The Ascent of Money - Season 1

The Ascent of Money - Season 1

Season 1

Network
Episodes6
DatesNov 17, 2008 - Dec 22, 2008

Episodes

Dreams of Avarice
Season 1Episode 160 min

Dreams of Avarice

From Shylock's pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the 'promises to pay' on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilisation.
Nov 17, 2008
Human Bondage
Season 1Episode 260 min

Human Bondage

How did finance become the realm of the masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most powerful family of the 19th century. And today governments are asking it to bail them out.
Nov 24, 2008
Blowing Bubbles
Season 1Episode 360 min

Blowing Bubbles

Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th-century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. He shows why humans have a herd instinct when it comes to investment, and why no one can accurately predict when the bulls might stampede.
Dec 1, 2008
Risky Business
Season 1Episode 460 min

Risky Business

Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insurance. But faced with an unexpected disaster, the state has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can't provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the origins of modern insurance in the early 19th century and to the birth of the welfare state in post-war Japan.
Dec 8, 2008
Safe as Houses
Season 1Episode 560 min

Safe as Houses

It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housing? An economic theory says that markets can't function without mortgages, because it's only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneurs can get their businesses off the ground. But what if mortgages are bundled together and sold off to the highest bidder?
Dec 15, 2008
Chimerica
Season 1Episode 660 min

Chimerica

Since the 1990s, once risky markets in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe have become better investments than the UK or US stock market. The explanation is the rise of 'Chimerica', the economic marriage of China and the United States. But does it make sense for poor Chinese savers to lend to rich American spenders?
Dec 22, 2008

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Reacher
Running

Reacher

Reacher follows Jack Reacher, a veteran military police investigator who has just recently entered civilian life. Reacher is a drifter, carrying no phone and the barest of essentials as he travels the country and explores the nation he once served. When Reacher arrives in the small town of Margrave, Georgia, he finds a community grappling with its first homicide in 20 years. The cops immediately arrest him and eyewitnesses claim to place Reacher at the scene of the crime. While he works to prove his innocence, a deep-seated conspiracy begins to emerge, one that will require Reacher's keen mind and hard-hitting fists to deal with. One thing above all is for sure: They picked the wrong guy to take the fall.

The Rookie
Running

The Rookie

The Rookie is inspired by a true story. John Nolan is the oldest rookie in the LAPD. At an age where most are at the peak of their career, Nolan cast aside his comfortable, small town life and moved to L.A. to pursue his dream of being a cop. Now, surrounded by rookies twenty years his junior, Nolan must navigate the dangerous, humorous and unpredictable world of a "young" cop, determined to make his second shot at life count.

Chicago P.D.
Running

Chicago P.D.

District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups. There are the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and go head to head with the city's street crimes. And there's the Intelligence Unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses - organized crime, drug trafficking, high profile murders and beyond. These are their stories.

GenreDrama, Crime
Silo
Running

Silo

In a ruined and toxic future, thousands live in a giant silo deep underground. After its sheriff breaks a cardinal rule and residents die mysteriously, engineer Juliette starts to uncover shocking secrets and the truth about the silo.

House of the Dragon
Running

House of the Dragon

Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon tells the history of House Targaryen as they fight through a civil war.