The Housing Crisis And My First Podcast Recommendation

Posted By Paul

I've recommended quite a few articles but this is my first podcast recommendation.

There is this show I really like on National Public Radio called "This American Life". Each week is a different topic and there is usually 3 or 4 stories relating to the topic.

Last week the episode was called "The Giant Pool of Money" and it's all about the housing crisis. They do a great job of explaining the events that led up to the current housing crisis. They do it in really personal and understandable terms so you don't have to be an economist to follow it. One of my favorite parts of the show is that they first play an excerpt from one of Alan Greenspan's speeches and then summarize Greenspan's statement as:

"Central banker, speak for 'Hey Global pool of money, screw you!'"

It goes on to talk about mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and essentially how all of this came together to create what is being referred to as the housing crisis.

I admit that I'm only half way through it (I listen to it a piece at a time during my morning commute), but so far it's really interesting, and I wanted to let people know about it because I think for the first week or so you can download the entire mp3 for free.

I think it's really worth listening to, here is the link to the episode:

The Giant Pool Of Money