As the American stimulus plan progresses whilst we encourage the former bank chiefs to self flagellate in public[1. Anyone else find it amusing that they were apologising in the Thatcher Room? There’s one woman who will surely never apologise for helping us down the road to where we are now.], I figured I might as well point you all to a few American media pieces I’ve read or heard in the past year that have really helped me make sense of what’s going on.

By far the most accessible and most important are two programmes from This American Life, a weekly radio show made by PRI which has an outstanding ability to delve into topics in depth in a way that often puts some British radio to shame.

First up we have The Giant Pool Of Money, which has tracks down some interesting voices caught in the middle of the crisis as it was by May of last year, and is particularly good at explaining the issues with how much money was flying around:

This was then followed up by Another Frightening Show About The Economy which was a particularly fascinating show as it came just after the last bailout bill and explained a lot about what was happening in the Credit Default Swap market:

These two particular episodes helped give birth to a fantastic little show called Planet Money which has a great podcast. Incidentally, another great episode of This American Life available on the PRI website is Ground Game which dissected the efforts of the Obama and McCain campaigns in Pennsylvania. In essence what I’m also saying is make a space in your podcast feeds for This American Life, it’s good, and if you really like it, donate, as unlike the UK, American public radio depends on sponsors.

However, I’m not all about the radio shows. The New York Times has had a series of rather lengthy and worthwhile stories. My particular favourites include an article explaining Value At Risk, a risk modelling technique that underpinned a lot of the growth in leverage:

Also, there was another great article in the New York Times at the end of last year on Washington Mutual, a lender that got in far too deep in the mortgage market thanks to being the bank that liked to say yes.

The road from here is naturally complex. I’m no Brown fan, but I’m even less of a fan of Cameron, and I think if all we have left to place in capitalism is faith (wither poor hope and charity) then we might as well pack up the economy and go home to the caves.

Lastly, a touch more audio courtesy of Hugh McGuire’s handy pointer on twitter, Robert Reich, one of Obama’s advisors on his expectations for the economy of 2009, a fascinating and wide ranging talk, courtesy of the Commonwealth Club. The point I took most from it is that there is still plenty of demand in the economy but the issue is wealth distribution and that we must be willing to finally confront redistribution of wealth to get the economy fixed. [2. Though as it’s so long since I listened to it there’s always the risk that that is not in fact what he said…]