Our Recession #1 - Jackie

Introduction

Welcome to The Bankster Podcast; I’m your host, Alexander Bagehot. It has been nearly 10 years since the Great Recession officially began, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Discussions about the Great Recession frequently include large, abstract numbers. The stock market fell 60% over 2 years, the S&P 500 losing nearly 1000 points from July 2007 to April 2009. New home construction fell from an annual rate of over 2.2 Million to less than 500,000 from January 2006 to April 2009. The numbers sound incredible; they are incredible.

The Great Recession also sparks discussions about government policy, taxpayer funded bailouts, and Federal Reserve interventions. You hear stories from major auto companies, from politicians, and from bankers and business owners. Ben Bernanke called it, “the worst financial crisis in global history.”

But you don’t hear enough from the actual people that lived through the Great Recession. In 2012 The Guardian did an experiment asking people to write in. But what they got was underwhelming, mostly short, online comment like posts attached to a map of the world. Not very good quality. No editing or filtering.

In 2013 the Wall Street Journal did something similar, except they asked for video submissions (August 2013, Instagram) on social media - I couldn’t find any real responses.

The thing is, the Great Recession was real. I felt it. You felt. And although I love data, I studied economics partly because of the numbers. But the reason I chose economics over physics or engineering is because I love the people behind the numbers in economics.

The true inspiration for this segment of the podcast came during the introduction video to a Coursera class that I’m taking called The Global Financial Crisis from Yale. Here’s Professor Andrew Metrick, “We’re still not far from the time when the financial crisis happened. And if you’re not too young, it isn’t hard to go around and talk to your friends and talk to your family and hear how it affected them. But it’s remarkable how many people it had an effect on and how many lives it changed...If you talk to lots of people you'll hear many different stories of how the financial crisis affected them and how they learned to think about it.”

So that’s where the Our Recession interview segment idea came from. And although I wish that listening to hundreds of interview podcasts automatically made me a good interviewer, it doesn’t. I have lots of room for improvement. But I hope you’re able to enjoy the real life experiences of today’s guest. The voices behind the numbers. The Great Recession affected all of us, here’s Jackie’s story.

Interview

Conclusion

Today’s episode was written, edited, and produced by me, Alexander Bagehot. Reach out with your feedback, comments, and questions on twitter or via my website www.thebanksterpodcast.com. Leave a rating and share the podcast with your coworkers, friends, and family. Thanks to all of you for listening. I’ll see you next time on The Bankster Podcast!