Adam Davidson's Clips

A column about banking regulation and the surprising stability of some of the sketchier corners of finance.

My Second column looks at the sad, grim truth about taxes.

Ira with Planet Money economics correspondent Adam Davidson on why—even after everything President Obama has done to save Wall Street, actions which have led to record profits and bonuses—Wall Street seems ungrateful. Adam and producer Jane Feltes head out to a Wall Street bar where they’re told by three finance guys that there’s no reason to thank the President for saving their jobs. (16 minutes)

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Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg from our Planet Money team report on economic forecasts for 2010 and what they can and cannot accurately predict. (17 minutes)

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In which we mark the anniversary of the economic collapse and the anniversary of Planet Money: Recapping some of the original episode,The Giant Pool of Money, and finding out what’s happened to all those guys in the year since.

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Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson tackle a very tough subject: Trying to explain exactly what a bank is and does. They talk to a number of experts about what has gone wrong in banking, but not before bringing us all up to speed on some banking basics, like understanding a bank balance sheet, and a bank’s assets and liabilities, and the squishy business of what banks say about their balance sheets compared to what they are.

Alex and Adam walk us step by step through the complications of the US government buying up bad assets from banks, and explain why, when it comes to footing the bill, the government might just prefer to not be in charge of the very banks it is having taxpayers bailout. From a dollhouse, to a hypothetical bank worth tens of dollars, to the trillions of dollars being spent to keep banks afloat, Alex and Adam talk economy, and where we might be headed. (40 minutes)

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Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson, on how a dead, slutty, elitist British man, John Maynard Keynes, is about to take over the American economy. President Obama’s new stimulus plan relies on Keynes’; theory, which says that government can spend its way out of a downward economic spiral. Alex and Adam explain why this might actually be the first ever test of this very old idea. (20 minutes)

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To deal with the financial crisis, our own government has also had to reinvent itself, with questionable consequences. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and NPR’s financial reporter Adam Davidson talk to Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations who used to work at the U.S. Treasury. Together they explain what happens when the government reinvents itself as a bank—and not necessarily a successful bank. (6 minutes)

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Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson recount the 36-hour period, two weeks ago, when the credit markets froze. Plus, what it’s like now for businesses to get short-term loans, and how the hardship is spreading to every sector of the economy. (16 minutes)

And

Ira and Adam answer the question: Was the $700 billion bailout bill signed into law today a good idea or a bad one? (10 minutes)

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