This American Life

Two episodes of This American Life contain some insightful commentry on the crisis.

Another Frightening Show about the Economy is, as its name suggests, devoted entirely to the topic.  It’s four acts discuss the events of 18th September when the commercial paper market froze, explain credit default swaps, go into the history of how these swaps came to be unregulated, and discuss whether the $700 billion bailout plan was a good idea or not.

In A Better Mousetrap, Act 2. Financial Mousetrap (21:50) debunks the Republican Dogma that “it’s all the Democrats fault”., while Act 4. The Not-for-Profit Motive (48:50) argues that, in its response to the crisis, the US Government is acting less like a government and more like a bank, and a badly run one at that.