I'm no economist, but I do enjoy learning a bit more about our current economic situation than the basic "We're doomed." There have been two excellent stories produced by NPR's "This American Life" that went into understandable detail -- provided you have an hour to listen to either of them. They did one in May of 2008 (The Giant Pool of Money) outlining more than I really ever wanted to know, yet found very fascinating.
They did another one a few weeks ago called "Bad Bank" that simply told the story of why banks are in such a bind. I actually wish they'd have done this one first because I think it's a good lead in to the one they did last year.
If you have an hour where you're actually able to listen -- not just hear -- to these, I personally found them very informative, not political at all, and fascinating. You can listen to the MP3 or download the PDF transcript of either show.
One tidbit of info from the most recent podcast: America as a society hasn't seen a debt-to-GDP ratio like we have now since 1929. We as a people are $13 trillion in debt, which is also what one of the economists claims our national GDP to be. Since 2000, our debt-to-GDP ratio has increased from ~60% to 100%. As a society, we've all been living way to high on the hog. Sounds like the old "live within your means" counsel we've heard for years was indeed prophetic.
5 comments:
How could our debt-to-GDP ratio have been -60% in 2000? Wouldn't that mean our country had 60% of the GDP in some sort of savings? I was under the impression our country has been in debt forever--in fact, I remember being in junior high/high school and talking about the $7T debt then...looking around on-line, it also looks like our debt to gdp ratio was about 120% during WWII. I'm generally not a real fan of NPR, but on your recommendation, I'll see if I can find the time to listen (I'll actually probably read them...).
Mike
P.S. Adrianne, a little closer to the screen than I am, just pointed out that your "-" is actually a "~" which makes a lot more sense...
Yes, it is a tilda, not a minus sign. That would make a big difference.
There certainly are some NPR shows that are slanted and biased toward the "Savior Obama" side, but these financial ones seem to be fairly apolitical.
My tidbit came from David Beim, a professor at the Columbia Business School. His numbers can be found on page 18 of the transcript for "Bad Bank." He doesn't mention the spike during WWII, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, either. -Jess
I saw a segment on Glen Beck yesterday about the amount of money printing taking place over our nations history. You would be astounded at what is happening right now. I cannot relate with my prealshimers brain, the precise details, but they may be available on glenbeck.com.
Dad Clark
PS: I wish there was a spellchecker on these comment pages. I am not a good speller.
I read both of the transcripts. I agree that they were pretty neutral politically--though, a few things seemed a little slanted and I wonder if they left out some "political stuff" that was relevant in order to try to stay as neutral as possible.
I liked both, and I think they did a good job of dumbing the situation(s) down for people like me. Their presentation just reinforces my opinion that there isn't a good solution to the current situation just bad and worse solutions.
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