Showing posts with label Economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economics. Show all posts

Friday, June 13, 2014

* Invasion Of The Job Snatchers (2014)

A group of young people are given work experience with the chance of a permanent position.

Episode 1
 It's in at the deep end for the unemployed trainees as they start work in Christchurch.

Episode 2
Adam is given a final warning and after celebrating payday with a night on the tiles.

Episode 3
Approaching the halfway mark in their placements, the trainees' tempers start to fray.

Episode 4
After the recent sackings, two new trainees take up the opportunity of a lifetime.

Episode 5
The trainees challenge their preconceptions of old people on a day out with pensioners.

Episode 6
Who will go back to the dole queue and who will be offered a permanent job?

Thursday, June 12, 2014

* The Economics of Happiness (2011)

The Economics of Happiness’ features a chorus of voices from six continents calling for systemic economic change. The documentary describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance – and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Posh Pawn (2014)

From helicopters to Lamborghinis, mini-submarines and Hermes handbags, Posh Pawn uncovers the hidden world of high-end pawnbroking.

Part 1
Prestige Pawnbrokers are the kings of pawning luxurious and costly objects in cash-strapped Britain and are part of a growing number of high-end pawnbrokers focusing on expensive and exclusive objects. This documentary goes behind the scenes at Prestige and discovers that, when it comes to upmarket pawn, everyone has a story to tell. Headed up by slick former property developer James Constantinou, and with a quirky team of asset experts including salt-of-the-earth jewellery expert Lawrence and feisty PA Jo, Prestige is the go-to place for people who want fast cash in well-heeled Surrey, pawning everything from million-pound helicopters to Lambourghinis and £25,000 Hermes handbags. And it's an empire on the move: James is taking big risks investing in a new store in Richmond and has bigger plans too. But will expanding make or break the business?


Part 2
The staff at Prestige Pawnbrokers are blown away by two jaw-dropping diamond necklaces, owned by two very different clients. Single mum Marcella is looking for a better future for herself and her son and needs £20,000 to kick-start her music career, while wealthy mother-of-four Ingrid wants to raise capital for her new horse importation and training business. They both hope that family heirlooms that have been gathering dust can kick-start their new lives. But following a closer inspection of one of the necklaces, there's a sleepless night for staff member Patrick, who suspects one could be fake. And Prestige MD James Constantinou is excited by a very unusual yellow mini submarine, which policeman David wants to sell. James tests it in a 'James Bond-style' underwater joyride, as he attempts to impress a potential buyer.


Part 3
James has his work cut out sealing a deal with a pushy young entrepreneur who wants to borrow £100,000 against his Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. Legendary film director Ken Russell's ex-wife Hetty gets a shock when she tries to raise money by pawning her personal family photographs. A married couple get emotional as they look to pawn their pride and joy: a six-foot Kerry Darlington painting. A mum-of-three pawns her mother's diamond ring to support her family; but how much is the ring worth? And long-term client Tauren falls behind on his loan repayments. Will he lose his prized designer watch collection?


Part 4
Reformed 1980s cat burglar Sid hopes to raise funds with help from his family and their jewellery. Prestige Pawnbrokers boss James gets the fright of his life when he test drives a client's superbike at Brands Hatch. New employee Kristen is put to the test when she has to value two huge tanzanite stones. And Prestige's PA and office manager Jo visits a client, Maggie, who, following a string of bad luck, including being diagnosed with cancer, can't pay back her loan, and is in danger of losing her late mother's jewellery. Touched by Maggie's unique situation, Jo tries to convince James to extend her loan one last time to save her precious jewellery. But can Jo talk shrewd businessman James around?


Part 5
Ex-model Cathy is looking for a loan so she can launch a range of unusual women's lingerie. In the 1980s she shared the catwalk with the likes of Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. Shortly after the birth of her two children Cathy was taken ill with Cushing's syndrome, which meant she gained an abnormal amount of weight. She has now recovered, and has raided her designer bag and jewellery collection in the hope of using them as collateral for a £50,000 loan to launch her underwear business. But will she get the money she needs? Also in this episode, Prestige MD James gets some unwanted attention when he goes for a spin in a client's Ferrari, a young mum wants to pawn her grandfather's First World War medals to raise money for her mother's funeral, and an inventor turns up at Prestige to pawn his precious watch.


