Planet Money Podcast from NPR

Back in May, NPR’s Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg from This American Life teamed up and produced an amazingly clear explanation of the subprime mortgage crisis called The Giant Pool of Money. The episode gives you a unique opportunity to hear some of the actual people all along the chain who bought and sold these worthless mortgages and inflated their value, eventually leading to the mortgage crisis. That episode turned out to be one of the most popular episodes of This American Life, and has led to a new NPR podcast in the same spirit called Planet Money. And we’re going to need it — anybody who, like me, doesn’t really understand why the market is doing what it’s doing will benefit from this podcast.