Description
Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.
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Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney
Episodes
- 2024 / 11 / 9What markets bet President Trump will doOn the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were...
- 2024 / 11 / 6Moving to the American dream? (update)Back in the 90s, the federal government ran a bold experiment, giving people vouchers to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods into low-poverty ones. They wanted to test if housing policy could be hope –...
- 2024 / 11 / 1The veteran loan calamityRay and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because of Ray's service in the Army. During COVID, the Queens – like millions...
- 2024 / 10 / 31So your data was stolen in a data breachIf you... exist in the world, it's likely that you have gotten a letter or email at some point informing you that your data was stolen. This happened recently to potentially hundreds of millions of people in...
- 2024 / 10 / 25Why do hospitals keep running out of generic drugs?There's something strange going on in hospitals. Cheap, common drugs that nurses use every day seem to be constantly hit by shortages. These are often generic drugs that don't seem super complicated to make,...
- 2024 / 10 / 23Romance on the screen and on the page: Two IndicatorsOn today's show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money's daily podcast. They just launched Love Week, a weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance.First, hosts Wailin...
- 2024 / 10 / 18The Subscription TrapOver the past two decades, there's been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched from selling goods one by one to selling services, available as a...
- 2024 / 10 / 16We asked 188 economists. And the survey says...(For our story on this year's Nobel in Economics, check out our daily show, The Indicator!)Let's face it. Economics is filled with terms that don't always make sense to the average person. Terms that...
- 2024 / 10 / 11So imPORTant: Bananas, frogs, and... Bob's??Even in our modern world with planes and jets and drones, the vast majority of goods are moved around the planet in cargo ships. Which means our ports are the backbone of our global economy. The...
- 2024 / 10 / 9Can cap and trade work in the US?Recently, the state of Washington embarked on an ambitious new plan to combat climate change. Taking a page from economics textbooks, the state instituted a statewide "cap and trade" system for carbon...
- 2024 / 10 / 4What's up with all the ads for law firms?The lawyer commercial is almost an art form unto itself. Learned practitioners of the law doing whatever it takes to get your attention, from impressive dirt bike stunts to running around half naked. All so...
- 2024 / 10 / 2How Venezuela imploded (update)(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.)Back in 2016, things were pretty bad in Venezuela. Grocery stores didn't have enough food. Hospitals didn't have basic supplies, like gauze. Child...
- 2024 / 9 / 27What's THAT got to do with economics?"Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy."That is the bold promise in Planet Money's tagline. And we believe the show does live up to it. Over the last year, we've told...
- 2024 / 9 / 25Veep-onomicsNext week, JD Vance and Tim Walz will face off in the only confirmed vice presidential debate ahead of the election. As voters look ahead to what their economic policies might be, we look back to see what...
- 2024 / 9 / 20How to save 10,000 fingersTable saws are extremely dangerous. The government estimates that injuries from table saws send something like 30,000 people to the emergency room every year. 3,000 of those end in amputations. The costs of...
- 2024 / 9 / 18Can money buy happiness?People often say that money can't buy you happiness. Sometimes, if you ask them to tell you more about it, they'll mention a famous 2010 study by Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton. That...
- 2024 / 9 / 1699 Percent Invisible: The White Castle System of Eating HousesToday we have a guest episode from 99 Percent Invisible.It is about White Castle, the burger chain. Even if you haven't visited, you have tasted its influence because, as we will learn in this episode, White...
- 2024 / 9 / 13Rate ExpectationsThe Federal Reserve raised interest rates to get inflation under control. One side effect is that taking out a mortgage to buy a home has gotten very expensive. That's especially a problem for some homeowners...
- 2024 / 9 / 11Is AI overrated or underrated?Are the promises made by AI boosters all hype, or are we actually under-appreciating the transformative potential of AI?Can artificial intelligence make humans more productive, unlock hidden potential and...
- 2024 / 9 / 6Summer camp capitalismSummer camp is a classic rite of passage in the U.S. It's a place of self-discovery, where kids come to make new friends and take on new challenges. But what if it were ALSO a place where children came to...
- 2024 / 9 / 4Bingo! (Presidential debate edition)Campaigns can be a jargony slog. And this year, we are seeing a lot of economic terms being thrown around, many of which... aren't entirely straightforward.In this episode, we try to make the mess of words...
- 2024 / 8 / 30How to fix a housing shortageWhen Cody Fischer decided to get into real estate development, he had a vision. He wanted to build affordable, energy efficient apartments in Minneapolis, not far from where he grew up.His vision was...
- 2024 / 8 / 28Summer School 8: Big ideas and life lessons from Marx, Keynes and Smith and moreTake the 2024 Planet Money Summer School Quiz here to earn your personalized diploma!Find all the episodes from this season of Summer School here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for...
- 2024 / 8 / 23The trade fraud detectiveWhen David Rashid took over US autoparts maker Plews and Edelmann, the company was losing business to its Chinese rival, Qingdao Sunsong. Both companies make power steering hoses, but Sunsong was offering its...
- 2024 / 8 / 21Summer School 7: The Great Depression, the New Deal and how it changed our economyFind all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. When we last left the United States of America in our economic telling of history,...
