Men and Money | The Golden Eggheads

Beginning with an interview with a man seated on a stack of gold bars, this programme aims to meet the people who claim to understand the world of high finance. Interviews with a variety of dark-suited men, including economists, financial journalists and investment managers, attempt to reveal how they came by this knowledge and what it really amounts to. The programme also asks whether small-time investors are really welcome in this tightly-knit world, and discusses the City's role in protecting these individuals from the potential pitfalls of investment.

Britain's lack of small-time stock market investors is an issue discussed in this programme, and one of the ways in which it was tackled was through the campaigns to encourage share ownership that accompanied the privatisation of Britain's utilities companies by the Thatcher government. The shares did prove remarkably popular, but in the longer term the vast majority of those who bought them did not go on to acquire large and diverse portfolios.