The Government Buys the Dollhouse

A quick primer, from NPR's Planet Money podcast, that gives a basic rundown on how banks operate, why the banks are in trouble, and how the bailout plans that have been floated so far would work to correct things, along with some of the risks and benefits. I think that it does a pretty good job of explaining things for laypeople, but as a layman myself, they could have assumed a spherical cow, and I wouldn't know any better.