Pffft! About sixty.

Mark Baum: What was it four years ago?

Mortgage Broker: Ten... maybe fifteen.

Mortgage Broker: Yeah, I was a bartender. Now I own a boat.

Danny Moses: You own a boat? So how many of these are, uh, adjustable rate mortgages?

Mortgage Broker: Well, most. Yeah, I'd say about ninety percent. The bonuses on those skyrocketed a few years ago. Adjustables are our bread and honey.

Danny Moses: So do applicants ever get rejected?

Mortgage Broker: [laughs] Seriously? Look, if they get rejected, I suck at my job.

Danny Moses: Even if they have no money?

Mortgage Broker: Well, my firm offers NINJA loans - no income, no job. I just leave the income section blank if I want. Corporate doesn't care. These people just want homes, you know, and they just go with the flow.

Danny Moses: Good for you.

Mark Baum: Your companies don't verify?

Mortgage Broker: If I write a loan on Friday afternoon, big bank will buy it by Monday lunch.

Mark Baum: Okay, look. If home prices don't go up, you are not going to be able to refinance. And you'll be stuck paying whatever your monthly payment is once it jumps up after your teaser rate expires. Your monthlies could go up two-, three-hundred percent.

Florida Strip Club Dancer: James says I can always refinance.

Mark Baum: Well, he's a liar. Actually, in this particular case, James probably is wrong.

Florida Strip Club Dancer: 200 percent? On all my loans?

Mark Baum: What do you mean "all" your loans? We're talking about two loans on one house, right?

Florida Strip Club Dancer: I have five houses... and a condo.

Mark Baum: Jared? It's chaos down here! Where are we at?

Jared Vennett: [Walking into his bank's employee bathroom] "And Caesar wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."

[Sees another employee, turns to him]

Jared Vennett: Shane? SHANE?

[Shane leaves]

Jared Vennett: Well, nobody's buying CDOs and mortgage bonds anymore, and everybody wants swaps. Swaps are now the hottest thing on the street.

Mark Baum: Well, that's good for us.

Jared Vennett: Yes and no. I heard from somebody who heard from somebody-

[Sees another employee walk]

Jared Vennett: No, Alex, no. Sorry.

[Alex leaves]

Jared Vennett: Benny Cleaver over at Morgan's taking some heavy losses. Your ship might be taking on water. Might be time to get our lifejacket and get out. Oh, I'm jacked. I'm JACKED! I'M JACKED TO THE *TITS*!

Mark Baum: Okay, good.

Jared Vennett: You feel it?

Mark Baum: No.

[Hangs up]

Jared Vennett: Now their foot's on fire and they think their steak is done, and you're surprised?

Mark Baum: That's not stupidity, that's fraud.

Jared Vennett: Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal, and I'll have my wife's brother arrested.

Jared Vennett: You smell that? What is that?

Mark Baum: What?

Jared Vennett: What's that smell?

Vinnie Daniel: Your cologne?

Jared Vennett: No.

[pause and looks to his assistant]

Jared's Assistant (Chris): Opportunity.

Jared Vennett: No. Money.

Porter Collins: Ooh...

Jared Vennett: I smell money.