As an economics student every now and then my friends ask me, "Andy, what exactly is going on with this whole economic crisis?" I try my hardest to explain this to them, but this scenario usually happens after a couple of beers, at which point they're in no mood to listen to me talk about derivatives, mortgage-backed securities and hedge funds, and I'm not great at explaining them.
But I think it's very important that people my age try to at least comprehend what's going on in the world economy at the moment. I'm going to try and do a series of posts explaining the main causes and effects of the current economic crisis. If at any point you think I've made a mistake, or overlooked anything, or misunderstood something, please, let me know.
Firstly then, a few resources to help people get a grasp on the main issues. BBC has done a 3 part series recently called "The City Uncovered with Evan Davis". You can watch them online here:
Note: these links definitely work for UK readers - I'm not sure about people in the US or other countries. If you have any problems viewing them let me know and I'll try and find a solution.
Evan Davis is (or, was) the Economics Editor for the BBC, and he's an incredibly smart guy. Most people just know him as the guy who presents Dragons Den (and reminds people constantly that the participants need to get ALL the money they're asking for, or they leave with nothing, as if we didn't know that already - the show's been on for like 5 years now). But Evan is brilliant at explaining complex economic and financial issues in simple terms, as evidenced in these videos.That's 3 hours worth of viewing, and although it's long, it's well worth the investment of your time to try to understand better the causes of the breakdown in the financial markets.
More coming soon.