What do Cosimo de Medici and collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) have in common? Anyone who tuned into the first episode of economic historian Niall Ferguson’s six-part Channel 4 series The Ascent of Money last night will know the answer: not much.

The economic historian was genuinely incredulous as he swept through a subprime suburb of Memphis, Tennessee – the bankruptcy capital of America – with its plethora of neon Quik Lend and Payday Advance signs and pawn shops the size of department stores. Then there was a frankly scary place called ZLB Plasma, where if you’re really broke you can sell your own blood for $25 a pop. “Talk about being bled dry.”

For Ferguson, this was evidence of a whole sector of the economy “built on people who are broke” and a far cry from the heyday of Renaissance financiers the Medici family, who were not only fond of the odd painting, but were also very good at keeping track of their credits and debts. But if Memphis was another world from Florence’s domes and galleries, it was also radically different from the Glasgow of Ferguson’s youth, where getting into bed with loan sharks was both shameful and unpleasant. In 19th century Memphis, however, there were no debtors’ prisons as there were in Britain and thus no legacy of social stigma. Today it is all so easy, Ferguson observed: join the fast-track bankruptcy queues, get the right stamp on your form and you’re done.

American tolerance of failure isn’t always a bad thing, according to Ferguson. People like Mark Twain, Buster Keaton and even “the great industrialist” Henry Ford were allowed to try, fail and start over. But the repackaging and selling on of subprime debt by lenders into CDOs and other posh-sounding acronyms is of course what has threatened to topple the entire western banking system. This, according to Ferguson, is what happens when finance experts think they know better than the Medicis.

In what was a solid three hours of top money-tastic television last night, The Ascent of Money was swiftly followed by Kirstie Allsopp’s amusing crisis of conscience in Location Location Location, which now comes with the subtitle A Survival Guide. Kirstie and Phil could rival Bertie for defensive comments: “owning property was a British passion long before we popped up on your screens”; “we’ve always said you should buy for the long term”, and, my favourite, “it’s not all about the money”. In other words, don’t blame us for your negative equity.

Meanwhile, there was a slight dip in form for TV3’s solidly entertaining The Apprentice, whose producers surely could have come up with a more imaginative use of Garmin – “the satnav people” – than just seeing which team could sell the most devices. Bill Cullen was quite sure that it was the would-be Apprentices who were to blame for only managing to shift a handful. “Your performance was a disgrace,” he asserted to both teams before firing Sarah, one of the strongest and most likeable candidates.

I’m not sure that Cosimo, Kirstie or Phil could have done any better. Having coughed up a pretty sum to be plugged in the show, I’d be a bit worried about the public’s indifference if I was Garmin sales manager Clive Taylor. Maybe it’s because motorists have seen that episode of Doctor Who where evil satnavs take control of cars and drive people into lakes. Maybe it’s because that as a “Dad present”, they’re so 2007. Or maybe it’s just because the economy is so rubbish, no one is buying any cars.