BBC and NPR ' s Marketplace Now Officially Part of the Problem

Courtesy of Jaime Falcon.

Another whitewash of the causes of the crisis. I give this show a 3 out of 10. It is so disappointing to have NPR and BBC do such pathetic work.

If the BBC and NPR were were serious about getting to the core of the issue, they would have Bill Black on the panel. Period.

The Panel: John Taft, Eliot Spitzer, Bethany MacLean, Ed Conard. Hosted By Kai Ryssdal and Justin Rowlatt.

Bethany MacLean is an apologist for the financial sector. It does not help that she came from Goldman Sachs .

John Taft: "The financial sector should be about stewardship." But Barack Obama already told us that the age of irresponsibility is behind us.

Ed Conard surprisingly comes the closest to calling out the fraud. At least he accepts that sophisticated investors knew what they were getting into.

If any of these people was an uncompromised analyst, they would be asking why banks did away with underwriting. Why would banks be giving out liars' loans (the banks' own terminology)? There is no honest reason to do away with underwriting standards. Without answering that question, you cannot answer why we ended up in a giant credit bubble and a subsequent collapse. If you want an answer to that question, read this.

If you want to waste an hour of your life learning very little about what caused our crisis, and nothing about what we can realistically do to make appropriate reforms, listen to this:

 

By the way, here is an appropriate panel for addressing this kind of issue: Bill Black, Barry Ritholtz, Chris Whalen, and Joseph Stiglitz. And there are many others.