civilization

The Ascent of Money episode 6: Since the 1990s, once risky markets in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe have become better investments than the UK or US stock market. The explanation is the rise of ‘Chimerica’ – the economic marriage of China and the United States. But does it make sense for poor Chinese savers to lend to rich

The Ascent of Money episode 5: It sounded so simple: give state-owned assets to the people. After all, what better foundation for a property-owning democracy than a campaign of privatisation encompassing housing? An economic theory says that markets can’t function without mortgages, because it’s only by borrowing against their assets that entrepreneurs can get their businesses off the ground. But

The Ascent of Money episode 4: Life is a risky business – which is why people take out insurance. But, confronted with an unexpected disaster, the state always has to step in. Professor Ferguson travels to post-Katrina New Orleans to ask why the free market can’t provide adequate protection against catastrophe. His quest for an answer takes him to the

The Ascent of Money episode 3: Why do stock markets produce bubbles and busts? Professor Ferguson goes back to the origins of the joint stock company in Amsterdam and Paris. He draws telling parallels between the current stock market crash and the 18th-century Mississippi Bubble of Scottish financier John Law and the 2001 Enron bankruptcy. Humans have a herd instinct

The Ascent of Money episode 2: How did finance become the realm of the so-called masters of the universe? Through the rise of the bond market in Renaissance Italy. With the advent of bonds, war finance was transformed and spread to north-west Europe and across the Atlantic. It was the bond market that made the Rothschilds the richest and most

The Ascent of Money episode 1: From Shylock’s pound of flesh to the loan sharks of Glasgow, from the ‘promises to pay’ on Babylonian clay tablets to the Medici banking system, Professor Niall Ferguson explains the origins of credit and debt and why credit networks are indispensable to any civilisation.     In this six-part documentary respected author, journalist and