Frontline: Breaking the Bank

Frontline: Breaking the Bank

Product Description
The bets were outrageous as well as risky, billions of dollars upon a housing market. Superbanks reaped billions of dollars, as well as gobbled up competitors. Then a bottom forsaken out, large waste upon Wall Street scarcely pennyless a banks as well as most have been upon a margin of failure. As a sovereign supervision contemplates what could turn a large nationalization of a industry, watch as FRONTLINE tells a inside story…. More >>

Frontline: Breaking a Bank


Subscribe RSS 2.0 feed.Leave a response when people search for from your own site.

5 Responses to 'Frontline: Breaking the Bank'

  1. John Hayes - May 26th, 2010 at 6:15 am

    This is a very informative, well produced program on the financial slide that occurred on Wall Street, which lead to the Federal Bailout. No pundits, no lies or yelling, this program is straight information that tell the facts. Even non-bankers will understand this excellent Frontline program.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  2. Midwest Book Review - May 26th, 2010 at 8:39 am

    Breaking the Bank is an episode of the award-winning “Frontline” television series, now available on DVD. The true-life story of Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis and former Merrill CEO Jon Thain and the risks they took amid a financial crisis threatening to destroy the American economy, Breaking the Bank presents a dramatic yet unbiased accounting of the facts as the federal government was forced to seriously consider nationalizing the banking industry – or risking nationwide economic collapse. Readers of all backgrounds will appreciate this riveting glimpse into the inner workings of economic titans with glass ankles; Breaking the Bank is especially recommended for public library DVD collections – the modern economic morass is one piece of history that everyone needs to learn about, because no one can afford to repeat it!

    Rating: 5 / 5

  3. !Edwin C. Pauzer - May 26th, 2010 at 11:10 am

    It began to unravel in September 2008, in the same month that President Bush announces the fundamentals of the economy are still strong.

    Investment firms and banks are about to collapse like a stack of dominos as Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson attempts to stop the economic hemorrhaging. But his bandages of mergers, TARP agreements, and takeovers unravel as the details of the meetings, mergers, arm-twisting, and deals become public. Congressional hearings, stockholder fury, and disclosures take their toll as one CEO after the other is thrown under the bus of an outraged public. A new administration marks the end of the party, as bankers knew it.

    Frontline delivers with interest, as usual. Written and directed by Michael Kirk, the banking crisis is distilled into incremental deposits of factual information that give the viewer a chronological account of events that went on in the boardrooms and the floor of the stockmarket. Jim Gilmore’s voice is perhaps the best in the business, and it is always a pleasure to listen to him narrate.

    There is a reason that “Frontline” is one of the best and most informative programs on television. After you see this, you’ll know why. You will not only be entertained, but perhaps, better informed.

    The cost is certainly worth it, and it shouldn’t break the bank.

    Rating: 5 / 5

  4. Doctor A. - May 26th, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    Thoughtful and fact-based coverage of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown. How soon we forget (and how easily the media now distort) the events of this economic disaster. It was September 2008 when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson provided $700 billion of TARP funds to the major banks (virtually without conditions) to counter the failure of Lehman Bros. Next, in a panick Paulson forced upon Bank of America the acquisition of toxic Merrill-Lynch. Not presented in this video was the $13.4 billion bailout handed to GM and $4 billion to Chrysler in December of 2008. It seems the “invisible hand” of the market wasn’t quite so self-correcting during the last days of Bush/Cheney casino capitalism.

    Perhaps it’s time for the facts to surface. By any objective measure, Bush/Cheney was the most incompetent and misguided administration in American history. If memory serves, Obama hadn’t yet taken the oath of office when this economic house of cards imploded. Unjustifiable tax cuts for the wealthy, elimination of the Estate Tax, securitized debt instruments, credit default swaps, the Patriot Act, the levies before Katrina, the Iraq war — excuse me? The list is long and bloody and this country diminished as a result.

    Perhaps a little Bush-bashing truly is in order… at least let’s not rewrite history and ignore the devastation created by the prior administration! Economically, socially, politically, and internationally, Obama was handed a poison chalice. The combined gifts of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Jesus Christ could not fix this country in one term.

    This documentary makes clear the following: (1) the dismantling of federal financial regulation has put our economy in peril (markets are not self-regulating, they are self-serving by nature), (2) transparency and appropriate oversight in the public and private sectors must be mandated (America must know what’s going on), and (3) America’s economy (and our democracy) erode when the interests of corporate wealth and personal wealth eclipse our common wealth.

    This video brings to mind a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
    Rating: 5 / 5

  5. Geoff In SF - May 26th, 2010 at 3:08 pm

    This is quite possible the worst piece ever done by Frontline. Practically no reporting involved on what was really happening that brought down the banking industry, and to make matters worse, ends with a quip by E. Warren about how all the glory days of banking are gone. Granted when this was produced, it was probably early in 2009, but by the June 2009 air date, could she be more wrong? Incredibly disappointing. This story isnt over yet.
    Rating: 1 / 5


Leave a Reply