Pulls back the curtain on the world's top brands, exposing the hidden tactics and covert strategies used to keep all of us locked in an endless cycle of buying, no matter the cost. Few among us are immune to the thrills of a good buy. Whether you’re partial to designer handbags, mall brand clothing hauls, high-tech gadgets, or whatever’s on the shelves as you browse your favorite megastore, there’s always another item for sale that feels like it’s just right for you. And as it turns out, that’s all by design. In this film, the architects of our collective desire for endless consumption reveal how corporations are hell-bent on increasing profits, how they convince unsuspecting consumers time and time again to part with their money, and what happens when all of our discarded purchases make their way to landfills. Commentators who witnessed the inner workings of corporations from Amazon to Apple sit down to talk about the unsavory practices their former employers are still using. But while we’re all being encouraged to quench a bottomless thirst for more stuff, it’s the future generations and our environment that end up paying the price.
Michael Moore returns to controversial territory with this documentary examining the events that led to the last global financial crisis, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and unfettered capitalism in general. Topics covered include Wall Street's "casino mentality", for-profit prisons, Goldman Sachs' influence in Washington, D.C., the poverty-level wages of many workers, the large wave of home foreclosures, corporate-owned life insurance, and the consequences of "runaway greed".
In February 2009, Michael Moore issued an appeal to people who worked for Wall Street or in the financial industry to share first hand information, requesting, 'Be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history'. He uncovers the social costs of corporate interests pursuing profits at the expense of the public good.
For decades, HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. Senator Elizabeth Warren, dogged journalists and prosecutors try to hold the bankers to account.
A catastrophe still reverberating today with Chernobyl on the front line of war. Formerly secret KGB files reveal the astonishing truth about the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine, with leading experts and eyewitness accounts. Newly declassified evidence from KGB archives reveals that the KGB had concerns about the safety of the Chernobyl nuclear plant even as it was being built. The film includes first-hand accounts from survivors, including Oleksiy Ananenko, who braved radioactive waters to prevent a second explosion, and Maryna Sivets, whose unborn child's life was put at risk.
Did China hide crucial information about Covid-19 from the world? What began with a handful of mystery pneumonia cases in Wuhan late last year has now left more than half a million dead worldwide. Beijing says it has been open and transparent throughout, but former BBC China Editor Carrie Gracie investigates how it delayed reporting the initial outbreak and evidence that Covid-19 could be spread by people. It also silenced doctors who tried to speak out. The film also hears from one high-level insider who believes the animal market at the centre of the Wuhan outbreak should have been treated as a 'crime scene' and from experts who warn that this crisis may be a 'dress rehearsal' for an even more deadly pandemic in the future.
In this film, the architects of our collective desire for endless consumption reveal how corporations are hell-bent on increasing profits, how they convince unsuspecting consumers time and time again to part with their money, and what happens when all of our discarded purchases make their way to landfills. Commentators who witnessed the inner workings of corporations from Amazon to Apple sit down to talk about the unsavory practices their former employers are still using. But while we’re all being encouraged to quench a bottomless thirst for more stuff, it’s the future generations and our environment that end up paying the price.