Part 6
A family man approaches Prestige Pawnbrokers with 12 classic cars to raise the money to avoid having his mansion repossessed, but it's another of his possessions that catches James's attention. A young drummer wants to cash in on a unique silver elephant his grandparents gave him to set up a recording studio so that he can stand on his own feet. A single mum parts with a five-carat diamond ring to give her boys a holiday; and a client who was adopted when she was three months old pawns her family heirlooms - including a sherry glass thought to have belonged to Queen Victoria - to raise money for a long-awaited trip to see her birth mother in Australia.


Part 7
James' manoeuvring skills are put to the test as he test drives a client's 40-foot American motorhome. A self-confessed shopaholic hopes to sell two modern art paintings to pursue a new career in photography. A glamorous divorcee wants to sell some of her designer handbags to raise cash for her hair extensions business. And James and gem expert Kristen jet off to millionaires' playground Marbella to meet a glamorous client with some precious jewellery. James has a taste for the high life; can he drum up enough business to branch out overseas?

Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home (2010)

Los Angeles' Skid Row is home to one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. And we found, inside that community, the remarkable and enormously moving stories of Olympic athletes, Harvard attorneys, accomplished musicians, scholars. We found poverty, drugs and mental illness, of course - but more importantly we found life, hope and incredibly powerful human journeys.

Going Wild (Series) (2014)

Imagine not being able to support your family or love your spouse, or feeling like you have lost all control of your life. Your loved ones don’t know what to do. You feel alone. Is there hope? Can you get your life back? Will you be able to feel alive again? With the help of adventure and survival expert Tim Medvetz, Americans around the country who have hit rock bottom are discovering themselves through a rigorous three-day wildlife intervention adventure forcing them to face their fears and problems head on.

My Granny the Escort (2014)

Award-winning filmmaker Charlie Russell offers a frank, intimate and revealing portrait of three of Britain's mature escorts: older women who choose to sell sex from hotel rooms and their homes, all completely legally. As well as topping up their pensions, all of these women seem to be enjoying themselves in their chosen and often new profession, but the film also questions how such a lifestyle can co-exist with their family lives and their roles as mothers and grandparents. Their clients are men of all ages, sometimes as young as 20, but what is the motivation behind some men's desire to have sex with older women?

Utopia (2013)

Utopia is a feature-length documentary created by John Pilger. He takes a look at the story of the first Australians, the Aboriginal people, against a background of the country’s economic boom built significantly on a wealth of natural minerals.

The 99%: Occupy Everywhere (2013)

This award winning documentary, narrated by Lou Reed, explores the breadth and depth of Occupy Wall Street and how it quickly grew from a small park in lower Manhattan to an international movement. The film highlights why people from diverse age, ethnic and financial backgrounds support the movement and its focus of removing money from politics in order to reclaim democracy from entrenched corporate interests so that critical issues including job creation, affordable access to health and education, protecting the environment and gun safety can be fully addressed. Featuring interviews with a wide range of subjects including Occupiers, economist Jeffrey Sachs and business magnate Russell Simmons.

Friday, May 9, 2014

* Abu Dhabi: Between Tradition and 21st Century (2012)

How the capital of the United Arab Emirates has merged its ancient customs with the modern world, preserving traditional activities including camel racing

The people of Abu Dhabi are rightly proud of their history and heritage, key aspects of the emirate's attraction to visitors. Given the pace of development and change in recent years, it is considered a priority to safeguard the unique crafts, artefacts and architecture that define the emirate's culture. The Future While looking back with pride, the Government and people of Abu Dhabi are also looking forward to a still brighter future. Blessed with substantial untapped oil wealth to safeguard the emirate's growth and development, Abu Dhabi is nevertheless seeking to diversify its economy and enhance its environment still further. In this quest, tourism has been earmarked for a specially important role. As a clean, green industry that promotes international friendship and goodwill, tourism is seen as an ideal means of applying Abu Dhabi's strong tradition of hospitality to good effect.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

* American Autumn: an Occudoc (2012)

What would a world look like that had a culture and an economic system that places human need above corporate greed, and how do we bring that world into being? Who cares what it is called. Call it Socialism, Call it Real Democracy Now, and Call it Chunky-Monkey-Cherry Garcia. The world needs to change radically, it needs to change dramatically, and it needs to change fast. This documentary is an invitation for you to participate in that positive change. Frankly, because, we need you. Yes, you.

