The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse
Doc Zone has traveled the world - from Wall Street to Dubai to China - to investigate The Secret History of the Global Financial Collapse. Meltdown is the story of the bankers who crashed the world, the leaders who struggled to save it and the ordinary families who got crushed.
September 2008 launched an extraordinary chain of events: General Motors, the world’s largest company, went bust. Washington Mutual became the world's largest bank failure. Lehman Brothers became the world’s largest bankruptcy ever - The damage quickly spread around the world, shattering global confidence in the fundamental structures of the international economy.
Meltdown also tells the stories of desperate foreclosed homeowners in California, disillusioned autoworkers at the end of the line in Ontario and furious workers in France who shocked the world by kidnapping their own bosses.
1. The Men Who Crashed the World. Greed and recklessness by the titans of Wall Street triggers the largest financial crash since the Great Depression. It's left to US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, himself a former Wall Street banker, to try and avert further disaster.
2. A Global Tsunami. The meltdown's devastation ripples around the world from California to Iceland and China. Facing economic ruin, desperate world leaders are at each other's throats.
3. Paying the Price. The victims of the meltdown fight back. In Iceland, protesters force a government to fall. In Canada, ripped off autoworkers occupy their plant. And in France, furious union members kidnap their bosses.
4. After the Fall. Investigators begin to sift through the meltdown's rubble. Shaken world leaders question the very foundations of modern capitalism while asking: could it all happen again?
I guess this proves it, greed is not good.
I am in 100 percent agreement with Regan.
anyone knows a good NEW(ish) (2015/16) documentary about whats new or whats changed or what is the current situation in global economy in relation to and after the crisis of 2008??? thx
Don't over think... This is an easy game, boom bust than you buy yourself a fascist... Step right up! Get you're security here! Low low price of all your rights and freedoms!
Didn't hear too much about the Rothschild's . . .I mean their deceptively named, privately owned country bank - The Federal Reserve Bank. Sure seems odd that they can print funny money to lend governments bailout monies with interest that is to be paid back by taxes. The hush is so great on this bank it's got to be a global endeavor by all governments to become a one monetary system run by the Rothschild's.
We've still not learned how to share this world. The false belief that we're naturally competitive and self serving is a hindrance to peace on earth. For all those who laugh at religious ideals of a "Heaven on Earth", I've yet to see "man-made" methods achieve any success at global peace, so obviously the use of the word "god" isn't what is making the difference here.
We lack "spirit" today, and a "code of honour". Otherwise if we had these qualities we would have Heaven on Earth. Maybe them "religee's" ain't far off. At least there is belief in the possibilities.
It is Europe that will arise from the ashes of this global financial conflagration to dominate the world. Europe will be the sole remaining financial superpower which enriches the world (Rev. 18) until the prophecy in Daniel 11:40-45 comes to pass. At that time, Europe, the king of the north, will be crushed by the combined military power of Russia, China and other Asian nations, who will then be likewise destroyed by the returning Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:11-21) as the Kingdom of God is set up on this Earth. Until that time, Europe will reign supreme and all the nations of Earth will bow before it!
the best documentary ive seen after inside job regards to the Financial Crisis...
everyone must see... thanks for uploading..
This is a result of a heinous partnership within entities that are not supposed to mix - Wall St., government, banks, credit rating agencies and the biggest corporations. The seeds of this disaster were sown around 3 decades ago during the Reagan administration with the help of Greenspan who relentlessly pushed for deregulation within the financial sector. Along with the relatively new invention of derivatives, the profit-driven method became much more appealing. Hedge funds followed suit and had a few tricks up their sleeve as well. Policy reforms aimed at the financial sector under later administrations ameliorated the situation for the banking industry, for e.g. the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed which was a cornerstone in the aftermath of the Great Depression.
