[Jotapay]

It's on PBS now as of 8pm CST. I'll post the link to the online video location later.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Thanks for the heads up. It's on at 9:00 PM CST on my PBS station (in 1 hr after the crocodile special).

[Jotapay]

Sure thing. I'm in Austin (KLRU). They must all air shows independently. They will post it on their PBS/Frontline website soon, and I'm also recording it in high-definition and can post it somewhere on the internet so you can download it.

This is really interesting (although we should have already known this from posts here). They are talking about how Bear Stearns BKing would have set off a nuclear bomb in finance from credit default swap failures, which is why they were saved. This is something that DantesPeak, ShortOnOil and others were discussing back then and I basically learned from them.

[JJ]

am watching it right now, what he said. The people on this forum have thoroughly covered this....thanks for the heads up!

[jasonraymondson]

Yep, interesting stuff. But the smart folks on here as the others have said covered this before it happened and while it happened.

To those that missed it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

[Cynus]

The most amazing thing to me is how clueless the government was. There were blogs like Housing Panic that predicted the whole thing way before Bear Stearns went bust, yet the smartest, most well-informed people were completely clueless.

[Jotapay]

I thought the whole show was a white wash. They kept repeating, "We had to do this next bailout or else everything would melt down," at least a half dozen times. Color me skeptical, but I don't buy it.

They knew what would happen the whole time, they just wanted the profits while it lasted and the government (i.e. taxpayers) to bail them out when the party stopped. I knew a collapse was coming as far back as 2004, it just didn't happen as soon as I thought so I put it on the back burner in my mind until 2007, when I knew something was seriously, seriously wrong and about to happen.

[Jotapay]

This is where you can find the episode online:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/

[seldom_seen]

Wow. This Frontline sucks. I used to love this show.

Frontline basically saying Bernanke and Geithner are geniuses...and without their brilliance the whole world would have gone down like a string of dominoes.

Barney Frank as a credible source of information on the financial crisis...huh? They should be investigating the guy not interviewing him.

I wonder if this episode was underwritten by Bank of America and Citigroup?

[TWilliam]

Frontline basically saying Bernanke and Geithner are geniuses...and without their brilliance the whole world would have gone down like a string of dominoes.

Interesting interpretation; I didn't get that at all. What I got was basically a summary of what happened in the markets as a result of the real estate bubble bursting, the steps Bernanke and Paulson took to try and address the problems, a conclusion that no one knows yet if what they did will ultimately be helpful, and that now we'll have to wait and see what, if any, additional steps the Obama administration will take. Certainly nothing about B & P's brilliance 'fixing' anything.

And incidentally, they were the ones claiming that without immediate action the financial system would collapse, not Frontline saying it would have if they hadn't done something...

[vision-master]

Frontline basically saying Bernanke and Geithner are geniuses...and without their brilliance the whole world would have gone down like a string of dominoes.

Interesting interpretation; I didn't get that at all. What I got was basically a summary of what happened in the markets as a result of the real estate bubble bursting, the steps Bernanke and Paulson took to try and address the problems, a conclusion that no one knows yet if what they did will ultimately be helpful, and that now we'll have to wait and see what, if any, additional steps the Obama administration will take. Certainly nothing about B & P's brilliance 'fixing' anything.

And incidentally, they were the ones claiming that without immediate action the financial system would collapse, not Frontline saying it would have if they hadn't done something...

+1

[seldom_seen]

Frontline basically saying Bernanke and Geithner are geniuses...and without their brilliance the whole world would have gone down like a string of dominoes.

Interesting interpretation; I didn't get that at all. What I got was basically a summary of what happened in the markets as a result of the real estate bubble bursting, the steps Bernanke and Paulson took to try and address the problems

One of the interviewees said verbatim "They sacrificed their principles to try and save the economy."

First off, they didn't sacrifice anything except someone else's money. They don't have any principles. Thirdly they weren't trying to save the economy. They were trying to save their small clique of already absurdly wealthy banking buddies.

The whole thing was a whitewash, corporate pablum to keep the masses slumbering in complacency. This "documentary" did not scratch the surface...in fact it didn't even make contact with the surface. 60 Minutes or Dateline NBC, total mainstream news programs would have gone deeper than this.

[phaster]

Frontline basically saying Bernanke and Geithner are geniuses...and without their brilliance the whole world would have gone down like a string of dominoes.

Interesting interpretation; I didn't get that at all.

Personally I thought the Frontline program, was pretty good because it was an
insiders view of the problem: basically how wall street interfaced with the fed and the clueless politicians in DC.

Frontline complemented the CNBC show "House of cards" (last week) because it looks at the problem from differnt points of view working up the food chain: from the black woman in south central LA looking to escape the hood, to the subprime brokers in orange county, to the quants on wall street who dreamed up the financial instruments, which were sold all around the world like to people in small towns in norway.

BTW did anyone notice the Frontline program "Inside the meltdown" mentioned "Credit default swaps" were one reason Treasury Secretary Paulson intervened in the banking system? For those not quite up to speed on the topic, "Credit default swaps" otherwise known as CDS contracts have been widely used by hedge funds and others to speculate on the viability of banks, other financial institutions such as brokerage houses, and auto manufactures. These bets on various companies were not made on any regulated exchange and no one knows the exact size of the problem. Simply stated "Credit default swaps" are similar to homeowners insurance, because the buyer pays a premium and, in return, receives a sum of money if a specified event occurs. However, unlike homeowners insurance the buyer of a CDS contract does not need to own the underlying security, in fact the buyer does not even have to suffer a loss from the default event.

To illustrate what CDS contracts involve, suppose Pre-Katrina I found someone to write out a flood insurance policy on a group of homes owned by poor black people in the 9th ward. In this example let's assume I live in San Diego (which I happen to do), and that I do not own any real estate in the big easy. To make things simple let's say the value of the homes I select in the 9th ward have a market value of $1,000,000 BUT I find someone willing to write me a $500,000,000 insurance policy on the homes and the agreed upon annual policy costs $250,000. Pre-Katrina the person who took the bet, would be thinking there is no way in hell anything serious could happen to a group of homes down in New Orleans, and the annual $250,000 they were making on the CDS contract, was easy money. Post-Katrina, we know all the homes in the 9th ward were destroyed, and in this example I'd be a happy camper because I'd be safe and sound back home in San Diego, furthermore my $250,000 contract would theoretically be worth $500,000,000 if the person who took my bet, paid me off in full. Put in these terms, hopefully ya get the idea that before the economy crashed, CDS contracts looked like low risk easy money for the sellers, and that's why trillions of dollars worth of "credit" contracts were taken by Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG.

Doing my own analysis, I don't think the economy is going to get better anytime because of the uncertainty caused by CDS contracts, until this issue is addressed head on. In other words no economic stimulus program like the Bush $600 per qualifying tax payer, or the Bush $700 TARP program, or the latest President Obama $787 billion economic stimulus program, does anything to fix the 30 to 60 trillion dollar estimated problem of CDS contracts that really has not gone away.

[Bman4k1]

I thought it was a good episode. Not the best Frontline ever, but you have to take into account that this is a relatively early draft. Frontline almost always does a followup one 5-10 years down the line with the real deal. This gives a basic overview what happens and gets a good story. I mean I watched a HW Bush one that had much more info than the first one they did in the mid 90's. People are more willing to give up info later on.