Do you understand the sub-prime mortgage crisis?

Would you like to?

Maybe you already heard last week's This American Life, but if you're not an addict like me, you might want to check out the free podcast for a clear and wonderful dissection of what has been going wrong with the economy for the last several years.

Then, bonus, head over to TCG's (free, downloadable) audio transcript of a recent teleconference with former Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin. Rubin breaks it down in elegant and excruciating detail, and makes some surprisingly deft observations on the cultural economy. The second half of the transcript is a Q&A with theatre-practitioners, and I am happy to report that we seem to hold our own with one of the brightest economic minds of his generation.

I've been trying to pull my head out of the sand and not freak so much about the economic bubble popping all around us... it's not quite working yet, but I guess I'll keep trying.