Would you like to know what “financial crisis” means?
I know I did.
If you have not listened to the This American Life Episode #365, I highly recommend it. It’s informative, impartial, and interesting. (iii reflects !!!)
My favorite part of the program was the 2nd piece on credit default swaps. 
Ira tells* us that “one way to think about this product is this: if bad mortgages got the economy sick, these next things you’re about to hear about spread the sickness into an epidemic. these are credit default swaps.”
And, 
Alex Blumberg says*, “Now normally when you think of physicists inventing scary things, atomic weapons come to mind. And credit default swaps have been called [by 
Warren Buffett]… financial weapons of mass destruction.”
*tells and says: what i heard & transcribed. but, have a listen for yourself!
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Impressed was I. Good this was. All of it I listened to. The man is Ira Glass.