Margin Call: What if John Tuld were Christian? Thomistic Practical Wisdom in Financial Decision-Making

Abstract

Margin Call is a film depicting the high-tension 32 hours of an investment bank that discovers that its financial holdings are essentially worthless because it has become highly overexposed in the risky trading of mortgage-backed securities and the entire market is set to implode, triggering what the bank leaders know will be a global financial crisis. In a ten-minute overnight meeting, the CEO, John Tuld, must make a difficult choice for the firm and for himself. This paper aims at analyzing Tuld’s behavior in the light of the virtue of prudence as described by Thomas Aquinas, and reflects on how the problem might have been handled differently if John Tuld had been guided by Christian moral teachings. It also examines whether Christian ethics, with its ancient heritage, has sufficient specificity and transformative capacity to serve as a guide in contemporary financial decision-making.