In January 2010, reporters from Planet Money bought a toxic asset—you know, the things that blew up wall street banks, sank the economy and brought the global financial system to a halt—one of those. And "Toxie" turned out to be an encyclopedia of the financial crisis.
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Toxie’s Dead
Here's an interactive timeline tracking Toxie's value. Planet Money is a collaboration between This American Life and NPR News.
Prologue
Host Ira Glass explains how the Planet Money team spent a thousand dollars of their own money to buy a toxic asset, and introduces Planet Money reporters David Kestenbaum and Chana Joffe-Walt. Their stories about "Toxie" have appeared on the Planet Money podcast and daily public radio news shows, and are collected here for the first time, into one epic, Dickensian tale. (3 1/2 minutes)