After '08, the response of the Fed was to lower interest rates to 0% to "help" investment banks that were already collapsing. How does this make sense when low interest rates was the root cause of this bubble in the first place? It's abominable that none of the CEO's have been prosecuted of fraud despite public knowledge of the hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation that they walked away with. Obama has re-elected notable personalities who are friends of Wall St. in his office. Bribery has infiltrated the field of academics as well. Well-known economists are given lucrative sums of money to write journals, op-ed articles and opinion columns legitimizing the role of deregulation in economic growth. These give readers the impression of a much brighter real estate market and possibilities of safe and reliable loans. What they don't mention is the risky, toxic nature of assets held by these banks. People who had a perfect credit history were being given subprime loans - completely unnecessary.
Call it the doings of laissez-faire, (crony) capitalism, market fundamentalism, it is what it is and there's no promise of recovery so far. The solutions to this financial meltdown proposed by politicians thus far are the very same ingredients that cooked up this disaster piece - lower interest rates, increase govt. spending (because running higher debt is clearly the solution), borrow from foreign countries. Increased consumer spending is not even a viable option anymore. And here we are, wondering if going to war with Iran is a smart decision? Unbelievable. Sure, go for it as long as the ex-CEO's of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Merryl Lynch and Lehman all contribute to its funding.
Dick Fuld, Angelo Mozilo, Jimmy Cayne may have lost whatever little respect or reputation they had earned but at the end of the day they're the ones who go to bed with cash. I'm sick of their apologetic, sympathetic, victimized attitude at Congressional hearings. Don't play the victim card - many of us can't even see you as we don't have tv's in our makeshift tents. Just when you think income cannot be redistributed any further to the 1%. How is cutting welfare even an option in budget cut proposals? It's about time politicians stop running for office based on a social platform, reinforcing social values, traditions and morals. The public needs to educate these nationwide leaders on basic human principles that mom and dad have been teaching you since you were five, that cheating is bad because one day you will get caught.
It an ancient agenda accompanied by a mandate for the detabilisation and obscuring of all moral conduct, because of the Fed and its Zionist faction propagators.Selling capital to governments with an inheritant inflative value before its even in circulation and expecting an honest balance of payments is patently absurd and why anyone has tolerated such travesties demonstrates an exploitable facet of human consciousness.Rather than a myth, the Protocols of the elders of Zion are being implemented to the letter. Google and read The Nameless War by Archibald Maule Ramsay PDF file, an honest English aristocrat man jailed before the second world war for basically telling the absolute truth as caveat for the hidden hand in the global body politic.
Dont blame the banks? well do you blame the legionaire or the lance for the wound in ya guts?
I used to work for a company that made industrial machinery. I few years ago I visited the site of a factory that used to buy machinery from my old company. The factory was closed and the buildings were being converted into condominiums.
I remembered thinking that owning the condos would require mortgages. So where were the new owners going to get the money to pay the mortgages? The factory was now closed and there were no longer any jobs anywhere in the area.
The point is you need real productivity that produces real things as the foundation of a healthy, balanced economy. If you build an economy that is built on debt, finance and paper transactions alone you are building a house of cards that's doomed to fail.
In my point of view we can blame all of us for this Global Financial Crises 2008. The Banks for giving out these loans, the government for allowing them, the investors for buying them and us households for taking them. We are all to a part responsible, some of us more and some less. But also most of us had there benefits out of it, cheap loans for cars, houses, etc.
We need the banks, but banking and investment banking should be again two different things. A bank should store our money and give safe loans to our company/employers, not make risk investments.
And when a investor seeks risk and high returns, he can go to these investment banks, but he need to take the risk, not the average worker and governments.
It takes our governments to make these actions, but also us people to demand them. At the End we can decide where we deposit our money and when we choice ethical responsible banks for our money, these markets will regulate them self's over the time.
But this is just a view of a young person, but who would listen :-)
Just for the record,
Did anyone else realize the names of the big "investment houses" that were not invited to the first few Paulson emergency meetings?
Anyone see where those banks are today?
