PBS FRONTLINE: Money, Power and Wall Street (2012)

PBS FRONTLINE's four-part series on the history and consequences of the the 2008 financial crisis.  This in-depth investigation tells the story of how the creation of an unregulated financial market led to a collapsing investment bank crisis and an eventual government bailout.  With an objective, but critical eye, the series shows both the corporate mindset and governmental negligence that both caused the crisis and have prevented meaningful reform in its aftermath.

Due to PBS video policy we can only embed the first 20 minutes of each of these four one-hour episodes.  To watch them for free in their entirety please visit the OFFICIAL PBS FRONTLINE WEB SITE.

PART 1:

• As Wall Street innovated, its revenues skyrocketed, and financial institutions of all stripes tied their fortunes to one another. FRONTLINE probes deeply into the story of the big banks -- how they developed, how they profited, and how the model that produced unfathomable wealth planted the seeds of financial destruction.

PART 2:

• Beginning with the government bailout of the collapsing investment bank Bear Stearns in the spring of 2008, FRONTLINE examines how the country's leaders -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner -- struggled to respond to a financial crisis that caught them by surprise.

PART 3:

• FRONTLINE goes inside the Obama White House, telling the story of how a newly elected president with a mandate for change inherited a financial crisis that would challenge his administration and define his first term. From almost the very beginning, there was a division inside the economic team over how tough the White House should be on the banks that were at the heart of the crisis.

PART 4:

• FRONTLINE probes a Wall Street culture that remains focused on risky trades. Bankers left an ugly trail of deals extending from small U.S. cities to big European capitals. For more than three years, regulators have tried to fix an industry steeped in conflicts of interest, excessive risk taking, and incentives to cheat. New regulations are being written, but can they fend off the next crisis?