The Giant Pool of Money

I was reading the Manteca Bulletin this morning and there was a letter to the editor that talked about which political party was responsible for the "economic meltdown" and the "mortgage crisis." It reminded me of an entertaining and informative radio program I listened to earlier this year on NPR's "This American Life" called "The Giant Pool of Money" (produced by Chicago Public Radio, originally aired May 9, 2008, #355).

This program is a fascinating report on how the global economy was driving mortgage lending in the US and how "the global pool of money" that exists drives the world's economies. It illustrates how intertwined our money is with the rest of the world's. It also illustrates how greed and basic incompetence in interpreting financial data on the probability of foreclosures fueled the housing market collapse.

You can access the program for listening or read the transcript (I recommend listening) at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242