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By J. Patrick Coolican (contact) 
Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012 | 2 a.m.
J. Patrick Coolican
Along with a lot of misery, the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession have produced excellent films, both dramatic and documentary. In the former category, “Margin Call” took us inside a failing Wall Street firm that, though fictionalized, was clearly based on the events of 2008, exposing us to the anguish and ignorance of the collapse. “Inside Job” was an investigative documentary into the causes of the crisis.
But the best film yet may be “Queen of Versailles,” a documentary made by the celebrated photographer Lauren Greenfield about a family building the largest house in America before it all collapses — figuratively, if not quite literally — under the weight of folly. Real estate speculators and subprime lenders and borrowers in Southern Nevada played a more-than-minor role in causing the financial crisis, so it’s fitting that a significant part of the film takes place in Las Vegas, specifically in the troubled Westgate time share project adjacent to Planet Hollywood. The film is currently playing at the Suncoast.
The film begins in 2007, as David and Jackie Siegel have begun construction on an Orlando house said to be modeled after Versailles, which ordinarily might serve as a metaphor for waste and arrogance, but not so in this case. They’ve made hundreds of millions in the time share business, and the Westgate Tower in Las Vegas is a crown jewel.
As much as we laugh a bit at their reality show-style hijinks — Jackie is at an airport Hertz counter and seems baffled that she won’t have her own driver — it’s hard not to like them. They come from modest upbringings, and David is mostly sheepish about his success while Jackie is unpretentious and a loving, if not entirely attentive, mother of seven children.
David concedes that his middle-class time share customers rely on financing, which means he relies on cheap and easy credit from the banks to keep his business growing and thriving.
Once the credit markets freeze in the fall of 2008, the story takes a sudden turn because Westgate customers can no longer get financing. Suddenly, we’re in the Tom Wolfe novel, “Man in Full,” when the rich commercial developer who is overextended is getting a “workout” from the banks, squeezing him for everything he worked a lifetime to build.
David Siegel fights the banks to keep them from seizing the Westgate. Construction on the faux Versailles stops. Its half-finished skeleton, familiar to anyone who drives around here and sees similarly unfinished buildings, is a crass symbol of economic collapse. The kids are sent to public schools. The huge household staff is trimmed. If we can’t exactly feel sorry for them, we can see ourselves in them, largely because of the arresting and largely sympathetic portrait painted by Greenfield. (David apparently disagrees with that assessment — he’s suing Greenfield.)
Still, intentionally or not, the movie for me serves as an indictment of those years of false prosperity, when everyone had a house or a time share or a time share building he couldn’t afford, when the financing was cheap and easy, and when all was too good to be true.
"Real estate speculators and subprime lenders and borrowers in Southern Nevada played a more-than-minor role in causing the financial crisis, so it's fitting that a significant part of the film takes place in Las Vegas"
Not enough people went to jail for all the fraud that occurred back then.
This is a compelling documentary that you are right to recommend. As a postscript, David Siegel (through Westgate) is now suing Lauren Greenfield because he feels the movie portrays his company in a negative light. Most telling for me was the scene in which Mr. Siegel's son describes Westgate's customers, potential time share buyers, as "mooches," whose greed (for "free" offers to sit through a presentation) is an Achilles heel his sales force will exploit to get them to purchase something they cannot afford.
All these documentaries only tell part of the truth.
The facts are this was a false economy, BUT THE RICH PEOPLE STILL GOT TO KEEP THE MONEY THEY Exploited from the economy.
The BAD DEBT is now the PUBLIC DEBT and the 99% are stuck with this bill.
The rich, greedy and powerful will never pay the taxes to pay for the profits from the greed.
Just because these documentaries tell how the 99% were ripped off, they do nothing to get new laws passes to stop this extortion in the future.
In effect, we have learned nothing that previous history of the great depression told us.
No wonder I hate time shares.
the media has not done well either..radio and newspapers especially and Clinton was behind some of the deregulation that lead to the melt-down
When you hear Mitt Romney say he will get the economy going again, this is the type of economy he is talking about. The which has made himself a very rich man. His secret is no secret, it is called OPM, using other people's money. The modern version simply called the OP, the taxpayers.
Romney's economy is one built like a house of cards using counterfeit money and little if any underwriting. Truth is, these funds are not even borrowed money, they are funds created out of thin air and spent into the "economy". Money which then unjustly depresses wages and inflates the prices of most items. That in turn forces suppliers to seek alternatives, namely outsourcing and off shoring.
Normal commerce is rather slow and boring to be honest with you. Profit margins are tiny but stability is central. Normal business is not about creating millionaires it is about serving people.
I bet you do not hear any of that sort of thing from Barrack Obama tonight either. Instead it will be some bs referencing this but actually will be more of the same counterfeiting. You cannot say you want to stop kicking the can, and then still do it.
This sort of thing happens whenever we don't have honorable and intelligent bureaucrats regulating commerce. (Because no matter what, SOME unethical people will be in business, every kind of business where they can find an angle.) Today we have endless regulations but no oversight to speak of. When one must wait three years or more after a federal agency does it's thing to get the resolution promised.... And then there are the cases where no resolution is promised.
"Not enough people went to jail for all the fraud that occurred back then."
and guys like angelo mozzillo walked away with a slap on the wrist.
timeshare sales vermin are about 3 levels below realtors, poker fleas and horse degenerates. what a bunch of scum sucking cock roaches---pathetic.
but still above loan officers
What, exactly, is "false prosperity"? If the housing values would have held in the short term, would it then be "real prosperity"? If those who bought in 2007 hold until 2020 and make a nice profit, will that be "real"?
There are still bitter folks out there that did not read what they signed. A home is a place to reside not a cash register. If you make 50k you have no business purchasing a 500k property. We are adults take responsibility for poor decisions and stop blaming politicians. Look in the mirror and move forward.
At one point in the movie one of Jackie's young daughters who is adapted says that she used to be dirt poor and now she's filthy rich, but when you're rich you still have to worry about money. If you have Netflix watch "The Flaw" which explains the crash of 2008 better than "Inside Job". Actually Bob, many rich people have lost money in the crash of 2008 which is partly why Calif. is in big trouble--it is no longer getting capital gains taxes from the growth in the stocks owned by the rich. And the "rich" are not the only ones feeding off the next bubble. NVPers assumes a Bernie Madoff 8% growth rate on its pension fund. Firemen, teachers, and other public workers are crooks just like Dick Fuld and Angelo Mozillo.
I have witnesses. 20 years ago I told people that this economy could not continue, particularly in Vegas. People with entry-level and "menial" jobs were buying mini-mansions, tricked out trucks / SUVs, charging those credit cards to the max. When there is no way they can pay for it, guess who gets to take over for them? The non-indigent public and taxpayers. Understanding that not every person in an entry-level job does good, does not move up, does NOT keep their job and in Vegas many more (percentage wise) lose it, what were the politicians doing? The bankers (local bankers)? Investors? Casino tycoons were moving offshore so they had it figured out or at least understood their future markets were not here. Now that we've fallen far enough, future markets might be here but those are the new normal markets for the new normal economy. We all must DOWN-SIZE, particularly the PUBLIC SECTOR.