Explores the growing tension between China and the west over allegations that the Chinese state has engaged for years in large-scale industrial espionage and hacking to steal the west's business secrets and technological know-how. One former US official has described it as the 'largest transfer of wealth in human history'. China denies the charges – but growing anger in the US is fuelling the trade war with China.
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Explores how Xi has made China a more assertive presence on the world stage. For decades, Beijing followed a policy of 'hide your strength and bide your time', but since Xi's accession that has changed, creating alarm in the West over China's growing influence. As Xi faces his greatest test yet - a confrontation in Hong Kong - how will the newly resurgent China react?
2019 • Economics
Explores the growing tension between China and the west over allegations that the Chinese state has engaged for years in large-scale industrial espionage and hacking to steal the west's business secrets and technological know-how. One former US official has described it as the 'largest transfer of wealth in human history'. China denies the charges – but growing anger in the US is fuelling the trade war with China.
2019 • Economics
Bottled water is a big business, selling itself as a tastier and healthier alternative to the tap variety. Is there truth behind the claims?
S2E5 • History 101 • 2022 • Economics
Higher education helps society. But paying for it can be ruinous. What led to the U.S. student debt crisis, and is there a way to fix it?
S1E3 • Money Explained • 2011 • Economics
Hillary Clinton and Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss the cultural norms at the center of the worldwide gender pay gap, including the "motherhood penalty"
Oil has brought great wealth to the Middle East and ignited major wars. Is it a blessing or a curse for the region, as well as the rest of the world?
S1E5 • History 101 • 2020 • Economics
In the first of this three-part series investigating consumer spending, Jacques reveals how the concept of 'product lifespan' holds the key to our ever-churning consumerism. Exploring the historical origin of planned obsolescence, when some of the world biggest electrical manufacturers formed a light bulb cartel in the 1920s, Jacques reveals how products that are essential to our modern lifestyles are still made to break. During his investigation, Jacques uncovers the process by which a crucial transformation happened and attitudes towards spending were transformed. Instead of needing new goods because our old ones were broken, we learned to want them for reasons of fashion and aspiration - awaking a consumer appetite that could never be satisfied. In the US, he visits a recycling centre where brand-new high-tech goods are destroyed before they have even come out of the box. Jacques also meets some of the companies that encourage consumers to be dissatisfied with what they have and encourage purchases as part of an ever-faster cycle of 'upgrades'. He asks a senior IKEA executive why, despite the company's commitment to sustainability, it still encourages repeated discarding and purchasing. Jacques also talks to a former senior Apple employee who reveals how the company's new focus on fashion, with its colourful iPhones, keeps us buying even when technological innovation slows.
S1E1 • The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics
In the second of this three-part series, Jacques reveals how fear remains one of the most powerful drivers of our spending. Visiting a neuroscience lab, Jacques hears from a consumer psychologist about how our brains are much more responsive to negative than to positive stimuli. He also meets some experts who have turned this knowledge into an art form, helping manufacturers make billions from our anxieties and insecurities. At the remote chateau of French anthropologist Clotaire Rapaille, Jacques learns how our sense of fear drives us in ways many of us do not understand - and how Rapaille's insights have helped companies sell us everything from SUVs to cigarettes. At the Beverley Hills pad of multimillionaire marketer Rohan Oza, he hears how Oza's connections to celebrities helped propel VitaminWater into the soft drink stratosphere, despite the fact that the product's health claims have been called into question. Jacques also confronts the men who say they are combating our most deep-seated fear - of age and decline. In Las Vegas, he mingles with the doctors and businessmen attending a global conference aimed at selling us ways to stay young and healthy, challenging them to justify their claims for the anti-aging business that has made them rich.
S1E2 • The Men Who Made Us Spend • 2014 • Economics