Understanding the Big Shitpile

If you're like me, and you probably aren't, you're probably still dumbfounded by all the alphabet soup financial arcana that's feeding the ongoing credit collapse. Luckily there are some beginnner's resources out there to help us out. Firstly, these two episodes of This American Life--#355 and #365--are an invaluable resource, although I may have to listen to both of them again before I can truly regale dinner parties with an explanation of credit default swap as the TAL blog advises.

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Alternet has re-published an article by Arun Gupta from the NYC Indypendent, complete with colorful illustrations.

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Richard D. Wolff, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, makes a pitch for a socialist alternative in the broader context of the past 40 years of American economic life.