Silly Little Country

The Giant Pool of Money

I was lucky enough last year about this time to have decided to drive to a business meeting in New Hampshire, and be cruising through New England. Once CBC Radio was no longer available on the radio, I switched over to the local NPR stations(s) (those stations seem to have fairly small ranges), and wound up listening to this great episode of This American Life, which latercaused me to go listen online to its predecessor, "The Giant Pool of Money".
Roughly on its anniversary, we now have an assessment of the situation one year later.
The assessment is very interesting and it may cause me to go listen again to all three (this is a bit daunting, as each is about an hour long, but thoroughly entertaining)
Personally I think there is a bit too much emphasis on the role of the global glut of savings, and too little on a number of government policies, particularly the emphasis on increasing the homeownership rate, especially among minorities (not really mentioned at all), and how this was driven by many in Congress with apparent ties to Countrywide (one of the popular promoters of high-risk loans). I suppose this is natural on NPR, as is the little moral story at the end about life changes. I'm skeptical, but not disbelieving.
Well worth listening at least to the current episode!

posted by Alan Adamson @ 9:06 AM