Film and Video

PBS/Frontline has two large collections of free, hour long documentaries on the financial crisis, its history, the politics behind it, and the major players. The main collection is called Money, Power, & Wall Street, which is broken up into 4 pieces. The other collection is called The Meltdown, which is a collection of 7 documentaries covering different aspects of the US in light of the financial crisis.

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Bill Moyers is a veteran journalist on PBS who has interviewed a large range of people critical of the financial system of the US. He hosts the interviews all for free on his website, along with interviews on almost any political issues you can think of. Here are his collection of interviews for those interested in finance:

Sheila Bair (30 Minutes)
Gretchen Morgenson (20 Minutes)
Gretchen Morgenson II (20 Minutes)
Matt Taibbi (15 Minutes)
Matt Taibbi and Yves Smith (25 Minutes)
Matt Taibbi and Chrystia Freeland (55 Minutes)
David Korn and Kevin Drum (50 Minutes)
John Reed (Former Citigroup Chairman) 35 (Minutes)
Byron Dorgan (Former Senator) (10 Minutes)
Neil Barofsky (25 Minutes)

William K. Black (30 Minutes)
Paul Volcker (25 Minutes)

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Inside Job is a documentary directed by Charles Ferguson and narrated by Matt Damon that elegantly details the absurdity of the financial crisis that began in 2007. The movie is heavily researched, excellently presented, and powerfully narrated. Here’s a link to a free stream of the entire movie.

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Ha-Joon Chang, author of 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism and Bad Samaritans . A series of interviews on the “things” on Real News Network.

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Robert Reich “The Truth About the Economy” and other great 2-minute videosIf you like that, you can search Youtube for others.

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Greg Smith is a former vice-president of Goldman Sachs and author of the book Why I Left Goldman Sachs. He gave a talk at the New School, where he critiques the business culture at Goldman Sachs and how he has seen it deteriorate over his time there, and details how many of is colleagues felt similarly. He is known for the New York Times opinion article, Why I’m Leaving Goldman Sachs.

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Better Markets, a non-profit interested in financial reform, hosted a panel discussion in Sep. 2013 between 5 highly involved figures in the US financial system, called Five Years On, Learning From Lehman’s Lessons from the Panic of 2008. The panel discussion included the following:

Neil Barofsky (Former Inspector General, author of Bailout),
James K. Galbraith (Economics Professor at University of Texas)
Jennifer Taub (Moderator, Professor at Vermont Law School)
John Coffee (Professor at Columbia Law)
Ed Kaufman (Professor at Duke Law School, Former Senator)

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Khan Academy is a educational website that hosts a wide range of videos covering different aspects of the US financial and banking system. The creator of the website, Salman Khan (Sal), is a graduate of MIT and a former Hedge Fund manager. His videos are meant to be accessible to anybody looking to learn about banking, even those with as simple a question as why we should want banks in the first place. Sal’s presentation style is friendly, patient, uses simple language, employs colorful drawings so his videos are enjoyable. Highly recommended to those who are new to finance.

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Paper Tiger Television has been creating fun, funky, hard-hitting, investigative, compelling and truly alternative media since 1981! The programs produced at PTTV have inspired media-savvy community productions and activism around the world. Their archive includes shows that provide critical analysis of media, educate about the communications industry and highlight issues that are absent from mainstream information sources. Through the distribution of their short documentary programs, media literacy/video production workshops, community screenings and grassroots advocacy, PTTV works to expose and challenge the corporate control of media. Because of the bias and misrepresentation of issues in mainstream media it is critical to include diverse perspectives in the process of making media. PTTV strives to increase awareness of how media can be used to affect social change. A public that can strategically and creatively use the media is necessary for a more equitable and healthy democracy.

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Rep. John Dingell from Michigan in 1999 commented on the passing of the banking deregulation law connected to the financial crisis of 2007:

“What we are creating now, is a group of institutions which are too big to fail…Tax payers are going to be called upon to cure the failures we are creating tonight. And it’s going to cost a lot of money, and it’s coming. Just be prepared.”

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