The Giant Pool of Money

I'll admit, the sub-prime mortgage disaster was largely a mystery to me -- I understood in vague, abstract terms that a lot of bad loans had been floated to people who couldn't afford to pay them back, and that eventually the whole system collapsed. What wasn't clear to me was exactly why this had happened, or what inspired the lenders to such madness.

Fortunately a recent episode of This American Life (one of, if not the best radio show currently on the air) took a comprehensive look at the whole mess, delving not only into the lives of those losing their homes and the fortunes of those at the top who represent the tip of the iceberg, but at every link in the chain in between. It's a fascinating and depressing story of mass collusion -- hundreds if not thousands of people looking the other way as they aid in certain financial disaster.

I'm no financial wizard but I'm a heck of a lot better informed now than I was before. If you have those same feelings of vague uncertainty about the whole sub-prime mortgage mess as I did, you should give it a listen. You'll probably end up feeling bad, like I do, about Ira Glass' laryngitis, but it's worth suffering through briefly to get to the story.

Listen to "The Giant Pool of Money" at the This American Life web site.