Response to Adam Davidson's Reporting on The Financial Crisis

The one quote I heard during this broadcast which struck me the most were the words of President Obama, “there are times when you can focus on redecorating your house and there are times when you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation and today is a day when we need to focus on rebuilding foundation”. This was very striking to me because many individuals were disconnected from the crisis in the beginning and are only now feeling the repercussions. It was evident that in the first few months of the development of the idea that without a bailout we may not have an economy, people were going about their daily lives in a way that downplayed the crisis ahead. All of a sudden, people started losing their homes and were defaulting on their credit loans. It was these repercussions that made individuals realize that there was a massive power present that they did not have control over.

What I liked about Adam Davidson's reporting was the way he explained terminology such as ‘leverage’ and ‘knitting’ when it came to hedge funds. He realized that listeners do not always understand the scenario in the same way as finance analysts do. He also, in very simple way, explained how banks work, what was wrong with them, and ways to fix them. He really targeted the cognitive understanding of the listener.

The big question seemed to be “What is better for the country”? Many believed that the billion dollar bailout would not help the future generation, but instead would relay the problem of debt onto future taxpayers. Many people believe there are other issues to deal with and that the government bailout in not a positive thing. This mentality quickly changed when individuals started becoming more nervous as the crisis began manifesting itself into a more serious reality. Doing something was better than doing nothing. One question I would pose Davidson in this instance is: Why are individuals opinions so easily and quickly swayed in these situations? Is it due to their personal interests at stake?

What could the government have done to prevent this recession? People pointed fingers to better regulation of credit default swaps. But what really went wrong? The main point to take away from broadcasts like this is that the crisis is, indeed, severe and something needs to be done…sooner rather than later.