SDH Captioned
Grades 10 - 12, College, Adults
DVD Purchase $495, Rent $195
US Release Date: 2010
Copyright Date: 2009
DVD ISBN: 1-59458-934-8
Subjects
American Studies
Anthropology
Business Practices
Capitalism
Economics
Ethics
Global Issues
Globalization
History
International Trade
Sociology
The Love of Money
The Definitive Guide to the Economic Meltdown
3-part BBC series provides the definitive guide to the global economic meltdown.
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"Engrossing...immensely well-informed overview of the global crash." David Chater, The (London) Times |
In September 2008, capitalism looked like it was on the brink of collapse. This is the story of how the crash was caused, what happened, and how generations to come will be affected by its legacy.
In just one week banks across the world ran out of cash. Lehman Brothers collapsed; America's largest broker Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America; and AIG, the world's largest insurance group was nationalized. For over a year, governments had battled to contain the financial fallout from America's sub-prIme loans. But for some, time had run out. The world's economy went into freefall.
This series takes a look at the week itself and explains how cultural and financial decisions taken over the last 20 years led to the crash of 2008 and how the fates of all the main players were interlinked. It meets the people who saw their careers, their reputations and their fortunes disappear overnight. It tells the revelatory tale of the birth of easy money and cheap credit and how this was then exported around the world with catastrophic results.
Finally, the series reveals just how close we came to a total meltdown and asks what the ongoing costs of the rescue will be.
Featuring exclusive interviews with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as well as the CEOs of leading financial institutions and finance ministers from around the world, THE LOVE OF MONEY places the crash in its social context, analyzing how it was reported by the media and how it has changed the lives of so many.
The three programs in the series are:
1. The Bank that Bust the World - The first film in the BBC series, THE LOVE OF MONEY, examines what happened in September 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Brothers plunged the world into financial crisis.
2. The Age of Risk - The second film in the BBC series, THE LOVE OF MONEY, examines the boom years before the global financial crash of 2008.
3. Back from the Brink - The third film in the BBC series, THE LOVE OF MONEY, examines the background to the decision to bail out the banks in 2008.
Reviews
"This positively brilliant documentary offers a sobering realization of precisely how close to the brink of disaster the world economy came...The unrelenting revelations of this film...the outright horror, shock, and outrage that are generated by this documentary series is undeniable...This series is a truly a 'must see.' The film is promoted as 'the definitive guide to the global economic meltdown.' This is no exaggeration, and is indeed a well deserved tagline."
"The Bank that Bust the World should be mandatory viewing in MBA programs and in Washington. It's a brilliant exposé on how insatiable greed, unrestrained egos, and unaccountability brought down Lehman Brothers, one of the oldest investment banks in the US."
"The Age of Risk is an excellent summary of what has become a complicated set of events. Two decades worth of financial globalization in which excessive greed became virtually normative at many financial institutions. While events such as the rise of China, financial de-regulation and increasingly novel financial products vastly increased the velocity of transaction and productivity of financial services, it was the growth of a culture of massive individual enrichment that was the glue that held this all together."
"What happens when banks lose confidence in banks? According to Back from the Brink, when this happened, credit virtually dried up with the result that the entire global economy was close to a complete shutdown. How this was averted is the principal focus of this film. It provides an excellent analysis of the key issues with assessments from major political leaders provides one with a compelling narrative of the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers."
"The Love of Money was a meticulous countdown to disaster, its clarity and the colossal scale of the facts and figures making it vastly more compelling than the dramatisation a few nights ago... the story unfolded largely in the words of those who were there, with the occasional addition from the narrator to make sure we were following through the still relatively unfamiliar terrain of shrunken multi-billion portfolios, balance sheets, liquidity guarantees and the horrors revealed wherever potential investors and their due diligence teams trod."
"A vivid, fascinating account of the crisis...Those directly involved recall the frenzied, round-the-clock attempts to save the firm [Lehmans], amid `the smell of pizza and unwashed bodies'."
"Over the last three weeks we have been treated to the sight of what it [the BBC] undeniably does best: making serious documentaries about events of great public importance...The programme-makers did an excellent job. Apart from lining up many of the major players in the world's economic near-collapse...it explained both what had happened and the consequences if the banks had been allowed to fold...For all the cold-blooded analysis, you didn't hear many...participants admitting the whole mess had been partly of their own making, and nor were you satisfied it couldn't happen all over again...There was also some telling insight into the impact on the relationships between countries, with Britain, Ireland and France all throwing barbed remarks."