Age of Easy Money (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

After WW2, Japan transitioned to a state-controlled economy, shifting production from weapons to consumer goods. The Bank of Japan managed credit allocation, which played a central role in Japan's success. From 1985-1989, the country experienced a credit-fuelled bubble, with real estate and stock prices soaring. The 1990 stock market crash led to land and asset price collapses, bankruptcies, and economic stagnation. Critics accused the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan of mismanaging the economy during the bubble and subsequent recession.

Kenneth Rogoff is an economics professor and chair of international economics at Harvard University. From 2001 to 2003, he was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. He is the co-author of “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,” a history of financial crises, and the graduate text “Foundations of International Macroeconomics.” In 2025, he published “Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead.” Rogoff spoke to FRONTLINE’s James Jacoby on March 25, 2026 for our documentary "The President vs. the Fed." Watch excerpts from that interview above. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with major support from Ford Foundation, and The Fialkow Family Foundation, as part of the Plum Bush Foundation. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and

Breast cancer has become the poster child of cause-related marketing campaigns. Countless people walk, run and shop for the cure. Each year, millions of dollars are raised in the name of breast cancer, but where does this money go and what does it actually achieve? ------- Chapters ▷ 00:00 - Introduction ▷ 02:23 - Breast cancer culture and sisterhood ▷ 06:04 - A shift in responsibility from the government to private entities ▷ 09:23 - The lack of change or development in breast cancer treatment ▷ 13:55 - Awareness vs. action ▷ 19:00 - Breast cancer organizations tied to corporations ▷ 24:47 - The tyranny of cheerfulness and harmful language used to describe the disease ▷ 42:52 - Where does the money raised actually go? ▷ 53:57 - Cosmetics and personal care products ▷ 59:52 - The origin of the pink ribbon ▷ 1:01:45 - The search for quick fixes ▷ 1:04:37 - The KFC breast cancer campaign ▷ 1:07:57 - Environmental factors: workers exposed to toxic fumes and chemicals ▷ 1:14:11 - Pinkwashers: companies who benefit from breast cancer

The bets were huge and risky: billions of dollars on the housing market. The upside was undeniable: superbanks reaped billions of dollars, dominated the landscape and gobbled up competitors. Then the bottom dropped out. (Aired 2009) Starting in 2008, in the worst economic crisis in decades, brand-name banks were on the brink. As the federal government implemented a massive intervention in the financial industry, FRONTLINE went behind closed doors to tell the story of how things went so wrong so fast and to document efforts to stabilize Wall Street. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk untangled the complicated financial and political web surrounding one particular superbank — Bank of America. Explore additional reporting in connection with "Breaking the Bank" on our website: FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon

There was a time when one earner could support an entire family. However, due to escalating costs in the 1970s, it became necessary for wives to enter the workforce. By the 1990s, even two incomes were insufficient, leading families to abandon savings. By the 2000s, with both partners working and no savings, families began borrowing well beyond their means to cope with inflation. This documentary traces the global economic crisis from the Bretton Woods Agreement to the Nixon shock and the Occupy Wall Street movement. It reveals how the U.S. Federal Reserve has led not only the American economy but also the global economy to function much like a Ponzi scheme. Since the pandemic, debt expansion is out of control. Are we headed for another recession or a total economic collapse? ------- Chapters ▷ 00:00 – Intro ▷ 03:36 – Bretton Woods (1944) ▷ 05:35 – Nixon shock (1971) ▷ 07:53 – Fiat currency ▷ 09:50 – Ponzi scheme ▷ 11:20 – IOU bonds ▷ 16:10 – Inflation and purchasing power ▷ 21:30 – Occupy Wall Street (2008) ▷ 24:01

50 billion euros in Greece, 70 billion euros in Ireland, 40 billion euros in Spain - one Euro-country after another is forced to support its banks with huge sums of money in order to equalize the losses incurred by money worldwide from bad loans. But where do the billions go anyway? Who are the beneficiaries? With this simple question the award-winning business journalist and nonfiction author Harald Schumann travels across Europe and gets surprising answers. The rescued are not in the poorer Euro states - unlike commonly believed - but mainly in Germany and France. A large part of the money ends up with the creditors of the banks that want to be saved or must be saved. And although these investors have obviously made bad investments, they are - against all logic of the free market economy - protected at the expense of the general public against any losses. Why? Who gets the money? Actually, simple questions, but that regard the core of European identity. Maybe the most passionate film on the banking crisis. Director: Arpad Bondy Script: Harald