Financial Market TV Part 3: Freefall

Night 3 of our Financial Markets TV watching is a UK drama based around two main, interlocking stories. On the one hand, there is the guy who works for the sub-prime mortgage broker, who meets an old school friend one day and persuades his to take one of his deals, with its low starter rate of interest, etc. Then there is the second story set in an investment bank where the dealers are packaging up the loans and selling CDOs.

Basically no one comes out of the show well. The mortgage guy eventually loses his job, the family who buy their house then lose it and are back in a small flat at the end, the head trader is sacked and ultimately commits suicide.

Perhaps the only character to emerge unscathed is the dealer played by the rather gorgeous Rosamund Pike. She quits after her affair with the head trader seems to be leading nowhere, supposedly to write about her City experiences (there are a few such books - I rather liked Venetia Thompson's Gross Misconduct)

The underlying anti-materialism message was rather well done I thought, especially with the kids of the family who lose their house, who seem quite ok with it all, unlike the father who seems devastated by it all - to have dreams, to pursue them and them lose. Probably a very common story at the moment.

The rather gorgeous Rosamund Pike as a bank trader