The Man Who Broke Britain

Programme on tonight in the UK might be interesting -

Thusday 9th December 2004 BBC2 9.00 - 10.30pm

"The Man Who Broke Britain"


From the Radio Times:

"A 90-minute programme about the dangers of financial derivatives trading. Not tempted, but it turned out to be a wonderful piece of television. To look at, you'd think it was a documentary; in fact it is 99 per cent scripted drama, but so plausibly done that it should really have a warning flash in the corner of the screen saying "fiction" in big red letters. The idea is that in January 2005 a rogue trader brings down a City bank and precipitates a financial meltdown. The collapse is tied to a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and, since the trader is also a Saudi, the security services begin to suspect that an al-Qaeda sleeper cell possesses "financial weapons of mass destruction" called credit derivatives. Actors play all the main characters, giving convincing "interviews" on the events. "

From the title, I thought it was going to be about Blair.

now now Tony, it just came off in his hand, guv...

LOL...... if it had been entitled "The man who taxed Britain until it broke" I would have known with absolute certainty who it was about

A little unknown but interesting point , as the UK Labour government seem hell bent on high taxation either directly or indirectly (let's make the motorist pay for everything ) just to mention one, In Australia where there are massive gambling establishments, slot machine are every where, you've probably seen TV documentaries where people spend hours playing, The fact is it's the Australian governments biggest source of Tax Income................ring any bells here in the UK ?
apologies if Iv'e gone of course.........

The man who broke Britain - documentary style drama

This was an interesting program - aired on Thursday December 9th at 9pm on BBC2.............

Let the discussion begin!

a good program

another documentary on Mr. Leeson ?

gmta!

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/showthread.php?t=12812&highlight=Man+Broke+britain

(Mod's note: Now merged the two threads together)

I think Credit derivatives got a particularly bad press though......

A real knockout !!!

I thought the trading desk scenes were well done including the way that girl got canned, seen it happen like that a few times.

On a slightly connected theme, just got another invitation to subscribe to a 'secret to which only a handful...blah blah blah...)" newsletter this morning. What's interesting is that it also (there have been a few recently) is ramping up the "UK Secret Weapon - the billions of barrels of oil sitting under the Falklands" line.

Now, call me an old conspiracist, but if I was Blair and I wanted to take the attention away from my crap government, I'd start putting things like this about. The Argentinians gets to hear about it (they know nothing about it at the moment of course) from places like t2w and mount another offensive on the islands (or shopping trip as both parties referred to it last time) causing an outbreak of hostilities and just enough time for another Belgrano in Jan/Feb to get everyone ignoring the crap economic, political and cultural climate of the UK and in the right frame of mind for 2005 - WAR!!!

Forget foxes, smoking, salt, mistletoe (mistletoe!!!), pensions, id cards, liars for politicians and a rapidly degrading (in both senses) infrastructure - let's get our boys out there and sort those Argies out once 'an for all...

Dear me...I wish I thought I was joking....

I was thinking would it really happen like this? I dont know a lot about LTCM, but didn't something very similar happen there. I thought that all the institutions and central banks got together and said "basically if we all dont help to get them out of the ****, its going to **** us all up"?

Bramble

A good point but you're overestimating the great British public. Falklands and other matters are a little bit too sophisticated for them to care too much.

The best way to divert attention is with idiot celebrities, the tabloids would go mad and it would certainly filter over into the broadsheets. Beckam is always a good target, so why not organise an SAS/MI6 squad to really kidnap Harlem Beckam or whatever stupid chav name he's called. Of course he would never be harmed and it would obviously end with the kid returned safely (perhaps kidnap the mother as well).

In a situation like that it's likely that a 3rd world war would be relegated to page 19 of any paper. OK, this looks like a joke but any Machiavellian politician worth his salt should have realised by now that celebrities have REAL POWER to divert the attention of the masses.

Yes LTCM was bailed out although what is not generally known is that regardless they were profitable again only several months later. Moral of the story: ignore fat tails at your peril...

Any dyslexics working for CSFB today might be waking up a little worried!

anley said:

any Machiavellian politician worth his salt should have realised by now that celebrities have REAL POWER to divert the attention of the masses.

Click to expand...

Very true, and a very sad indictment of our society, imho.

Hi

I watched the program and (selflessly) was trying to figure out how such an event/combination of events might affect me as an intraday spot or futures forex, indices futures, or spreadbetting (all financial derivatives) trader. Besides a few spikes within the market action around the time of such a news event and a market that gaps - resulting in difficulty in exiting open trades - are there any other effects or consequences that I should be aware of or worry about?

Cheers

jtrader.

Beware the rogue trader!