Ok, sorry to belabor this. Earlier today, I mentioned that you could download the audiobook of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Priceat Audible for no cost. It turns out that the Audible offer isn’t available to a worldwide audience. It may just be available to US residents. The good news is that I pinged Chris Anderson on Twitter, and asked if there’s a universal version out there. And he kindly pointed me in the right direction. Here’s the deal: you can get a universally free version over on Wired’s website. The page is here, and the zip file is here. Hope that helps.
A quick update: Yesterday, I mentioned that you can grab on Google Books and Scribd a free e‑book of Chris Anderson’s latest work, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Today, I discovered that you can also download an audiobook version of Free over at Audible.com. It will cost you nothing. But you will need to register with Audible, providing name, email, username, etc. If you find that you live in a geographical market that Audible won’t serve, then you can download a universally free version at Wired.com’s web site. The page is here, and the zip file is here.
Separately, if you start a 14 day free trial with Audible, you can download two free audio books. This will give you access to many current bestsellers (Malcolm Gladwell, David Sedaris, Barack Obama, etc.). Whether you stick with the membership (as I did), or cancel, you can keep the free books. Get more details here.
It’s not often than a song gets written for an economics professor. It’s so bad that it’s actually good. Add that to the soundtrack for the Collapse.
Once the Fed’s toolbox proved unable to stop the cascading global financial meltdown, the US government turned to the one strategy that it had left. It dusted off the old economic playbook of John Maynard Keynes and began introducing massive stimulus plans and other forms of government intervention. Since our collective fate now depends on Keynesian theory holding water, it seems worth bringing you a primer on Keynes and his style of economic thinking. And that’s what you get with this segment from This American Life. The segment (get the full episode here and then move to the 38th minute) tells you a little about his complex personality. (As they put it, you could make two movies about him — one that features “Keynes the statesman, advising presidents and prime ministers, furiously writing up papers that changed the direction of modern intellectual thought. Another movie would pretty much be a gay porno …” He was sexually too “out there” for even the envelope-pushing Bloomsbury Group.) Through interviews with various economists, the program then overviews the central tenets of Keynesian economics, and discusses Keynes’ influence over later generations of economists. During the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Keynesianism was all the rage, then it declined and almost disappeared during the 70s. Now it’s back, perhaps stronger than ever. My completely intuitive guess is that Keynesianism will alleviate some of the financial strains — it will keep more people working, which is good — but it will also lengthen the recession, bring about new problems (inflation and new bubbles), and prevent us from seriously addressing the problems that got us into this mess. Keynesianism may be the humane and necessary way to go, but don’t expect perfection, or anything close. In the meantime, if you want more blogs and podcasts that track the financial crisis, then please see our handy list.
Last week, we created a handy list of blogs & podcasts that regularly cover the financial crisis. And so it seemed worth flagging the latest episode of This American Life. It’s called “Bad Bank” (MP3 — iTunes — Feed). It just came out this weekend. And it takes a close and entertaining look at what happens when a bank goes bad/insolvent. The show gets into the real nitty gritty of the crisis and, once you’ve listened, you’ll better understand better the pros and cons of solutions being tried out by the government.
There’s no doubt about it. We’re living in interesting times, as the Chinese curse goes, and they won’t be going away any time soon. Most of us can’t afford to ignore what’s happening here. So, below, I have highlighted a number of blogs and podcasts that help make intelligent sense of this economic debacle. Here they go…
Planet Money: NPR is doing a great job of covering the unwinding global economy. The Planet Money blog is a good read, and it includes an essential reading list. But the accompanying podcast is one that I follow regularly. It’s a must. And it’s generally entertaining. You can access it here: iTunes — Rss Feed — Web Site. (Note: the last episode is not the best example of what it’s usually about.)
EconoTalk: EconTalk was voted “Best Podcast” in the 2008 Weblog Awards. Hosted by Russ Roberts (out of George Mason University), the show “features one-on-one discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, professors, Nobel Laureates, entrepreneurs, leaders of charities and businesses, and people on the street.” You can access the show via the following channels: iTunes — RSS Feed — Web Site.
The Baseline Scenario: Dedicated to “explaining some of the key issues in the global economy and developing concrete policy proposals,” The Baseline Scenario is written, among others, by Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, who is now a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Although relatively young, the blog has received a fair amount of acclaim as the financial crisis has unfolded. You may want to particularly check out their collection of content called Financial Crisis for Beginners.
Realtime Economic Issues Watch: Here, senior fellows of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (a think tank based in Washington) “discuss and debate their responses to global economic and financial developments as they occur each day and offer insights that others might overlook.” You will find some of the folks from the Peterson Institute also appearing on the podcasts and blogs mentioned elsewhere on this list. Find the RSS feed here.
Paul Krugman: A Princeton University economist, a Nobel Prize Winner, a New York Times op-ed writer, Paul Krugman is blogging the global financial and economic crisis daily. It’s an opinion that you can’t afford to take lightly. You’ll also want to see his newly released book, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.
Economists’ Forum: Run by the Financial Times (UK), this blog brings together a large number of economists who offer a running commentary on the state of the fragile economy. The Wall Street Journal has its own real time blog here.
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: The PBS nightly news program almost always includes an informative segment dedicated to the financial news of the day. The coverage, which typically includes interviews with experts, is excellent. You can download the podcast here: iTunes — Feed — Web Site
The Becker-Posner Blog: While not updated as frequently as Krugman’s blog, The Becker-Posner blog is a great place to read the thoughts of two Nobel prize winning economists (Gary Decker and Richard Posner) discuss the current economic crisis. Thanks Bryce for the tip.
This American Life: One of NPR’s beloved programs has offered some excellent coverage of the financial crisis. It started with a show called The Giant Pool of Money (May 2008), and it has since included a program called Another Frightening Show about the Economy (November 2008). Now there is a new one called Bad Bank, which explains what’s really happening in the trainwrecks that are banks. These programs were put together partly by members of the Planet Money podcast mentioned above.
Are we missing something good? Please let us know in the comments below…
Jared Diamond became a household name with his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs & Steel (2003). Later, the UCLA geographer climbed the charts again with Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). Now, based on this last book, he’s putting odds on whether the United States will survive this crisis, and he’s putting them only at 51–49. Not too great. And he goes on to say that our best chance of surviving is if America’s wealthy elite suffers far more than it already has. For more, listen here.
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Jared Diamond