* African Dream (2010)

In 1960, numerous African countries gained their independence from the European colonial rule. The year is known as "the year of Africa." Now a half-century later -- while many African countries are still gripped by frequent conflicts, widespread corruption, and severe poverty -- economic growth, backed by abundant natural resources and a huge market of 900 million people, is changing Africa. What was once known as the Dark Continent is being transformed into the Continent of Hope. African Dream presents a three-part series revealing the new face of Africa.

Episode 1: Rwanda Pursues a Miracle

Rwanda was rocked by the ethnic massacres and environmental devastation in the 1990s. But during the past several years, the country achieved a phenomenal recovery called the "Rwanda miracle" with an average annual economic growth rate of nearly 10%. This growth was driven by "diaspora," the four million Rwandans who were scattered around the world to escape the chaos in the country. They are now returning to Rwanda, bringing with them wealth, knowledge, and technology. The "diaspora" is not only contributing to generate the country' s economic growth but also trying to achieve ethnic reconciliation. Will these attempts to heal the nation prove successful?

Episode 2: Power to the People Africas Mineral Corridor

Africa is abundant in natural resources. However, until recently, Africa had just been their provider. Enormous Western capital had taken a major part in extracting, processing these resources, controlling their sales, and successfully reaping most of the huge profits. Now African countries are prepared to take on a larger role. Tanzania is investing its own funds instead of western capital to mine gold. They are using the profits to build a well and other facilities. Meanwhile, Botswana established its first diamond trade center. By being an integral part of the entire process from excavation to marketing, Botswana seeks to develop business which equals that of western capital.

Episode 3: The Power of Immigrants

South Africa is Africa' s biggest economic power. Holding a key to this economic growth are its emigrants. The South African government introduced an unprecedented program that allows in effect, the free influx of people from neighboring Zimbabwe without a passport. Many of the people who come from Zimbabwe, where the unemployment rate reaches 80%, have received some form of higher education. South Africa welcomes them as a cheap but good-quality workforce. Thus many immigrants from Zimbabwe come to South Africa to seek their "African dream." On the other hand, South Africans whose jobs have been taken away are showing violent reactions against these immigrant workers.

* 1929 (2009)

Director William Karel examines the biggest stock market crash in history, which occurred on the New York Stock Exchange 80 years ago -- Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. In this film, a wide range of economists and historians take turns discussing the causes of the crash and its economic and political consequences. These included acute poverty and the rise of the extreme right, both of which were to have a considerable impact on the decade to come. 1929 uses a wealth of black-and-white archive footage to illustrate what the experts have to say.

Episode 1: The Crash
Mass consumption is on the rise, with the automobile, the washing machine, and the refrigerator symbolizing a new age of wealth. The middle class has also plunged into stock trading, and the economy seems more prosperous than ever. All is well, until that fateful day. "The crisis of 1929 was like the perfect storm, in which all these improbable things came together in the wrong time in the wrong way."

Episode 2: The Great Depression
The Depression, looks at the 1930s, focusing particularly on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's role. 1929 concludes by connecting these past events to the current financial crisis

Friday, May 2, 2014

* The Great Euro Crash (2012)

With Europe teetering on the edge of an economic precipice, BBC business editor Robert Peston takes a long view of the euro - from Churchill's vision of a United States of Europe to the bail-outs of Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Meeting a property developer in Ireland, a taxi driver in Rome and a German manufacturing worker, the film exposes the high cost being paid by European workers today for the dream of monetary union - and how close Europe came to a complete banking meltdown. The crisis could yet claim another victim - Britain, with its vast financial sector, would be dragged down by the collapse of the euro. The cost for saving the euro may be high, but the alternative would be a return to the economic mayhem of the 1930s.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

* Das Auto: The Germans - Their Cars and Us (2013)

Documentary examining Germany's economic power and the automobile industry at the heart of it. Across the world, the badges of Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes inspire immediate awe. Even in Britain, where memories of Second World War run deep, we can't resist the appeal of a German car. By contrast, our own industry is a shadow of its former self. Historian Dominic Sandbrook asks what it is we got wrong, and what the Germans got so right.

* China: Triumph and Turmoil (2012)

Part 1: Emperors
Niall Ferguson shows how the vast apparatus of the Chinese state has always been called on to subjugate individual freedom to the higher goal of unity. Ferguson also examines how, on the other hand, centralised control produces tensions that threaten to destroy the country.

