ProPublica

The most comprehensive, comprehensible, and up-to-date resource about where bail-out money is going, to whom, and for what purpose is the ProPublica site — tagline: journalism in the public interest.

In their own words, here is what you can find on their site:

• complete list of where the money’s going, from AIG to the smallest community bank
• map that charts all the bailed-out companies
• timeline of major bailout events
• running total of how much of the TARP bailout money has been committed
• graphical breakdowns and plain language descriptions of the Treasury Department’s bailout programs without confusing government acronyms
• list of the banks that have returned the bailout money
• snapshot of how mortgage servicers are performing in the foreclosure prevention program

ProPublica also tracks Stimulus program dollars in useful ways ranging from how quickly agencies are spending money, to stimulus projects near you, down to the per capita sending in your county — plus a lot more.

ProPublica is an independent newsroom, dedicated to investigative journalism, led by Paul Steiger, the former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Stephen Engelberg, a former managing editor of The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon and former investigative editor of The New York Times, is ProPublica’s managing editor.

Subsidyscope

Launched in January 2009, by the Pew Charitable Trusts in conjunction with the Sunlight Foundation, Subsidyscope‘s exists to make government subsidies transparent to the rest of us. They started with the financial sector, featuring subsidy maps (my favorite here), blog posts, downloadable data sets, key public documents, and more.

Read More…

One silver-lining of the current economic crisis is the increased level of interest in teaching and learning about the economy.  There is now some great stuff out there.  Here are some of Dr. Pop’s favorites:

This American Life, in my book, has repositioned radio as the great American story-telling medium, getting up close and personal to find the universal in real life.  Here are three really good shows about the meltdown, produced in collaboration with NPR:

Giant Pool of Money :  A special program about the housing crisis. What it has to do with the turmoil on Wall Street. Why banks made half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income.  And why is everyone is talking so much about the 1930s. It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

Bad Bank: The collapse of the banking system explained.  What does “insolvent bank” actually mean and why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses?

Another Frightening Show About the Economy: The same team explain what the regulators could have done to prevent this financial crisis from happening in the first place.

Planet Money:  Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson, the two guys from NPR who created the This American Life episodes went on to produce the Planet Money podcast and blog that continues to explain the crisis as it pertains to daily breaking news.  Blumberg and Davidson even did a live road show to strong audiences.  About the economy!

Marketplace Whiteboard: From American Public Media’s signature business show, Marketplace, Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explains complex financial terms while drawing cartoons on a whiteboard.  The results are edifying, entertaining, and charming — good for people who want a deeper understanding of terms like toxic assets or capital structure, to name a few.  I liked the whiteboard of the credit crisis as an Antarctic expedition.

Read More…

While focusing on the current economic meltdown, I came across this flier that I made about 20 years ago.  Gone but not forgotten, is our last financial crisis — the big (at least for the 80s) S & L bailout.  The flier was never used as was intended, to mobilize a demonstration against banking crimes against the community. However, it was actually distributed far and wide — published in a magazine, distributed at the highest management meeting at Bank of America, and was partially responsible for launching negotiations of a very successful community reinvestment agreement in L.A. between Communities for Accountable Reinvestment and Security Pacific, both of which are now defunct.  Pretty good for a flier that actually used scissors and glue for cutting and pasting.

So, here is that story…. Read More…