FRONTLINE - Reports | PBS

Breaking the Bank

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EST

Available for viewing online. The bets were huge and risky -- billions of dollars on the housing market. The upside was undeniable -- superbanks reaped billions of dollars, dominated the landscape, and gobbled up competitors. Then the bottom dropped out -- the massive losses on Wall Street nearly broke the banks. In the worst crisis in decades, brand name banks are on the brink. Now as the federal government implements an unprecedented intervention in the industry, FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors to tell the inside story of how things went so wrong so fast and to document efforts to stabilize Wall Street. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown) untangles the complicated financial and political web threatening one particular superbank-Bank of America.

The Madoff Affair

Tue, 12 May 2009 21:00:00 EST

Available for viewing online. In the mid-1960s, Bernard Madoff tapped money from Jewish businessmen at exclusive country clubs with the promise of steady guaranteed returns on their investments. He then set his sights on Europe and Latin America, brokering deals with powerful hedge fund managers and feeder funds from Buenos Aires to Geneva. Billions of dollars were channeled to Madoff's investment firm, and his feeders became fabulously wealthy. The competition wondered how the man could produce such steady returns in good times and bad. There were allegations that Madoff was "front-running" or operating a Ponzi scheme, which the SEC investigated several times over the last two decades. But Madoff remained untouched until Dec. 11, 2008, when he admitted it was all "one big lie." FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria unravel the story behind the world's first truly global Ponzi scheme -- a deception that lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any other business scandal in history.

The Released

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EST

Available for viewing online. This year, hundreds of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illnesses will be released into communities across America, the largest exodus in the nation's history. Typically, mentally ill offenders leave prison with a bus ticket, $75 and two weeks worth of medication. Within eighteen months, nearly two-thirds are re-arrested. In this follow up to the groundbreaking film The New Asylums, FRONTLINE examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates. The intimate stories of the released -- along with interviews with parole officers, social workers, and psychiatrists -- provide a rare look at the lives of the mentally ill as they struggle to stay out of prison and reintegrate into society.

Poisoned Waters

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EST

Available for viewing online. More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America's waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways -- the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay -- are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species is also threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and the states set new agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why its so hard to keep our waters clean.