Financial Crisis Videos - The Documentary Network

Buy Buy Europe

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 16:54:11 +0000

In 5 episodes we'll take a look at the winners and losers of the euro crisis. Above all the questioN: What kind of Europe do we want? 1 - A bank crisis a week First episode of the web series based on the bestselling "How dare they? - The euro, the crisis and the big hold-up" by Peter Mertens. Over 5 episodes, we'll take a look at the winners and losers of the euro crisis. Above all we ask: what kind of Europe do we want? The story begins with the fall of the first domino, when the financial bubble burst. In this episode we discover why the major reforms in the financial sector continue to lag behind. 2 - Austerity till the grave The bailout of the financial sector cost thousands of billions of euros. In this episode, we'll take a look at who eventually footed the bill. Second episode of the web series based on the bestselling "How dare they? - The euro, the crisis and the big hold-up" by Peter Mertens. 3 - Tax haven Europe In a crisis, we all need to make sacrifices. In this episode we'll discover that this is not necessarily true for everyone. Third episode of the web series based on the bestselling "How dare they? - The euro, the crisis and the big hold-up" by Peter Mertens. Over 5 episodes, we'll take a look at the winners and losers of the euro crisis. Above all we ask: what kind of Europe do we want? 4 - Bratwurst, Lederhosen and Minijobs The European Union is the union of competitiveness and inequality. In this episode we'll explore how Germany spearheaded this situation. Fourth episode of the web series based on the bestselling "How dare they?- The euro, the crisis and the big hold-up" by Peter Mertens. 5 - What kind of Europe do we want? Europe is ours. In the crisis however, it becomes clear that this project has been hijacked by financial and industrial powers. Is this the Europe we want? Fifth episode of the web series based on the bestselling "How dare they? - The euro, the crisis and the big hold-up" by Peter Mertens. A film by docwerkers

Four Horsemen – Revealing the fundamental flaws in the economic system

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 08:05:03 +0000

As the global economy continues to veer from crisis to catastrophe - many more people are looking for wise counsel on how to reshape the Western Economy. Over the last three years 23 global thinkers - many of whom have been marginalized have come together to break their silence and explain how the world really works. Their views transcend mainstream media and short term political explanations to describe simple terms what needs to be addressed in our universities, governments and corporate structures. Ee will not be returning to "business as usual". Four Horseman doesn't get involved in the banker bashing, criticizing politicians or conspiracy theories. The film looks at the systems that we have chosen to live under and suggests ways we could change them. Four horsemen is an independent, self-funded emplyee owned film. The young team of filmmakers made it so we could begin to think about ushering a new economic paradigminto the world that would dramatically improve the quality of lives across all countries. With events veering out of the control of democratic governments and the global economy on life support for the foreseeable future Four Horsemen is a catalyst to bring a debate around the solutions we urgently need.

