The Fall of Lehman Brothers

On September 15, 2008, the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies.

The filing marked the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The following day, the British bank Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, Lehman’s North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building.

On September 20, 2008, a revised version of that agreement was approved by Judge James Peck.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 59 minutes)

The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction

This incisive documentary analyzes the extreme, yet persistent, theories that cloud the memory of our national tragedy. Experts in engineering, intelligence and the military scrutinize 9/11 conspiracy theories. Based in large part on a breakthrough exposé by Popular Mechanics. Produced by the authoritative NBC News Productions.

The tragedy of the attacks of 9/11 is ours to share; it is ours to remember; it is ours to understand. Yet, our memory and understanding were clouded almost from the first horrible moment Flight 11 struck the north tower. No-one could believe such a brazen and simple attack could be so tragically effective.

Disbelief quickly gave way to conspiracy theories and suspicions. These ideas from the fringe found a fertile breeding ground on the Internet and today many of them, through the power of almost infinite repetition, have nearly gained the status of truth.

The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction exhaustively examines some of the most persistent of these theories: that the World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled demolition; that a missile, not a commercial airliner, hit the Pentagon; and that members of the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks in hopes of creating a war in the Middle East.

Each conspiracy argument is countered by a variety of experts in the fields of engineering, intelligence and the military. The program also delves into the anatomy of such conspiracies and how they grow on the Internet. A must see if you regard Loose Change, Final Cut as a credible documentary.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 1 hour, 17 minutes)
I don’t know if this is the same documentary, but here it is at Google Videos.

America’s Bankrupt Banks (Inside the Meltdown)

On Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, the astonished leadership of the U.S. Congress was told in a private session by the chairman of the Federal Reserve that the American economy was in grave danger of a complete meltdown within a matter of days. There was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left, says Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.)

As the housing bubble burst and trillions of dollars’ worth of toxic mortgages began to go bad in 2007, fear spread through the massive firms that form the heart of Wall Street. By the spring of 2008, burdened by billions of dollars of bad mortgages, the investment bank Bear Stearns was the subject of rumors that it would soon fail.

Rumors are such that they can just plain put you out of business, Bear Stearns’ former CEO Alan Ace Greenberg tells FRONTLINE.

The company’s stock had dropped from $171 to $57 a share, and it was hours from declaring bankruptcy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acted. It was clear that this had to be contained. There was no doubt in his mind, says Bernanke’s colleague, economist Mark Gertler.

Bernanke, a former economics professor from Princeton, specialized in studying the Great Depression. He more than anybody else appreciated what would happen if it got out of control, Gertler explains.

To stabilize the markets, Bernanke engineered a shotgun marriage between Bear Sterns and the commercial bank JPMorgan, with a promise that the federal government would use $30 billion to cover Bear Stearns’ questionable assets tied to toxic mortgages. It was an unprecedented effort to stop the contagion of fear that seemed to be threatening the rest of Wall Street.

While publicly supportive of the deal, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Wall Street executive with Goldman Sachs, was uncomfortable with government interference in the markets. That summer, he issued a warning to his former colleagues not to expect future government bailouts, saying he was concerned about a legal concept known as moral hazard.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 52 minutes)

The War You Don’t See

A powerful and timely investigation into the media’s role in war, tracing the history of embedded and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq.

As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an electronic battlefield in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy?

John Pilger says in the film: “We journalists… have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else’s country… That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is.

For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home… In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us… Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power.”

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 1 hour, 35 minutes)

Energy War

Forget the axis of evil, its the axis of oil

The Cold War and the War on Terror were about ideology and globalization. The 21st century will be dominated by the struggle for energy: It will be every man for himself and it's going to get dirty.

In the two-part documentary Energy War, VPRO's Backlight investigates the major developments with regards to energy sources. Featuring NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

The film describes the geopolitical consequences of the dependency on fossil fuels. In the struggle for the last sources of fossil fuels, countries all over the world are forced to take new political and moral decisions and have to enter into awkward alliances: rogue regimes must be tolerated and befriended. With a special focus on the gas conflict between Georgia and Russia and the position of Saudi Arabia. 

Featuring a.o. Thomas Friedman, author of international bestseller The World is Flat. Friedman sheds his light on the inverse connection between rising oil prices and the establishment of free democracies. 

The film then moves on to take a look at the international markets for alternative energy. If oil and gas are scarce and expensive in the future, where will countries turn to keep their economy going and their population warm and happy? Could solar energy or bio fuels become the main energy sources of the post-fossil fuel era? Will governments, multinationals or small producers be the motor of the green race?

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who's reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED's Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished -- and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

Watch full Video

Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Upcoming Iraq War Wikileaks Docs

The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks is preparing to release up to 400,000 U.S. intelligence reports on the Iraq War. The disclosure would comprise the biggest leak in U.S. history, far more than the 91,000 Afghanistan war logs WikiLeaks released this summer. We speak to the nation's most famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971. 

Movie: "Invisible Empire -A New World Order Defined"

For the first time ever, the secret agenda of the planets ruthless Super-class is exposed in stark detail. This documentary film chronicles how men of power and influence have worked in stealth for centuries to establish an oppressive world government.

Learn how this global oligarchy controls the populace through drug trafficking, money laundering, staged terror attacks, media propaganda and debt. The criminal controllers have successfully dominated the globe and are now in the final phase of consolidating power. Invisible Empire is a damning indictment of the globalists through their own words and documents.

Worldwide tyranny isnt coming, its here.This isnt conspiracy theory, its conspiracy fact. The New World Order is out in the open— all documented in stunning living color. Unelected bureaucrats are establishing regional unions under one superstate.

Witness their plan for a global tax and a cashless surveillance society in which every man, woman and child is micro-chipped at birth.

Watch the full movie: 

The Tobacco Conspiracy

A history of the tobacco industry's lies and scams. From the US in 1953 to Africa today, the controversy between individual responsability and corporate greed is portrayed in a lucid, undaunted manner. From scientific frauds to working with organized crime, tobacco companies show their hidden agenda more clearly than ever in this theatrically released documentary.

WikiLeaks Release 1.0