- 2024 / 8 / 16The hidden world behind your new "banking" appYou might have seen ads for online banking services that seem to offer a lot of great stuff — accounts you can open in minutes and without a minimum balance or monthly fees. The ads seem to say: "These aren't...
- 2024 / 8 / 14Summer School 6: China, Taiwan and how nations grow richEpisodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. In the middle of the twentieth century,...
- 2024 / 8 / 9Will the Olympics break breakdancing?For some sports, picking the winner is simple: It's the athlete who crosses the finish line first, or the side that scores the most goals. But for the new Olympic sport of breaking (if you want to be cool,...
- 2024 / 8 / 7Summer School 5: 250 years of trade history in three chaptersEpisodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. Trade has come up in all of the episodes...
- 2024 / 8 / 2What to do when you're in a class actionMaybe you got a boring slip of paper in the mail. Maybe you got a spammy-looking email promising you money. Surprise! You're in a class action. If you've done any commerce in the last decade, there's a good...
- 2024 / 7 / 31Summer School 4: Banker vs president and the birth of the dollarEpisodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. Planet Money Summer School has arrived...
- 2024 / 7 / 26Summer School 3: The first stock and perpetual lifeEpisodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. Once upon a time, every business was a...
- 2024 / 7 / 24What Kamala Harris' economic agenda might look likeLast weekend we were all thrown for a loop when President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris for the nomination. Just like everyone else, we are trying to quickly wrap...
- 2024 / 7 / 20The color monopolyIn 2022, artist Stuart Semple opened up his laptop to find that all his designs had turned black overnight. All the colors, across files on Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator, were gone. Who had...
- 2024 / 7 / 17Summer School 2: The golden ages of labor and loomsWho has the power? Workers or bosses? It changes through the ages, though it's usually the bosses. Today, we look at two key moments when the power of labor shifted, for better and worse, and we ask why then?...
- 2024 / 7 / 12Rooftop solar's dark side4.5 million households in the U.S. have solar panels on their homes. Most of those customers are happy with it - their electricity bills have just about disappeared, and it's great for the planet. But...
- 2024 / 7 / 10Summer School 1: An Economic History of the WorldPlanet Money Summer School is back for eight weeks. Join as we travel back in time to find the origins of our economic way of life. Today we ask surprisingly hard question: What is money? And where did it...
- 2024 / 7 / 5How flying got so bad (or did it?)We often hear that air travel is worse than it's ever been. Gone are the days when airplanes touted piano bars and meat carving stations — or even free meals. Instead we're crammed into tiny seats and...
- 2024 / 7 / 3The two companies driving the modern economyAt the core of most of the electronics we use today are some very tiny, very powerful chips. Semiconductor chips. And they are mighty: they help power our phones, laptops, and cars. They enable advances in...
- 2024 / 6 / 29Do immigrants really take jobs and lower wages?We wade into the heated debate over immigrants' impact on the labor market. When the number of workers in a city increases, does that take away jobs from the people who already live and work there? Does a...
- 2024 / 6 / 26The Carriage Tax (Update)(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2019.)In 1794, George Washington decided to raise money for the federal government by taxing the rich. He did it by putting a tax on horse-drawn...
- 2024 / 6 / 21How Juul created a market, fueled a crisis, and why regulators failed to stop itWhen the vape brand Juul first hit the market back in 2015, e-cigarettes were in a kind of regulatory limbo. At the time, the rules that governed tobacco cigarettes did not explicitly apply to e-cigarettes....
- 2024 / 6 / 21The Vapes of WrathWhen the vape brand Juul first hit the market back in 2015, e-cigarettes were in a kind of regulatory limbo. At the time, the rules that governed tobacco cigarettes did not explicitly apply to e-cigarettes....
- 2024 / 6 / 19Why is everyone talking about Musk's money?We've lived amongst Elon Musk headlines for so long now that it's easy to forget just how much he sounds like a sci-fi character. He runs a space company and wants to colonize mars. He also runs a company...
- 2024 / 6 / 14What's with all the tiny soda cans? And other grocery store mysteries, solved.There's a behind the scenes industry that helps big brands decide questions like: How big should a bag of chips be? What's the right size for a bottle of shampoo? And yes, also: When should a company do a...
- 2024 / 6 / 12Bringing a tariff to a graphite fightGraphite is sort of the one-hit wonder of minerals. And that hit? Pencils. Everyone loves to talk about pencils when it comes to graphite. If graphite were to perform a concert, they'd close out the show with...
- 2024 / 6 / 7How much national debt is too much?Most economic textbooks will tell you that there can be real dangers in running up a big national debt. A major concern is how the debt you add now could slow down economic growth in the future. Economists...
- 2024 / 6 / 5The history of light (classic)For thousands of years, getting light was a huge hassle. You had to make candles from scratch. This is not as romantic as it sounds. You had to get a cow, raise the cow, feed the cow, kill the cow, get the...
- 2024 / 5 / 31How the FBI's fake cell phone company put criminals into real jail cellsThere is a constant arms race between law enforcement and criminals, especially when it comes to technology. For years, law enforcement has been frustrated with encrypted messaging apps, like Signal and...
- 2024 / 5 / 29So you've been scammed, now what?We are living in a kind of golden age for online fraudsters. As the number of apps and services for storing and sending money has exploded – so too have the schemes that bad actors have cooked up to steal...