For those who are interested in what’s going on with the economic meltdown but aren’t really into numbers, here’s a great resource to get yourself up to speed while being entertained as well.
Back in August 2008, Chicago Public Radio and National Public Radio started a small project called “Planet Money”, designed to focus on the US economy. In a fortuitous coincidence, a few weeks later various pieces of that economy started falling apart; in September 2008, the world economy reeled as: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt; Merrill Lynch (then the world’s largest investment brokerage company), Washington Mutual (then the US’ largest savings & loan bank), and Wachovia (then the US’ second largest investment brokerage company, second largest savings & loan, and one of the largest issuers of subprime mortgages) were sold in government-brokered deals to Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo (respectively) to avoid the same fate; the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; the Fed lent $85 billion to AIG to prevent a complete collapse of the global financial system; and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposed a $700 billion emergency bailout for the financial sector.
The Planet Money podcast & blog did a very good job during those early weeks of the crisis of trying to explain what was going on, but they were also scrambling to get their operation up and running while events on the ground were changing around them. Working with Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life, however, the Planet Money folks were able to take a little more time to craft longer narratives around the stories that they were telling, and the result was TAL’s wonderful coverage of the financial crisis, the first episode of which won a Peabody Award in 2008:
This handful of hour-long shows are truly amazing explanations for laypeople of what is happening with the economy, and highly recommended for anyone who isn’t interested enough in finance to keep up with ongoing Planet Money coverage. In particular, their first story, “The Giant Pool of Money”, is required listening for anyone looking to understand what underlies modern mortgage markets.
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