Money, Power and Wall Street

[Clint]

Here is a very good Frontline video series on the Financial Crisis which erupted in 2008.

This series --- titled Money, Power and Wall Street --- consists of four 1-hour episodes detailing the growth of the
Credit Default Swap bubble, and its ultimate bursting, which triggered the near-collapse of the world banking system.

If you're baffled by Credit Default Swaps, Collateralized Debt Obligations, and Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations --- these videos will make those things understandable.

Have a look.

[sladhaFX]

Thanks for sharing. Bookmarked for later.

[FXTraderCro]

Has something changed since 2008?

No

JPMorgan $2 billion trading loss spooks bank stocks | Reuters

[FXTraderCro]

I have watched the series today and can only recommend it. Thanks for sharing, Clint.

How Wall Street works is known for a longer time, but it is interesting how much it actually grew since the latest crisis. Sure, there were some scapegoats in the higher ranks, but all-in-all they profited in a big way with all the cheap acquisitions, not to speak of the free government money. As the JP Morgan case yesterday showed, derivates trading remains a opaque business and the actual application of most rules under Dodd-Frank remains blocked by the strong WS-lobby. What stuck most from the series was the fact that loans are now a relative small part of bank's business. Complex trading has taken over and I believe with the industry so strong, there won't be much changes coming soon.

For anyone interested in how banks do business with derivates and how they hide the risk, I can recommend the book "Traders, Guns & Money". The author is a former derivates trader.

[SolveFOREX]

That was a really good watch, thanks Clint! Boy it is such a complicated world when you have all those different divisions within the company. I wonder how the CEOs even grasp much of what is going on. Capitalism for sure, the companies are constantly competing to out-do each other with new types of mathematical finance. Ugh I wonder if I could ever catch up.