Secret deals were made, well BEFORE the collapse of the financial system that nominated who the "survivors" or winners would be, all they had to do too receive their payment, was accept government intervention.
Because unless you have been living under a rock for the last 2 decades, the battle for global supremacy is heating up; and we are only in the bottom of the first.
Citigroup and Bank of America are great investment targets.
Typical cops. Fining homeless people. Their already in financial despair so lets really step on their necks. But they're just doing they're jobs right? Funny, that was the defense of most of the Nazi's at the Nuremberg trials. Is there no empathy anywhere ?
Globalization= USA Jobs lost, outsourced(very nice but naive liberal American and greedy Corp America.
Globalization= Live and die together!
Jobs=Tax revenue
No jobs=no tax revenue
Insufficent tax revenue=bankrupt government=Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, USA......
USA Recession and coming Depression lost jobs due to outsourcing,
China, India and Brazil experiencing unprecedented economic growth from lost jobs of developed countries from USA, EU in the name hailed by Clinton(numb nut believing in sharing wealth leads to peaceful world and the collapse of communism , ha-ha)
ha-ha
When the world was segregated there are conflicts of trade and ideal which sometimes lead to hostility but in general there are winners and losers, but with Globalization, we all lose!
Terrible grammar by design and effort!(of above)
In conclusion, Globalization don't work! Countries of different ethnic cultures, religions and of size of populations do not share and cannot be govern as compared to each other"s forms of government.
people look down on me because im on welfare, it really hurts my feelings :(
Capitalism is not to blame because we haven't had a capitalistic society in a long time....more like crony capitalism mixed with socialism. Also, the Community Reinvestment Act is rarely mentioned when discussing the housing market bubble. It began with Carter and was intensified by Clinton. They were forcing the banks to give loans to people that had no business having one because as we've now seen, they couldn't afford the terms of those loans, especially ARMs which were they main type of loans that were defaulted on by the people that obtained them.
Capitalism: Need Re-designing
The question is how much is enough? You can't regulate profits so how much is enough for every quarterly report. How far can a company go for the sake of profits?
The value of:
Family
Society
At the end of the spectrums the time will arrive when people will demand thire right to live in peace without woring about profit and say enough is enough?
Exxon made a profit of $107 billion in 2010. That means Exxon had to
Make more for 2011. That means they will go to any lenth to make more
next year.
Iraq
Bakdade
We have to stop the greed game...Let's get other values in life....Love children and live lifes in hamony with nature.....
I could also start blaming people or political systems. But I strongly feel that it is not exactly Joe or Jane that robbed me.They may have stolen money from me at one point in time but they are not the main culprits.
The same goes for the various political -isms. They were conceived some centuries ago and have a certain logical structure, so they tend to work well if their logic is implemented correctly. I could not glorify them, though, if they succeed and I couldn't vilify them if they fail, because their very success or failure depends practically on the correct or flawed following of their principles.
I think that the main problem is money, or rather the way we choose to give to the idea its core meaning. I feel that money should be redefined in its major and minor details. I surely don't have a definite answer to how this should be done but I have some ideas.
If you 're not bored till death from my rumblings, let me elaborate. A certain amount of money usually gives the right to an individual to spend, use or enjoy a certain amount of resources produced in a societal setting(and at this age and era the society is the whole globe). One usually provides a symbolic representation of his or her right in the form of paper, metal, or digital proof, which is not bad because it is practical.
The bad thing is that many people acquire the right to spend resources that do not represent their contribution to the society. I will bring some examples.
Joe sings some songs to a crowd and earns 100 million "trollars" with which he can accomodate his basic needs for 10000 years. Joe has spent physical energy to sing the songs, maybe mental energy also, to conceive the songs and physical and mental energy to be artistically proficient. Joe should be compensated because he spent some 4-5 years of his life in education and 2 hours of singing. Yet contributing so small a resource he receives the right to cannibalize 10000 years of resources which he most probably will never use.
