Who killed the economy?

Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson

Ira Glass

Michele Norris

The Giant Pool of Money

Ira Glass with Michele Norris asks what does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? This American Life's Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson jointly report on how rising defaults on subprime mortgages in the U.S. became a global financial crisis. Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? This is about 60 minutes.
Source: Global Pool of Money Got Too Hungry from May 9, 2008

Nassim Taleb explains why we should expect "unexpected" economic events

Nassim Taleb, the former Wall Street trader who published a book called The Black Swan back in 2007 speaks out on the economic crisis. Nassim Taleb was born in Lebanon, and lives mostly in New York. The book argues that most economic models fail because they don't take into account rare, high-impact events that wind up driving history. (Taleb calls these events Black Swans.) The argument came out looking pretty good after the 2008 financial crisis. The short version: Get rid of debt. This is about 20 minutes.
Source: From Planet Money, Deep Read: Nassim Taleb (The Black Swan Guy) from August 18, 2010

Music includes Money for Nothing, Bad Moon Rising, Baker Street, Earth Anthem, Ob La Di, We'll Meet Again, We are the Champions, This Land Is Your Land

Download the Entire Program 97.6 MB

Play Program: 4 segments totaling 106.7 minutes


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