Over the last couple years, I’ve learned a good deal about economics and public policy. But like many people, I still had a tough time figuring out the current financial crisis. What caused it? How are all the pieces connected? How does it affect me?

The following three programs, each running about an hour and geared towards the layperson, greatly increased my understanding of what’s going on. I hope they’ll help you too…

Back in May, the public radio show This American Life did a special episode titled “The Giant Pool of Money,” about the root causes of the subprime mortgage crisis. Since their usual audience is not largely composed of people with a financial background, the producers made a special effort to present the topic in an easily digestible format that the layperson can follow. You can download or listen to it here, or subscribe to the free podcast on iTunes.

This American Life won praise and awards for that episode. It was even featured in a New York Times article. They followed up their success with “Another Frightening Show About the Economy” on October 3rd. It goes deeper into how the crisis spread outside the subprime market.

Just a couple days before that, billionaire investor Warren Buffet sat down for a fascinating interview with Charlie Rose.

If you want a crash course in the financial crisis, bailouts, regulation and the wider economic consequences, dedicating three hours to the above will definitely get you somewhere.

When the idea of the financial rescue package was proposed two weeks ago, the case was made that Congress needed to act swiftly and decisively.

Why did the Whitehouse and the Treasury Secretary want to push the bill through Congress so fast? Was it because they wanted to avoid oversight, or because the nation was headed for financial doom if a bailout wasn’t passed immediately, or because we couldn’t afford to get bogged down in a partisan fight? Maybe. But there’s another theory that’s been bouncing around in my head lately…

Perhaps they tried to ram the bill through Congress so quickly to prevent it from getting loaded down with wasteful spending. Every bill that makes its way to the floor of the House or Senate is seen as a golden opportunity for the lobbyists who finance Congressional campaigns to add funding for their pet projects. That is, they want us, the taxpayers, to give them our money to help their businesses, even if we won’t directly benefit.

A big spending bill coming up for a vote is like a huge apple pie cooling in the window. Everyone who passes wants to load it up with ice cream and dig in. So perhaps the administration’s haste (giving them the benefit of the doubt) was an attempt to avoid burdening the bill with those additions. If so, it didn’t work.

Look at what eventually happened. The public revolted and the lawmakers used that as justification to vote down the $700 billion bill and delay until a revised version could be written. What did we end up with for all that posturing? The Congress passed a bigger bill… this one with not only the same $700 billion going to Wall Street, but also a $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners, $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry, a $33 million tax break to specific corporations on income earned in American Samoa, $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers, a $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill, a $478 million tax break for film and TV companies, and my personal favorite, a $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children.

Just give the special interests enough time and opportunity, and sure enough, they’ll take your tax dollars if they can. It only costs them a relatively small amount in bribes… err, campaign contributions… to get our so-called representatives to divert our tax money to their coffers during one of the most difficult economic times the country has ever faced. Despicable.

A big part of our nation’s problems can be traced to our tremendous demand for energy and reliance on foreign oil. Imagine if we had a President who spoke directly and frankly to the American people in a serious attempt to address our energy problem, the threat it poses to our freedom, and the Washington partisanship which stands in the way of a meaningful resolution. Excerpts from such a speech might sound something like this:

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Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?… I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America… men and women like you.

I have a notebook full of comments and advice. I’ll read just a few.

“We can’t go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment.”

“We’ve got to use what we have. The Middle East has only five percent of the world’s energy, but the United States has 24 percent.”

And this is one of the most vivid statements: “Our neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife.”

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Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation’s life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our government has never been so wide…

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends.

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In little more than two decades we’ve gone from a position of energy independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people… This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation.

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I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States… From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed…

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To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

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We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

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I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

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Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.

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We have the world’s highest level of technology. We have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly believe that we have the national will to win this war.”

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The above are excerpts from a much-derided address delivered by President Jimmy Carter on July 15, 1979. Nearly 30 years later, we’re still neck-deep in the same problems. The full text of the speech is here.