Web shopping: On “Taking Stock”

Marketplace is an American Public Media production that caught my attention some months ago, due to the quality of the contents.

Now, courtesy of Felix Salmon, I found out that Marketplace has a special series, Taking Stock, where economists give their point of view on the current economic situation.

There are two interviews I enjoyed the most. One focuses on the Global Impact of the Crisis, in which Kai Ryssdal, a journalist, interviews Amartya Sen, Nobel prize in Economics. In the second one, Lessons from History, the well-known monetary historian Anna Scwhartz offers her views on the role of monetary and fiscal policy in avoiding the worst case scenario.

There are also interviews with Edmund Phelps on the American obsession with buying a house and also an unexpected piece on the economic crisis and religion, with Mark Bozzuti-Jones. Bozzuti-Jones is a reverend at Trinity Church on Wall Street. He surely is an expert on that topic, for he has to offer spiritual confort to a community facing the toughest of times ever since the crisis began.

Marketplace also has The Whiteboard, where senior editor Paddy Hirsch explains arcane concepts to a broad audience. It’s worth visiting it.