Meltdown: The Secret History of the Global Collapse - CBC - Complete 4 Episodes

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.

The CBC’s Terence McKenna takes viewers behind the headlines and into the backrooms at the highest levels of world governments and banking institutions, revealing the astonishing level of backstabbing and tension behind the scenes as the world came dangerously close to another Great Depression.

 

Dick Fuld 

Photo Credit: Reuters

Meltdown’s cast of characters includes:

• Geraint Anderson, aka “City Boy” – This hippie-turned-stockbroker in England reveals the dirty secrets of high finance. He says lying and cheating were all part of the high-stakes game.
• Dick Fuld – A true Wall Street predator. As CEO of Lehman Brothers, Fuld boasted he’d rip out and eat his enemies’ hearts. Instead, he watched his own empire collapse beneath his feet.
• Hank Paulson –As US Treasury Secretary, he lurched from crisis to crisis during the meltdown. On his watch, the U.S. spent trillions to bail out Wall Street companies, including Paulson’s old firm, Goldman Sachs.
• Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum – The self-styled CEO of Dubai, Inc built an astonishing real estate empire. Bigger was always better, until it turned out to be largely a mirage.
• Marcy Kaptur – This Congresswoman from Ohio is an outspoken voice for the families decimated by the Great Recession. She’s demanding that the bankers responsible pay up.

 

Evicted homeowner in California 

Photo Credit: CBC

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.

Since the financial meltdown began, trillions of dollars have been spent rescuing banks and jumpstarting economies, yet recovery remains fragile. Fears abound of a “double-dip” return to recession. The millions around the world who lost homes and jobs are demanding answers: How did it all go so wrong? Who is to blame? They are angry because to date, only a few smalltime players have been held to account. No major banking, regulatory or government figures have yet been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Meltdown is the first comprehensive documentary portrait of the worst economic crisis of a generation.

 

Floor of the New York Stock Exchange 

Photo Credit: CBC

HOUR 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.

HOUR 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.

HOUR 3: Paying the Price

The victims of the meltdown fight back. In Iceland, protestors force a government to fall. In Canada, ripped off autoworkers occupy their plant. And in France, furious union members kidnap their bosses.

HOUR 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?