The Great Financial Meltdown

POLITICS - Tonight at 9 PM EST the CBC will begin airing the documentary series "Meltdown" which will go through the highs and lows of the Great Recession, what caused it, who is to blame and the major figures and what role they played.

Meltdown’s cast of characters includes:

Geraint Anderson, aka “City Boy” – This hippie-turned-stockbroker in England reveals the dirty secrets of high finance. He says lying and cheating were all part of the high-stakes game.

Richard "Dick" Fuld – A true Wall Street predator. As CEO of Lehman Brothers, Fuld boasted he’d rip out and eat his enemies’ hearts. Instead, he watched his own empire collapse beneath his feet.

Hank Paulson –As US Treasury Secretary, he lurched from crisis to crisis during the meltdown. On his watch, the U.S. spent trillions to bail out Wall Street companies, including Paulson’s old firm, Goldman Sachs.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum – The self-styled CEO of Dubai, Inc built an astonishing real estate empire. Bigger was always better, until it turned out to be largely a mirage.

Marcy Kaptur – This Congresswoman from Ohio is an outspoken voice for the families decimated by the Great Recession. She’s demanding that the bankers responsible pay up.

The documentary series will track:

General Motors, the world’s largest automotive company going bust and being bought out by the US and Canadian governments.

Washington Mutual became the world’s largest bank failure.

Lehman Brothers became the world’s largest bankruptcy ever:

The damage quickly spread around the world, shattering global confidence in the fundamental structures of the international economy.

The series is separated into four parts:

HOUR 1: The Men Who Crashed the World
Greed and recklessness by the titans of Wall Street triggers the largest financial crash since the Great Depression. It's left to US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, himself a former Wall Street banker, to try and avert further disaster.

HOUR 2: A Global [Financial] Tsunami
The meltdown's devastation ripples around the world from California to Iceland and China. Facing economic ruin, desperate world leaders are at each other's throats.

HOUR 3: Paying the Price
The victims of the meltdown fight back. In Iceland, protestors force a government to fall. In Canada, ripped off autoworkers occupy their plant. And in France, furious union members kidnap their bosses.

HOUR 4: After the Fall
Investigators begin to sift through the meltdown's rubble. Shaken world leaders question the very foundations of modern capitalism while asking: could it all happen again?