The Age of Risk

Overview

This features a major interview with Alan Greenspan and puts the current economic crisis in the context of the last two decades of history. We examine the confidence underpinning two glorious decades of boom. It shows how we changed our attitude to risk and consumers borrowed more, banks lent more and – above all – governments stepped back from regulating any of it. At the heart of it all is Alan Greenspan who, for 20 years, was one of the most powerful people in the world and a committed exponent of free markets. But then, in October 2008, just a few weeks after the catastrophic collapse of Lehman Brothers, the man whose ideas influenced the world admitted he just might have been "partially" wrong.