Prosecuting Wall Street

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:49:54 +0000

Four years ago on September 15, the New York investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and the financial collapse of 2008 began. The economic meltdown wiped out more than $11bn of personal wealth in the US, threw millions out of work, and has already resulted in the foreclosure of more than 10 million homes. Americans across the political spectrum believe that financial executives should have gone to jail for the practices that led to the collapse, but there have been no significant prosecutions. People & Power investigates why Wall Street has not been held accountable for crimes connected to the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Two government bodies looked into the causes of the meltdown, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Both made criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. But the Department did not prosecute executives from mortgage lenders and banks like Washington Mutual, Countrywide, Deutsch Bank and Goldman Sachs for mortgage origination and securitisation practices that were a focus of the panels' work. Byron Georgiou, who served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, says it is "a demonstration of a lack of accountability that is really quite unique in American history". Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director in charge of the Criminal Investigative Division, thinks that the Justice Department has been "timid in approaching prosecutions," and finds it "puzzling". In order to hold Wall Street accountable, he says: "You have to resource the agencies appropriately, and that really and truly has not been done." As an assistant FBI director back in 2004, Swecker took the unusual step of issuing a public warning about an epidemic of mortgage fraud in the US his agents had uncovered that he feared could lead to economic calamity. The FBI warning went unheeded by bankers who were bundling up high-risk loans and selling them on Wall Street. Swecker says: "That's where we start to talk about criminal intent and fraud is knowing full well that there was fraud going on and just turning your back on it and saying, alright, we're going to package this stuff up anyway and we're going to sell it anyway." Swecker believes that the Justice Department is reluctant to pursue a criminal prosecution unless it is a "slam-dunk" after losing a case in 2009 in which two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were acquitted of charges that they misled investors about the health of a hedge fund that invested in mortgage-backed securities. He says the Justice Department has not allocated the resources necessary to prosecuting financial crimes, and that prosecutors are reluctant to go up "against $1,000-an-hour defence attorneys". Swecker also thinks the fact that US Attorney General Eric Holder and Criminal Division Chief Lanny Bruer were white-collar defence attorneys has also had an impact, creating more of a "defence mindset" at the top of the Department that discourages prosecution. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the US went through a Savings and Loan scandal that cost taxpayers $150bn. The deregulation of the industry enabled bank executives to play fast and loose with federally insured deposits, and led to widespread fraud. William Black, who played a central role as a senior financial regulator in prosecuting bank executives for fraud during the Savings and Loan crisis, says the impact of the 2008 meltdown "is roughly 70 times larger". According to Black, we should be seeing an effort to hold financial executives accountable "that is absolutely unparalleled in US history. Instead you are seeing an effort that is considerably smaller than the effort made in the Savings and Loan crisis". Black, an expert in white collar crime, argues that prosecutors do not understand the connection between the 2008 meltdown and a crime called "accounting control fraud" in which executives who control a company loot it and become rich. Black says "mortgage fraud hyperinflated the housing bubble" that was a main cause of the economic crisis. So-called liars loans, home mortgages banks made without requiring borrowers to provide income verification, grew by 500 per cent between 2003 and 2006, becoming almost the most common form of home loan in the US. Liars loans were the perfect ammunition for accounting control fraud, enabling lenders to make up whatever income was needed for a loan to appear safe so that it can be sold into the secondary market for packaging in mortgage-backed securities. The banks grew like crazy by making terrible loans, and executives walked away with millions because of modern compensation structures. "That's why we say the best way to rob a bank is to own one or control one," Black says. There was fraud all along the chain, from their origination so banks could grow, to sales on Wall Street, Black argues, because once you have got liars loans, "all the sales after that have to hide their terrible quality or nobody is going to buy them". The Senate Subcommittee on Investigations paid particular attention to transactions by Wall Street banks in the late 2006 and early 2007 period. That is when mortgage defaults spiked and financial executives realised that they faced huge losses if they did not unload their inventories of mortgage-backed securities. In 2010 public hearings, Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee, took Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein to task for selling mortgage-backed securities to investors that traders inside the firm called crap, and for betting that they would fail at the same time by taking a short position against the mortgage-backed securities investors. In August, the Justice Department dropped its criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs, Barack Obama's top corporate donor in 2008. Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign expenditures and lobbying expenditures, says it is hard not to associate "the incredible clout that Goldman Sachs wields in Washington with decisions that favour their interests". Krumholz says it is both the money and the connections - the financial industry has spent more than $5bn on lobbying and campaign contributions to both Democrats and Republicans in the last decade. And the revolving door means that government officials find it difficult to view the leaders of companies where they have worked or have friends "as being capable of criminal acts". Former Securities and Exchange Commission investigator Gary Aguirre argues that the main reason there have been no prosecutions is because of the revolving door. Regulators are reluctant to pursue cases that could cost them a private sector job with a starting salary of $2m - 10 times their salary with the government. "If you are a team player and these cases don't get brought," he says, "then maybe there'll be room for you at one of the big law firms or Goldman, or one of the big banks." Steve Bartlett, the CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable, a trade association that represents 100 top financial companies in the US, thinks the Securities and Exchange Commission has done a good job to "identify what went wrong and correct it". The reason there have been no prosecutions, he says, is because there was no criminal wrong-doing, "it’s as simple as that". Occupy Wall Street activists have been strategising about how to force the issue of prosecuting financial executives onto the 2012 electoral agenda. "It's so clearly something the American public wants to know about," says Alexis Goldstein, who used to work in finance in New York. Akshat Tewary of the working group, Occupy the SEC, says the failure to prosecute executives in connection with the meltdown "undermines the legitimacy of our government". Both are concerned that the statute of limitations for prosecution of federal securities laws, which is six years, could run out without Wall Street being held accountable for the meltdown. So is Chris Swecker, who believes a major initiative needs to be launched quickly for crimes connected to the 2008 collapse. "We're in a tough spot," he says, "where essentially some very bad actors are going to skate if we don't put that effort out." Black sees no chance that a Mitt Romney administration would be more aggressive than that of Obama in prosecuting financial executives. Romney has already raised more than twice as much from Wall Street as Obama. Both candidates are avoiding the prosecution issue, but Black thinks it needs to be high on the electoral agenda of both parties. "If elite financial bankers can continue to get away with these kinds of frauds that lead to catastrophic losses and make you wealthy as the CEO simultaneously," he says, "then they'll keep doing it, and they'll do it bigger." By Bob Abeshouse

