Burgess COMMENTARY
These four videos are a useful primer on the international finance sector ... well worth spending the time to watch.

I always hope that the issue of business and social metrics is made a part of such presentations, but this rarely happens. The TVM methodology is a step towards making it possible to have meaningful metrics that will help to hold everyone accountable in an appropriate way.

With appropriate metrics the wrong decisions are going to be made. I have followed the idea that 'You manage what you measure' and the idea that 'If you change the way the game is scored, you change the way the game is played.' Accordingly I am wanting to see appropriate metrics that work for all the actors in society and the economy.
Peter Burgess

Tax Havens - Investigating International Finance - Episode 1
Published on Nov 29, 2012

Used by wealthy individuals and companies to shift huge sums of money around the world in secret, tax havens cost governments and ordinary taxpayers billions of pounds. International efforts to tackle tax havens to date have been feeble, but there's no reason why action can't be taken. How can we put a end to such widespread tax evasion?

This is the first in a series of four videos investigating different areas of the international finance system. Each is a short introduction to a major challenge we face if we want to reform global finance and make it work for people and the planet.

Over the last few decades, governments around the world have worked hard to strip away all obstacles to the free flow of money from country to country. The idea is simple: the freer the money, the more prosperous we all become.

But is free flowing money really the panacea it's cracked up to be? Instead of aiding international development, there is evidence that it instead leads to asset bubbles, and the speedy transmission of financial crises from one country to another. Could capital controls be the answer?

This is the second in a series of four videos investigating different areas of the international finance system. Each is a short introduction to a major challenge we face if we want to reform global finance and make it work for people and the planet.

Banks make extensive use of shadow banking to get around the rules, with worrying consequences. Shadow banking hugely exacerbated the fallout from Lehmans Brothers' collapse in 2008 and yet there is now more banking-like activity going on in shadow banks than there is in banks themselves. This poses real risks to global financial stability.

This is the third in a series of four videos investigating different areas of the international finance system. Each is a short introduction to a major challenge we face if we want to reform global finance and make it work for people and the planet.

This final episode in our Investigating International Finance series explores the controversial ways in which global finance interacts with the developing world. Western financial firms can buy, restructure, and then sell off companies, often leaving them saddled with debt. We also look at 'land grabbing', the widespread selling and leasing of land in Africa to corporations, which can result in governments evicting local people from their land.

This is the fourth in a series of four videos investigating different areas of the international finance system. Each is a short introduction to a major challenge we face if we want to reform global finance and make it work for people and the planet.