How money makes the world go round
Understand the economy with the help of financial experts
Everyone – well, pretty much everyone – is painfully aware of the state of the economy at present. We’ve all seen prices increase and hear daily reports on the cost of living crisis. But – assuming we really want to know the truth – what’s the cause of it all?
It’s hard to get an unbiased take on the reasons for our current financial woes, with the government making excuses or claiming everything is going to be fine in the long run, and opposition politicians, as expected, attempting to cash in (so to speak) while claiming they could do a better job.
But for an objective and unbiased explanation of exactly what is going on, a
BBC-based podcast, Understand: The Economy, is here to help. Its aim is to cut through the jargon to bring clarity and ensure that we can finally understand all those complicated terms and phrases we all hear on the news. Inflation, GDP, interest rates, and bonds, all explained in layman’s terms. Like it or not, money does make the world go round, so hopefully the series – currently at 15 episodes and counting – will help us understand what’s going on in the world today, framed around the questions everyone really wants to have answered – why our shopping is getting more expensive or why our pay doesn’t cover our bills. As the series’ producers say: “If your eyes usually glaze over when someone says ‘cutting taxes stimulates growth’, fear no more, we’ve got you covered.”
It’s hosted by Tim Hardford – an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of “The Next Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy”, “Messy”, and the million-selling “The Undercover Economist”, and was made an OBE for services to improving economic understanding in the New Year honours of 2019. So he should be the man to go to for an explanation in layman’s terms.
However, he also has a few friends to call upon for advice on more specialised areas of finance. Dr Gemma Tetlow explains the National Debt, Professor Diane Coyle explains the processes and wider economic impact of bankruptcy, and economic historian Victoria Bateman crops up multiple times with a historical take on things, giving us a brief history of the National Grid and explaining why having a boat load of silver coins isn’t always a good thing. The series isn’t going to fix the problems with the economy, but perhaps with everyone better educated, we may be better informed next time we come to choose who’s in charge of it.
www.bbc.co.uk/ sounds/brand/ m001dwr7.