Documentaries

The Money Trap - How the Banks Lure You into Debt - A senior executive blows the whistle on the banking industry's usurious lending tactics. This documentary reviews some of the profligate and predatory lending practices of the high street banks in the years of the credit boom which preceded the financial crisis. Indeed this documentary is in a sense chilling given what happened during the global financial crisis; i.e. super easy credit, high pressure to make money, huge incentives for banks to lend easy money. The documentary reviews the sales and marketing tactics, how banks benefited from the lending splurge, and some of the fallout e.g. debt related suicides.

The Money Masters - The Money Masters is a historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure that rules our nation and the world today. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth.

The House of Rothschild - The House of Rothschild is an intriguing documentary on the history of this financially and politically powerful family of bankers. Shrouded in mystique and suspicion the house of Rothschild has been pivotal in the past in financing the governments of Europe; providing private banking services to the monarchs, and underwriting bonds for war financing (on both sides); indeed also in their role in the creation of the international bond market. During the 19th century it is said that the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in modern world history. This documentary is worth a watch for an interesting insight into the history of one of the largest private banking enterprises in recent history.

The Boom & Bust Years (The Age of Risk) - The series on the global crash examines the boom years before the bust. With testimony from many of the key decision makers who shaped our lives over the last two decades, including Gordon Brown, governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, and an exclusive interview with former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, it charts how the financial bubble grew and grew. The programme explains how we changed our attitude to risk, learnt to live with debt and, above all, how governments stepped back from regulating any of it. At the heart of the story is Alan Greenspan, who for 20 years was one of the most powerful people in the world. In October 2008, weeks after the catastrophic collapse of Lehman Brothers, the man whose ideas influenced the world admitted he might have been 'partially' wrong.

Mortgage Madness - BBC TWO's The Money Programme has revealed a huge mortgage fraud with brokers from some of Britain's biggest estate agents and financial advice groups advising customers to break the law and lie about their incomes to get massively bigger mortgages.

Money, Banking, and The Federal Reserve System - Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood "The Monster". But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates

Meltdown - The men who crashed the world - In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne. The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929. But how did it all go so wrong?

Meltdown - Paying the price - The third episode of Meltdown looks at how the victims of the 2008 financial crash fight back. A protesting singer in Iceland brings down the government; in France a union leader oversees the kidnapping of his bosses; and thousands of families are made homeless in California.

Meltdown - A global financial tsunami - In the second episode of Meltdown, we look at how the financial tsunami swept the world. We hear about a renegade executive who nearly destroyed the global financial system and the US treasury secretary who bailed out his friends. Henry 'Hank' Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and later an economic advisor to the US government; refused to bail out global financial services firm - the Lehman Brothers. Paulson said it was not the role of government to save private businesses.

Meltdown - After the fall - In the final episode of Meltdown, we hear about the sheikh who says the crash never happened; a Wall Street king charged with fraud; a congresswoman who wants to jail the bankers; and the world leaders who want a re-think of capitalism. The financial crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing over 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the brink of insolvency.

Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders - James Scurlock's purpose for the film and book was to raise awareness of how credit and lending issues are affecting society. The main premises of the documentary and book are that banks and other creditors deliberately market to people who are more likely to have problems paying predatory lending and that the creditors benefit from connections to government, the debt collection industry, and from lawmaker apathy

Inside Job - Inside Job (2010) is a documentary film about the late-2000s financial crisis directed by Charles H. Ferguson. The film is described by Ferguson as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption." In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis. Inside Job was well received by film critics who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material.

In Debt We Trust - documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt. It is a journalistic confrontation with what former Reagan advisor Kevin Phillips calls "Financialization"--the "powerful emergence of a debt-and-credit industrial complex." While many Americans may be "maxing out" on credit cards, there is a deeper story: power is shifting into fewer hands

How the Banks Won - How the Banks Won is a thought provoking documentary focused on the UK financial sector. Will Hutton, a former investment banker, investigates the practices of the investment banks as they begin to come out the other side of the financial crisis. He looks at Banks' bonus practices, and how the investment banks are running their businesses, and for the most part finds that things are back to usual for the banks, in spite of all that just happened. From Dispatches: "He also investigates the banks' intense lobbying to resist government plans for reform and highlights recent research from the OECD on how Britain is internationally unusual in the extent to which bankers have key roles in the civil service and government." "Featuring high-powered contributors such as President Obama's banking advisor Paul Volcker, former Chancellor Alastair Darling, former City minister Lord Myners and current Business Secretary Vince Cable, Hutton shows why without urgent reform we risk the prospect of another crash - this time there won't be any money left for a bail-out - plus the certainty of British business being starved of vital funding."

How the Banks Never Lose - Another interesting documentary on the financial crisis, this one focuses on the United Kingdom, and the conditions that lead up to the banking blowout. Dispatches investigates how the bank chiefs allowed this to happen and if lessons have been learnt from the Northern Rock crisis. Former investment banker James Max tracks down the banking bosses who have presided over the colossal losses to see if they will be held to account. He examines the billion pound bonus culture and lifestyle of the City's wide boys and investigates how the banks are now seeking to make back the money they lost before the credit boom hit the buffers. Featuring the results of an exclusive survey of bank lending rates, and how much money banks are re-claiming through them, the film also offers expert advice on how to cope with higher interest rates and shows how customers can take banking into their own hands.

Hotspots with Max Keiser - Ireland - In this documentary, Max Keiser takes a tough look at the Ireland economy and what happened there before during and after the financial crisis made a casualty of Ireland. Indeed, Ireland was probably one of the prime examples of the evolution of the banking crisis into a sovereign crisis as the Irish government guaranteed all the debt of the banks and as a consequence later had to seek a bailout from the IMF and EU. Certainly this is another to add to the long viewing list on the global financial crisis.

Fiat Empire - Find out how the corporate media facilitates the partnership between the Fed and Congress and why it fails to disclose what’s going on. Lastly, find out how the Federal Reserve Member Banks are owned and controlled by an elite group of insiders. This Telly Award-winning documentary features presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas) and is inspired by The Creature from Jekyll Isalnd a book by well-known author and Freedom Force founder, G. Edward Griffin.

End of Wall Street - Journal reporters explain how the housing bubble inflated and burst, and why easy money led to the collapse of Wall Street's biggest financial institutions. What was going through the minds of CEOs, corporate boards, fund managers and mortgage lenders as they created hard-to-understand derivatives Warren Buffett once called "weapons of financial mass destruction." Wall Street tells the story of the $700-billion bailout, as seen through a reporter's eyes, and looks at what's ahead for the global economy.

Century of Enslavement: The History of The Federal Reserve - What is the Federal Reserve system? How did it come into existence? Is it part of the federal government? How does it create money? Why is the public kept in the dark about these important matters? In this feature-length documentary film, The Corbett Report explores these important questions.