The financial scams that brought Albania to the brink of war

In the mid-1990s, Albania appeared to be a nation on the rise. Emerging from decades of isolation and communist rule, people poured their savings into investment schemes that promised extraordinary returns. But many of those schemes were little more than giant Ponzi scams. When they collapsed in early 1997, millions of people lost everything. The financial meltdown triggered mass protests and armed uprisings. The government lost control of large parts of the country and Albania teetered on the edge of civil war. In this episode, we revisit one of the most dramatic financial disasters of the post-cold war era. Host Robin Wigglesworth speaks to Ortenca Aliaj, the FT’s banking editor who was a child in Albania during the crisis, about what it was like to live through the chaos, how the schemes captured an entire nation and what the collapse reveals about the dangerous mix of financial speculation, weak institutions and public trust.

Jaksot(336)

The hidden financial world of ancient Rome

Ancient Rome is often depicted as a glamorous empire of power, sophistication and wealth. Yet for most people, the reality of daily life was precarious. Host Robin Wigglesworth talks to Kim Bowes, aut...

5 Elo 54min

The canal that shaped American finance

The construction of the Erie Canal is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in American history. But its most influential legacy is not the waterway itself, it is how it was paid for. Host...

29 Heinä 40min

The trader who made $100mn from the 1929 crash — only to lose it all

Jesse Livermore was a legendary trader who made and lost several fortunes in the early 20th century, most famously by shorting the Wall Street crash of 1929. His early life was immortalised in the rom...

22 Heinä 54min

The financial crash that created Britain’s first prime minister

When the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, it wiped out fortunes and plunged Britain into its first great stock market crisis. The collapse of the South Sea Company, a government-backed scheme that prom...

15 Heinä 38min

South Sea Bubble: the shoemaker’s son who sparked Britain’s first financial crisis

In 1720, the South Sea Company was one of the most valuable businesses in Britain until a spectacular collapse in its publicly traded shares triggered the country’s first major stock market crisis. At...

8 Heinä 52min

The 1980s Garfield buyout that changed corporate finance

William E Simon was a bond trader-turned US cabinet secretary under President Richard Nixon. He was also abrasive, polarising and the “father of private equity”, according to Hettie O’Brien, author of...

1 Heinä 55min

The US dollar’s ‘immigrant’ origins

Today, when you think of a dollar, the US dollar probably comes to mind first. But that hasn’t always been the case. In this episode of The Story of Money, Brendan Greeley, the author of The Almighty ...

24 Kesä 47min