Jang, a chinese farmer works 10 hours a day, a hard work consisting mainly of hard physical labor.During his work in one day contributes the food necessary for 20 people to be fed to death. He makes 5 "trollars" this day which are barely enough to feed himself, let alone his family.He works for some 3000 hours a year and is responsible for the fact that at least 6000 people will have their daily food because of his work. Nevertheless, he never has the right to spend resources more than are appropriate to sustain one person.
Conclusion 1: Attempts should be made, that labor is more realistically linked to money.
Exmple 2: An industry main owner makes billion of "trollars" because he sells about 10 million vehicles a year. His physical and mental labor do not justify his compensation, yet his contribution to society seems that it does. This industrialist employs about 10000 people that work more or less as he(in reality they usually work more than the owner), yet they never make so much money.Should they be paid only 200 million that they earn collectively? Probably not, they should be paid .. about 400million. Should they be paid billions as the billionaire?(since they contribute far more to the company?) Definitely not. Why? Because most of the labor is not provided neither by the billionaire, nor by the employees, but by the machines.
Conclusion 2: It is getting increasingly difficult to link labor with money, the only realistically viable connection that should exist(I do not even want to consider the archaic connections which we still do, with objects, metals, emotions etc.). The automatization of production and of every kind of labor will make us realize that we are not even worthy of the basics we claim for property.Thus, no matter if you work and are productive, or you are idle and a pestilence to society, you can claim little for your contribution and your rights to be rich or poor, even more in the presence of self-evident injustice.This way more of the so called "wages", "salaries","compensations","earnings", "losses","debts" and "surpluses" are not only invalid but meaningless.
If we do not want to feel stupid thinking ourselves in the middle of a crisis
while actually drowning in an ocean of goods or while dying mainly of obesity, I think we should reconsider such stupid and weird ideas as redefining the meaning of money.. or organise our society according to modern needs and not medieval ones.
who cares??
41.18 - 41.37
how did the makers of this documetary EVER KNOW what Hank Paulson spoke to his wife over the phone!!!
I think it's time that we test for psychopathy for people in positions of power and trust.
Two thoughts:
1) All acts of any corporations (that includes pvt and govt) have effects ranging from short to medium to long term. But the people working in them are mostly rewarded just for short-term and sometimes for medium term only. For eg, the actual people who were responsible for the financial mess (including Alan Greenspan, George Bush, CEOs, traders etc of big banks) had all collected their compansations and were enjoying their retirement when the mess was in full swing.
2) The global economy behaves almost monolitically, whereas the politico-socio-legal situation still consists of different independent units. A small scale version of this is the Euro zone - while germany and greece might use the same currency and hence is cojoined economically, their political-social-legal systems are very different. Same is the case, for eg, between US and China. So, because global economy is connected, money & investment flows from one region to another fluidly, whereas people (like the laidoff workers) cant/dont.
to pin the collapse solely on the fed and wall street is a gross over-simplification... though they represent the most egregious offenders in this financial debacle, a huge portion of the "market demand" for the toxic derivative products lays far offshore, as evidenced by the global scale of the ensuing mayhem.. this demand was NOT driven by individual investors, but by the greed and/or st*pidity of national investment advisors, and the local fund managers and bankers... much blame can also be laid right at the feet of the huge portion of the american public that "worked" the other end of this scam... anybody that actually believed the value of ones property can be viably increased by a continuous process of "flipping" mortgages, and, even more telling, believed this process was sustainable ad infinitum, was a complete id**t waiting to be fleeced, and represents the biggest actual cause of this crisis, as it would have been impossible without the assistance of these property owners.... the realtors, home inspectors, local property assessors, mortgage originators all hand their fingers in the pie as well... the truth is, for the most part practically everybody hurt by this was complicit in it as well, though of course, the big boys turned a healthy profit on it... to use this as an example of "market regulation as bad guy" is absurd... all the regulatory safeguards were dismantled to engineer this crisis, both by removing or gutting existing safeguards, or legislating so a*sinine a concept as "home ownership for everyone"