Bad Bank

If you haven't listened to This American Life's coverage of the banking meltdown appropriately called Bad Bank, run, don't walk to your nearest iTunes or Web browser and give it a listen. In less than an hour, you'll understand how we got into this situation and what the main possible treatments are -- and why the government has yet to decisively chose one over the over.

Like that? I thought you would.

If you liked that show, listen to This American Life's two other great episodes about the financial crisis:

• A Giant Pool of Money
• Another Frightening Show About the Economy

If you liked all three of those, subscribe to NPR's Planet Money audio podcast. And if you just can't get enough of this stuff and want more advanced reading, try the Baseline Scenario blog.

I firmly believe that financial literacy -- or illiteracy, as the case may be -- has a role to play in this all-too-frightening debacle.

A teaser: here is a graph mentioned in Bad Bank. In this century, there have been only two years when US personal household debt has exceed the GDP. Yup, you guessed it: 1929 and 2007.