I love This American Life – it is one of my favorite NPR shows. I download the podcasts every week, so on my way to the grocery store this afternoon I listened to the latest episode, The Giant Pool of Money:
A special program about the housing crisis. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.
Ira and NPR’s money section do an excellent job of explaining the sub-prime mortgage crisis and how this huge mess comes back to “the Giant Pool of Money.”
If you are interested in learning more about monetary policy and our crazy capitalist system, watch Money as Debt.
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I will definitely check this out… I was laughing my head off today when I heard The Governator is going to borrow money from Wall Street and put up the lottery as collaterol … am I missing something or does this sound like me borrowing money from the bank and using my lottery tickets to secure the loan?????
Yeah the Governator is not the smartest cookie in the box. Borrowing money to pay off a debt is not the solution. The only way out of the budget nightmare is to raise taxes.
People don’t like that alternative, but at the same time they still want decent public services (for instance fully staffed public schools, health care for the poor, etc.). I wonder how Speaker Bass is going to deal with the crisis.