Premieres Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV / PBS App
As the threat of recession looms around the world and inflation remains high, this March, FRONTLINE will premiere "Age of Easy Money" — a two-hour special from the award-winning documentary team behind "Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos" and "The Facebook Dilemma." Producers James Jacoby and Anya Bourg chart the American economy’s tumultuous course since the Great Recession, the current uncertainty and fragility, and the role of the Federal Reserve.
The two-hour special investigates the Fed’s epic economic experiment to revive the economy with what has been called an “easy money” policy, and the far-reaching and unintended consequences - including a widening gap between Main Street and Wall Street. With the Fed now pulling back on its “easy money” policy, the country and the world may be entering a new economic era.
“We lived in a bubble, in a dream, and this dream and bubble is bursting,” economist and author Nouriel Roubini says in the film. The film draws on two years of reporting and interviews with prominent financial players, leading economic thinkers, current and former top-level Fed insiders, members of Congress and the Biden administration, and people impacted by the country’s economic policies.
It reveals what led to the Fed’s recent decisions to hike interest rates at a historic pace, and shows the ongoing effects — economic anxiety, fears of recession, concerns about public and private debt, and uncertainty about what comes after the age of easy money.
“One of the things about the age of easy money that is so diabolical, is that we're all in it, right? We're all part of this Faustian bargain of pretending that there's something wonderful happening in the real economy, when really it's just Wall Street going up. But we all kind of want the market to go up, because we're in it, with our pension funds, and with our 401Ks,” says Rana Faroohar, author and associate editor at the Financial Times. “We are 100% entering an entirely new economic era.”
With inflation still high and economic uncertainty ongoing, "Age of Easy Money" is a comprehensive and timely examination of how we reached this precarious moment and the role of the institution at the heart of America’s economy.
Watch On Your Schedule:
This film will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting March 14, 2023, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations, and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 9/8c.
