From Robin we have the following:
Hey, want to actually feel like you understand why the financial system is falling apart? Want to understand the commercial paper market and credit debt swaps?
You gotta listen to this week’s This American Life. It’s a free download at iTunes or you can download or http://www.thisamericanlife.org”>stream it at their website.
The show is called Another Frightening Show About the Economy. The “Another” in the title is a reference to their show from a few months ago called The Global Pool of Money, which actually explains the subprime mortgage market and mortgage backed securities. If you haven’t heard that and you are still scratching your head about those things, then you should listen to that as well.
I’m not kidding, this show is amazing. And frightening.
Also, the folks who have been producing these financial stories for TAL have started a daily podcast called Planet Money, which I haven’t been listening to. That’s likely to be very helpful, but this TAL episode is the place to start