There are a couple news items about the economy that I found to be tremendously helpful. I’ve linked to them from one or another of my links posts, but it’s very much worth it to pull them out and highlight them, because knowledge is power, and more average people need a really good understanding of what’s going on than the lame drivel they’re getting from the news.
This American Life Podcast: Bad Banks
The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes. This is an AWESOME explanation of our current economic situation. If you’re at all like me and financial stuff is SO BORING that it gives you a headache, this podcast will do wonders for you. Everything laid out in layman’s terms so it’s clear what’s going on.
The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone
Matt Taibbi takes the explanations from This American Life quite a bit further, filling in the blanks and making the situation much clearer about how bad things really are. Which is bad. Really bad. As in “batten down the hatches and hold on for dear life” bad. Taibbi isn’t afraid to point the fingers and name the names. And to use the colorful language that is frankly required in this situation.
And now back to lighter things, because if I think about all that too long I’m going to curl up in a ball in the corner — Part of the lack of blogging is that we’ve been rather heads down on household projects over the last couple weekends.
What we’ve been working on:
a) Finishing painting in the staircase room:
b) And doing some reorganization in the library:
c) And also – not the least of our household projects – building new bookcases in the dining room for Stephanie’s library:
We have a couple more bookcases to put up, and we’re done, and ready to move on to some yard work and some other fun projects.
thank you for the link to “the big takeover”, that was excellent reading.
this american life also did another good episode called “the global pool of money” which explains the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the same way they explain the banking meltdown in “bad banks”. if you missed it, it’s worth digging around to try and find – it was back in the fall.
i have also found that listening to diane rehm podcasts on the economy are fairly enlightening and aimed at the average person, for the most part. when i have tedious things to do at work i like to listen to it.