Frontline’s 4-Part Money, Power, and Wall Street — So Far, the Best Documentary on the 2008 Financial Crisis

© 2012 Peter Free

 

25 April 2012

 

 

Citation

 

Frontline, Money, Power, and Wall Street, PBS (24 April and 01 May 2012) (televised in four parts, the latter two air on 01 May)

 

 

A fair-minded presentation of (i) the financial sector problems that took us for a nasty ride and (ii) those that still exist

 

What struck me in watching the first two segments of this production was the character-testing positions governmental players were in in 2008.  Nothing is easy, when pay-back comes on the heels of greed-induced deregulation.  Even in self-created crises, reasonable people can disagree on how to handle meltdowns.

 

What is even more telling is our plutocratic system’s refusal to learn anything from either the financial mess or the significantly botched way that our government dealt with it.

 

A philosophical observation

 

Our world views are too-often narrowly and unreflectively shaped by the people we surround ourselves with.   Money, Power, and Wall Street makes this clear in its portrayal of the economic crisis’ most influential people.

 

Most telling, in a Shakespearean way, is Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson’s reluctantly taken decision to abandon his ideological ideas on “moral hazard,” a concept which demands that government should let corporations that made bad decisions fail.  Instead, Paulson became a prime mover in effectuating the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bailout.

 

That pragmatically taken change of heart, however, did not take the Secretary so far as to recognize that the Bush and Obama administrations should attach regulatory strings to the bank’s control of the government money being doled to them.

 

In other words, his background as a Goldman Sachs CEO blinded him to the fact that Wall Street institutions had created the economic problem that was taking the world to its knees during his watch as Treasury Secretary.

 

President Obama — having populated his Administration with Wall Street types — is similarly (but probably intentionally) blind.

 

 

An artistic note — Frontline’s mastery of the documentary format

 

Over the years, Frontline has consistently mixed visual and narrative art with capably flowing content.  Money, Power, and Wall Street exemplifies these traits.

 

Budding producers would benefit from noting this production’s visual and audio editing, including its cinematic angles and image timing.

 

 

The moral? — Worth watching

 

An outstanding presentation in all respects.