Catastroika – The Privatization of Everything

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:24:31 +0000

The 87 minutes feature length documentary uncovers the forthcoming results of the current sell-off of the Greek public assets, demanded in order to face the country's enormous sovereign debt. Turning to the examples of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Rome, CATASTROIKA predicts what will happen, if the model imposed in these areas is imported in a country under international financial tutelage. (with English subtitles) Slavoj Zizek, Naomi Klein, Luis Sepulveda, Ken Loach and Greg Palast talk about the austerity measures, the Greek government as well as the attack against Democracy on Europe, after the general spreading of the financial crisis. Academics and specialists like Dani Rodrik, Alex Callinicos, Ben Fine, Costas Douzinas, Dean Baker and Aditya Chakrabortty present unknown aspects of the privatization programs in Greece and abroad. Just like Debtocracy, CATASTROIKA is co-produced by the public, which contributed both financially and with ideas to its creation. The documentary is available free of charge, under creative commons license. High-resolution files will be available for TV and cinema broadcasts in various languages. From the creaters of Debtocracy, a documentary viewed by millions of people around the world.

97% Owned – Monetary Reform Documentary

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 01 May 2012 08:30:55 +0000

97% owned present serious research and verifiable evidence on our economic and financial system. This is the first documentary to tackle this issue from a UK-perspective and explains the inner workings of Central Banks and the Money creation process. When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it's essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked, questions like; where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does this mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when the monetary, and financial system, breaks down? Produced by Queuepolitely and featuring Ben Dyson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins of The New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, the "HBOS Whistleblower" Paul Moore, Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future and Nick Dearden from the Jubliee Debt Campaign. Political philosopher John Gray, commented, "We're not moving to a world in which crises will never happen or will happen less and less. We are in a world in which they happen several times during a given human lifetime and I think that will continue to be the case" If you have decided that crisis as a result of the monetary system is not an event you want to keep revisiting in your life-time then this documentary will equip you with the knowledge you need, what you do with it is up to you (Description by the filmmakers).

Meltdown – A global financial tsunami (Episode 2)

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:30:06 +0000

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. Lehman's failure had repercussions around the world. Millions of people lost their life savings. Pension plans were decimated. Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister at the time and a close friend of Paulson's, publicly described Paulson's decision on Lehman "horrendous". Markets from London and Paris to Shanghai fell. An epidemic of fear caused the world's major banks to stop lending, ending the year in protests and industrial action.

Meltdown – After the Fall (Episode 4)

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:21:41 +0000

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. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum calls himself Dubai's CEO. He claims to run his government according to strict business principles, but now many are quietly questioning his judgement and his leadership. In the years before the meltdown, Dubai had the biggest real-estate bonanza in the world. During the crash, the market tumbled, losing 50 per cent of its value, leaving Dubai virtually insolvent. But this did not deter the sheikh. In January 2010, Sheikh Mohammed threw a massive party to mark the opening of the world's tallest building - the Burj Khalifa - using PR strategies to suggest that the real estate crash was a good thing for the emirate. As one world leader handles the crisis through denial, other leaders try to re-think capitalism. Even though the causes of the 2008 meltdown are now clear, there is no magic formula to stop it from happening again. The world has to start planning for the next crisis, even as we recognise that this one is not over yet.

Meltdown – Paying the Price (Episode 3)

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:48:54 +0000

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. Hordur Torfason, an Icelandic singer, leads the way in holding protests over the country's economy, calling for the resignation of the government and new elections. Geir Haarde, the prime minister of Iceland, was surrounded and pelted by the protestors. Haarde soon resigned and the country's government collapsed. In France, workers fought back to claim their rights. The Continental Tire factory announced its plant would close by 2010, meaning job losses for its 1,120 employees. Workers occupied offices and trashed the place in protest. Protests spread right across France and Europe. As the grim toll of the financial crisis continues to mount around the world, many governments are looking for the true causes of the meltdown. In many cases, what they are discovering amounts to a crime.

Meltdown – The Men who crashed the World (Episode 1)

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:53:19 +0000

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? Lack of government regulation; easy lending in the US housing market meant anyone could qualify for a home loan with no government regulations in place. Also, London was competing with New York as the banking capital of the world. Gordon Brown, the British finance minister at the time, introduced 'light touch regulation' - giving bankers a free hand in the marketplace. All this, and with key players making the wrong financial decisions, saw the world's biggest financial collapse.