Ethical Dilemmas and Capitalism in the Movie "Margin Call"

Ethical and Business Issues
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Ethical and Business Issues
The movie Margin Call can be described as an embodiment of unscrupulous business practices that place entire markets at risk and cause massive losses to people. The company packages and sells new mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by a new formula developed in the previous two years (Chandor, 2011). However, the formula emerges to be wrong, and it has placed the company on the edge of bankruptcy, similar to what happened with such products during the 2008 financial crisis (Uhlig, 2018). In terms of ethical practices, it can be argued that Sara, Jared, and Tuld were aware that there could be problems. However, the new MBS product was lucrative for the company, so the firm decided to go ahead with it.
Ethical dilemmas
The first ethical dilemma involved the company and what to do with the bad MBS assets that threatened to bring down the company. The first choice was to inform the clients, and other stakeholders caused reputational damage and hefty financial losses for the company. Alternatively, the company could clear the assets to unwitting buyers, who would take the loss, and the company would be saved. This is an option acceptable by both Tuld and Jared but bitterly opposed by Sam. In this case, Sam believes that the decision would ruin the entire market and that the reputational damage to both the company and its executives would be massive.
Sam is also left in an ethical dilemma considering that he understands the implications yet needs the money. The survival of the company secures his options and bonuses. Eric Dale works in risk management and is fired before they finish working on the model. His ethical dilemma is manifested through the fact that he accepts to take a huge pay to sit in...