Say your spouse asks you "Remind me what securitization is?" or your daughter want to know "Why does Ron Paul spend so much time babbling about the gold clause?" What should you do? If your spouse is an economist then you can always say "Ask your mom" but then the first scenario I pose wouldn't have been very probable either. Although I can do a fair job on each topic and most related ones, I have to recommend NPR Planet Money which is a blog, a postcast, and much more. Its funny, insightful, and a great twenty minutes on the ipod while commuting or running (yes, I'm that big of a nerd). The most recent episode happened to be the first of a two-parter on the proponents and opponents (almost all living economists) of returning to a national or global gold standard. Their much earlier episode on the role of derivatives in the financial meltdown was superb and is called something like "The Giant Floating Pool of Money" and was expanded into a full episode of This American Life.
The only problem was that today's episode wasn't nearly long enough for my morning run. It was 52 outside and I was finally back in shorts. The other problem was that the running path was mostly mud so I hit the streets for a hour long tour of the north west side. After Planet Money, I switched to Tubular Bells Part I (better known as the theme from The Exorcist), some metal, and then back to some other NPR podcasts. (see earlier parenthetical on nerdiness). A most excellent morning.
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