All I Really Need to Know I Learned From NPR

I've been thinking an awful lot about the economy lately, and I thought I'd share my two main sources of economic knowledge.

The first is, surprisingly enough, the public radio show, This American Life. Back in May they did an absolutely remarkable show about how the housing market exploded entitled "The Giant Pool of Money." In one hour, they break down how the entire mortgage crisis came to pass in clear, straightforward language. In the decades to come, I'll be asking my children to listen to this same episode if they really want to understand what happened during this critical moment in history.

Everyone who cares even one bit about what happened and why should listen to it here.

This American Life did a follow-up episode in October entitled "Another Frightening Show About the Economy" that dissects credit default swaps. The following episode, "A Better Mousetrap 2008," features a very salient discussion about how Republicans blaming Democrats and Democrats blaming Republicans is horribly silly, as it took everyone at the party to make this mess.

After getting rave reviews about their analysis, NPR started the Planet Money podcast. This is not a typical radio show about the economy. They don't give advice, they don't tell you what to buy or sell, they just report what's happening in the world of finance in simple language that anyone with a junior high education can understand. I highly reccommend the episodes during the last week of November that attempt to answer the question "What is Money?"

If getting horrible news about the world's financial health on your iPod isn't your thing, you can probably skip Planet Money, but the This American Life episodes should be required listening for every citizen in the nation.