Part 2: Maostalgia
Niall Ferguson asks how China manages to live under a Communist system of government but with a thriving capitalist economy The succession of revolutions orchestrated by Mao Zedong killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. And yet this hard-line communist and murderer of businessmen is revered in China today as the founder of a modern-day capitalist superpower. Why?. To answer this question Niall travels from Beijing to Mao's birthplace at Shaoshan to the new supercity of Chongqing and to the rural backwaters of Anhui to track down survivors of the madness of Chairman Mao, newly minted billionaires and the Mao worshippers who believe tomorrow belongs to them. He finds the way China is governed is eerily similar to the way it was under the First Emperor. All the power lies in the hands of nine men with expressionless faces and what looks like the same hair dye - as unelected and as powerful as Emperor Qin. Autocracy that values unity over choice; secrecy over openness - not democracy. That has always been the Chinese way. It is the price that China is prepared to pay for the spectre that has always haunted its leaders: protest, rebellion and turmoil.

Part 3: SuperPower
Niall Ferguson asks what China's growing global presence and aggressive nationalism mean to all of us. China's supercharged economic growth signals a seismic shift in political power from West to East. We are increasingly dependent on China's money to bail out our own fragile economies. But at what price? How can we protest when China challenges our most deeply held beliefs about democracy and freedom of speech by locking up its citizens? Should we criticise them or just keep quiet for fear of frightening off much needed investment? When China transforms itself from an assembler of products invented in the West to an innovator in its own right what will be left for us to do? What will it be like to work in a Chinese-dominated world?

Saturday, March 15, 2014

* Cursed for Gold (2008)

A new gold rush is sweeping through the Amazon rainforest where scores of women and men hunt for nuggets and specks of gold. But this race for gold is bringing on the destruction of one of the last earthly paradises, the world?s largest tropical forest, the lungs of our planet, where everything and anything can be paid in gold.

As a result, a gold ingot cycle has developed with its batch of insolvents, prostitutes, godfathers, traffickers, whether in French Guiana, Brazil or Suriname. Gold has brought upon disease, mercury, crime, alcoholism. Gold has turned creeks and rivers into dumping grounds.

This cycle is that of the destruction of men by men. Whereas the Amazonian rainforest releases 300 tons of gold each year, it receives 120 tons of mercury. An uneven trade: treasure against poison. And as the backdrop, all sorts of traffics are arising: people, weapons, drugs.

In the depths of this borderless jungle also lies the tragedy of the Wayanas, a Native American tribe from Guiana, who are being poisoned by mercury, the element essential to gold mining. The Wayanas are doomed by a looming disappearance. Congenital malformations have already been observed in children. The elderly are developing neurological disorders and cancers. Along with the outrage that is mercury comes another massacre of Indians.

The New Eldorado is enduring one of the world's worst globalization disasters.

* Chasing Madoff (2010)

A look at how one investigator spent ten years trying to expose Bernie Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme that scammed an estimated $18 billion from investors.

* Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010)

A probing investigation into the lies, greed and corruption surrounding D.C. super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies.

* Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats (2013)

In July last year, minibus dealer David Fishwick tried to open his own bank in Burnley, Lancashire, and make it profitable in just six months. His scheme was praised by politicians and locals alike, but not everyone was a fan, and he experienced problems persuading the Financial Services Authority to grant a banking licence. This one-off programme reveals whether David managed to stay open for business and beat the high-street giants at their own game.

* Inside America's Money Vault (2013)

Whether its cash, gold, or digital-data bits, we all know that money makes the world go round. But what our host, Jake Ward of Popular Science magazine discovers in this one hour special is that without the engines that power the world?s financial systems, that world would grind to a halt. For the first time, National Geographic Channel takes you inside the heart of the money machine to places that you?re not allowed to bring a camera? straight into the vaults of some of the world?s largest stashes of what you want, need, and bust your butt to get: Money. America?s Money Vault follows 55 million dollars worth of gold as it makes its way down into the most valuable gold vault in the world. Hidden deep under the streets of New York City, hundreds of billion dollars in gold bars?the wealth of nations?are tucked away in a bunker that is anchored to the bedrock of Manhattan Island itself. Next, we head above ground to a place where twenty four billion dollars changes hands every year, New York?s Gold District. Jake goes behind the storefronts to see how everybody from the street level to the brokers make their money buying, selling and even finding gold. He meets Onikwa Thomas who calls himself the urban miner and claims to earn up to four hundred dollars a week off of gold specks found in the cracks of sidewalks. And steps away thousands of dollars in transactions take place, made by Dimitriy Nezhinskiy as he wheels and deals in the world of gold hawkers.