Summary: Beginning in the strange and chaotic world of war financing, this program explores the origins and development of bond trading. Historian Niall Ferguson profiles military backers and bankrollers through the centuries, linking their activities to the rise and fall of governments, the volatile fortunes of their constituents, and the fluctuations of global markets. Viewers will learn about Sir...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the mid-1980s, the markets were soaring with no end in sight. Then came October 19th, 1987. This CNBC Original documentary examines the biggest stock market crash in U.S. history, as told through firsthand accounts from traders, reporters who covered the story, and such power brokers as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, former NYSE chairman John Phelan, and Leo Melamed,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do stock markets produce bubbles, and what makes them burst? In this program, financial scholar Niall Ferguson examines the origins of the joint stock company and the modern share trading system, highlighting some of history’s most notorious market meltdowns. Analyzing the herd instinct and its role in economic upswings and downturns, Ferguson draws parallels between the 2001 Enron...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The diamond trade generates hundreds of millions of dollars per year and, according to many experts, has financed armed conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This program follows National Geographic Magazine writer Andrew Cockburn and photographer Teun Voeten as they examine the global traffic in diamonds and its sweeping effects on culture, history, and society.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Patterns of urbanization and poverty are playing an increasingly heavy role in the debate over globalization and market regulation. In a hard-hitting analysis of the issues, this program assembles a wide-ranging set of opinions from scholars and experts-as well as from ordinary individuals around the world who face urban hardships and obstacles to their livelihoods every day. Commentators...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: More money is owed to banks than actually exists in circulation-some say the idea of loans is to keep money in short supply so that an economy based on a frightening "myth of scarcity" is created. This program poses provocative questions about the philosophy of our monetary system. To what extent does a society's financial structure affect its cultural outlook? Can we learn from the economy of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Life is risky—which is why people buy insurance. But when disaster overwhelms conventional insurance systems, should the state step in? In this program, economics expert Niall Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to evaluate the free market’s ability to help victims of the catastrophe. Ferguson then delves into one of the earliest insurance schemes, the Scottish Ministers’ Widows Fund;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: How did the American credit market become so entwined with—and dependent on—Chinese lending? This program examines the rise and potential decline of “Chimerica,” the financial marriage between two of the world’s biggest economic powers. Historian Niall Ferguson shows how the Chinese “savings glut” led to excessively easy American borrowing and prompted the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: From “promises to pay” on ancient Babylonian tablets to the insolvency of present-day consumerist America, this program explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are central to civilization. Historian Niall Ferguson examines financial transactions recorded in cuneiform; the transition from Roman numerals to Arabic symbols for greater speed and efficiency among medieval...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: What better way to understand a financial disaster than to meet the kind of people who created it? This CNBC Original documentary investigates the origins of the global economic crisis through eyewitness accounts from mortgage brokers, investment bankers, naive home buyers, and equally naive investors-as well as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who encouraged shifts away from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Billionaires are popping up all over India, but 300 million of its people still live on less than a dollar a day. This CNBC Original program examines the astonishing new power of the Indian economy as well as its growing pains. Reporting on a wide range of business and economics topics, the program presents interviews with key players in India’s rise—including Ravi Kant, managing director of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Contrary to widespread perception, real estate is no different than any other financial asset—its value can plunge. This program examines the volatility of property investment and the ramifications of buying and selling bulk mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Beginning with an example from British history, scholar Niall Ferguson discusses the fate of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, whose...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Transactions that use "time dollars," or currency offered and consumed in the form of services, have become more than just a novelty. This program looks at organized systems known as time banks, through which thousands of people-many of whom would likely subsist on charity or government aid in the traditional cash economy-now maintain rewarding and productive lives. Taking a global approach,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Taylor, Timothy
Summary: Provides basic understanding of economic matters that will help explain both the U.S. and global economies on the microeconomics and macroeconomics levels. Defines basics terms used in economics to help non-specialists develop and understanding of how market forces relate to one another and affect fiscal health.
Format: sound recording-nonmusical
Publisher / Publication Date: The Teaching Co. 2005
Copies Available at Woodmere
3 available in Compact Disc Audio Book, Call number: CD 330 TAY PART 1Call number: CD 330 TAY PART 2
Call number: CD 330 TAY PART 3
Summary: Are prescription drug prices as outrageous as they are made out to be? Should farmers receive government subsidies, simply because they grow certain crops? What does it mean to be poor in America? This compilation of ABC News stories features 20/20 anchor John Stossel, who explores microeconomic questions through challenging, real-world examples. In his trademark down-to-earth style, Stossel...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Steven Berlin Johnson is the best-selling author of books on the intersection of science, technology, and personal experience. His book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation examines environments that lead to breakthrough innovations. In this TEDTalk, Johnson says the Web is like a city: built by many people, completely controlled by no one, intricately interconnected,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Barry Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. Collaborating with Ken Sharpe, Schwartz has also made a study of wisdom. In this TEDTalk, Schwartz makes a passionate call for "practical wisdom" as an antidote to a society gone haywire with bureaucracy. He argues that while rules often fail us and incentives often backfire,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Economist Tim Harford studies complex systems and finds a surprising link among the successful ones: they were all created through trial and error. In this TEDTalk, Harford discusses the drawbacks of the God Complex - a syndrome common among doctors and other professionals in which they believe that no matter how complicated the problem, they alone have one, infallible solution. Harford asks us...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: America's unions have bet on Barack Obama to initiate a recovery that will revive not only the economy, but the organized labor movement as well. In this program, Bill Moyers and United Steelworkers International's Leo Gerard address topics ranging from economic justice for workers, to the future of American manufacturing, to Gerard's hopes for how unions will fare under the Obama...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: As big-box stores dominate the American retail landscape, how can small businesses compete and survive? In this program, former international reporter Hanson Hosein and former TV anchor Heather Hughes take a road trip through 32 states to find "independent America." They have two rules: they cannot spend any money at corporate chains, including retail, restaurants, and hotels, and they cannot...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Iowa has corn. Kansas has wheat. The preferred crop in northern California, however, will never be a Wall Street commodity. This CNBC Original documentary examines the pot industry of Mendocino County, which forms part of the so-called Emerald Triangle-the cannabis capital of the U.S. Sizing up the financial clout of pot-farming (both legal and criminal) as potentially two-thirds of the local...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: With roller-coaster gas prices becoming the norm, this ABC News program travels the country to uncover surprising and sometimes disturbing aspects of the oil industry. Charles Gibson reports from Cushing, Oklahoma, where the price of a barrel of oil dictates the price nationally; journeys 160 miles off the coast of Louisiana to one of the deepest-drilling oil rigs in the nation; and visits...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: India is the planet's biggest producer of over 22 different cash crops, making its agricultural economy the second largest in the world. Why then does most of its rural population live below subsistence level, relying on foreign NGOs for aid? This program looks at reasons why working villagers remain in poverty, including government policies that direct funding away from development and towards...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: It all began on a fateful weekend in September of 2008 when the American economy was on the verge of melting down. Then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, his former protege John Thain, and Ken Lewis, one of the most powerful bankers in the country, secretly cut a deal to merge Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. This episode of Frontline draws on high-profile interviews with key players...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009