The Ascent of Money

A TV mini-series on from UK partially aired on PBS and worth checking out. It shows how financial markets started and how they are all the reflection of the human beings in them and become unpredictable as a result.

Ep. 1: Dreams of avarice

Explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilization.
Adapted from Harvard professor Niall Ferguson's 2008 book.

Ep. 2: Human bondage

This episode talks about how finance came to rule the world. The advent of the bond market changed warfare (The real reason Napolean was defeated) and made the Rothschilds the biggest family dynasty in the world. It ensured the defeat of the South in the Civil War and destroyed Argentina. It discusses how the US Bond market still controls the country and the head of the bond market,former professional blackjack player Bill Gross who used card counting to win, is the most powerful person in it.

Ep. 3: Blowing bubbles

Talks about the invention of of the stock market and historical stock bubble busts. He lays out that the bubble we are going through now has occurred over and over in history. He says that if financial workers did not have such a short attention span on the history of finance they would have seen the bubble coming. He says the 18th century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier and creator of the Ponzi scheme John Law, which ruined France's economy and caused the revolution, and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy were precursors to the current stock market crash. He also talks about the US having 7 bubbles in the last 100 years. He also discusses how ENRON pioneered "innovative" financial practices which was hailed at first then reviled at the end, just as John Law's 18th century Ponzi scheme did. Enron had fiends in high places, George Bush, who pushed deregulation of the energy industry for him, just as John Law had the ruler of France. It also talks about how Alan Greenspan's keeping Interest rates low helped create the bubble. It also speaks on how after Enron failed the financial gurus employed there took their "innovation" of hiding debt to many other companies and helped to create the recession we have today.

Ep. 4: Risky business

Talks about the insurance market works. How with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. In post-Katrina New Orleans he explains why the free market can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe and compares it to the birth of the welfare state in post-war Japan.

Ep. 5: Safe as houses

Talks about the folly of bundling and auctioning off mortgages.

Ep. 6: Chimerica

Talks about how America and China are now linked together. Goes back in history to when England forced China to let them sell drugs there and start globalization. Talks about how this globalization led to World War I and the IMF and World Bank were set up to regulate globalization. Then it discusses the power of Hedge funds and how they speed up globalization and talks to the master George Sorros who made a billion dollars in one day. It also discusses how it is not possible to eliminate risk in investing, because people are irrational and do unpredictable things. It also talks about how people in China make an average of $2,000 and save most of it while Americans make an average of $44,000 and save nothing. This led to the subprime crisis as china lended their savings to America and flooded so much money into the market that lenders started lending to everyone to make more money.