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Planet Money
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.

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 / 3 / 27
    The trouble with Table 101 (Update)

    (Note: This episode originally ran in 2020.)In the restaurant game, you need to make the most of every table every minute you are open. And you need to make sure your guests are happy, comfortable, and want...

  • 2024 / 3 / 22
    What is Temu?

    It is rare that a new e-commerce company has such a meteoric rise as Temu. The company, which launched in the fall of 2022, has been flooding the American advertising market, buying much of the inventory of...

  • 2024 / 3 / 20
    How Big Steel in the U.S. fell

    Steel manufacturing was at one point the most important industry in the United States. It was one of the biggest employers, a driver of economic growth, and it shaped our national security. Cars, weapons,...

  • 2024 / 3 / 15
    The billion dollar war behind U.S. rum

    When you buy a bottle of rum in the United States, by law nearly all the federal taxes on that rum must be sent to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's an unusual system that Congress designed...

  • 2024 / 3 / 13
    Wind boom, wind bust (Two Windicators)

    The wind power business is a bit contradictory right now. It's showing signs of boom and bust seemingly all at once. The story of wind energy markets in two acts today. First, the Gulf of Mexico saw its...

  • 2024 / 3 / 8
    On the Oscars campaign trail

    When you sit down to watch the Oscars, what you are really watching is the final battle in a months-long war of financial engineering and campaign strategy. Because in Hollywood, every year is an election...

  • 2024 / 3 / 6
    Is dynamic pricing coming to a supermarket near you?

    Dynamic pricing is an increasingly common phenomenon: You can see it when Uber prices surge during rainy weather, or when you're booking a flight at the last minute or buying tickets to your favorite...

  • 2024 / 3 / 1
    Shopping for parental benefits around the world

    It is so expensive to have a kid in the United States. The U.S. is one of just a handful of countries worldwide with no federal paid parental leave; it offers functionally no public childcare (and private...

  • 2024 / 2 / 29
    The secret world behind school fundraisers

    Fundraising is a staple of the school experience in the U.S. There's an assembly showing off all the prizes kids can win by selling enough wrapping paper or chocolate to their neighbors. But it's pretty...

  • 2024 / 2 / 23
    A controversial idea at the heart of Bidenomics

    Réka Juhász is a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and she studies what's known as industrial policy. That's the general term for whenever the government tries to promote specific...

  • 2024 / 2 / 21
    Two Indicators: Economics of the defense industry

    The Department of Defense's proposed budget for 2024 is $842 billion. That is about 3.5% of the U.S.'s GDP. The military buys everything from pens and paper clips to fighter jets and submarines. But the...

  • 2024 / 2 / 16
    How the Navy came to protect cargo ships

    The Genco Picardy is not an American ship. It doesn't pay U.S. taxes, none of its crew are U.S. nationals, and when it sailed through the Red Sea last month, it wasn't carrying cargo to or from an American...

  • 2024 / 2 / 15
    It's giving ... Valentines

    L, is for the way you Listen to Planet MoneyO, is for the Only podcast I hearV, is Very, very, fiduciaryE, is for... ECONOMICS! Every February, we dedicate a show to the things in our lives that have been...

  • 2024 / 2 / 9
    A lawsuit for your broken heart

    Keith King was upset when his marriage ended. His wife had cheated, and his family broke apart. And that's when he learned about a very old type of lawsuit, called a heart balm tort. A lawsuit that would let...

  • 2024 / 2 / 7
    Morally questionable, economically efficient

    There are tons of markets that don't exist because people just don't want to allow a market – for whatever reason, people feel icky about putting a price on something. For example: Surrogacy is a legal...

  • 2024 / 2 / 2
    Groundhog Day 2024: Trademark, bankruptcy, and the dollar that failed

    It's Groundhog Day, and the eyes of the nation have turned to a small town in western Pennsylvania. And, just like last year, all anyone can talk about is Punxsutawney Phil! It is impossible to find a news...

  • 2024 / 1 / 31
    The Chicken Tax (Classic)

    Note: This episode originally ran in 2015.German families in the 60s loved tasty, cheap American-raised chicken that was suddenly coming in after the war. And Americans were loving fun, cheap Volkswagen...

  • 2024 / 1 / 29
    Bonus: Janet Yellen on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

    Our friends at NPR's news quiz Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! recently had a very Planet Money guest on their show: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They asked her about smoking pot, her extremely high scores in...

  • 2024 / 1 / 27
    Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortune

    At around 1 a.m. on the morning of November 15, 1994, Captain Prentice "Skip" Strong III woke to a distress call. Skip was the new captain of an oil tanker called the Cherry Valley. He and his crew had been...

  • 2024 / 1 / 24
    Hear us out: We ban left turns and other big ideas

    On today's episode, we have three big economic ideas for your consideration – ideas that could potentially improve the economy and make us more efficient. First, what if we ban left turns on roads? Then, what...

  • 2024 / 1 / 20
    Econ Battle Zone: Disinflation Confrontation

    After very high inflation, the United States is finally feeling some relief in the form of "disinflation." But, why exactly has inflation slowed down?Three Planet Money hosts try to answer that question while...

  • 2024 / 1 / 17
    Mid-East conflict escalation, two indicators

    On today's show, we look at two indicators of the economic disruptions of the war in Gaza and try to trace how far they will reach. We start in the Red Sea, a crucial link in the global supply chain...

  • 2024 / 1 / 13
    The Maine Potato War of 1976

    When you think of a potato, one state probably comes to mind: Idaho. But for much of American history, Maine was home to the nation's largest potato crop. That status had changed by the 1970s, with the West...

  • 2024 / 1 / 10
    The Universal Basic Income experiment in Kenya

    There's this fundamental question in economics that has proven really hard to answer: What's a good way to help people out of poverty? The old-school way was to fund programs that would support very...

  • 2024 / 1 / 5
    The case of the serial sinking Spanish ships

    Picture the Pacific Ocean of the 16th century. Spanish Galleons sail the wide open seas, carrying precious cargo like silver, porcelain, and textiles. The waters are dangerous; ship logs show concerns over...

  • 2023 / 12 / 29
    The Rest of the Story, 2023

    It's that time of year again! Our annual year-end tradition of checking in on the stories we've reported and the people we met along the way.We'll hear from a Hollywood strike captain who tried to pull off...

  • 2023 / 12 / 27
    The Indicators of this year and next

    Today on the show, hosts from Planet Money and The Indicator debate the economic indicators of this year and next year.First up, we try to identify the figure that best captured the essence of 2023. The...

  • 2023 / 12 / 22
    We buy a lot of Christmas trees (Update)

    *Note: This episode originally ran in 2020*'Tis the season for Americans to head out in droves and bring home a freshly-cut Christmas tree. But decorative evergreens don't just magically show up on corner...

  • 2023 / 12 / 21
    Dollarizing Argentina

    Argentina has been on a decades-long search for economic stability, but it always seems to be out of reach. High inflation has been plaguing the country and just surpassed 160% a year.Over the past couple of...

  • 2023 / 12 / 19
    How to be better at hybrid work, according to research

    The research keeps coming in on remote work. New evidence suggests working from home, at least full-time, may not be as productive as we once thought. Economist Jose Maria Barrero and his co-authors have...

  • 2023 / 12 / 16
    What econ says in the shadows

    Economics Job Market Rumors is a website that's half a job information Wiki, where people post about what's going on inside economics departments, and half a discussion forum, where anyone with an internet...

  • 2023 / 12 / 14
    Why '90s ads are unforgettable

    Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's __________.The best part of waking up, is _______ in your cup!Got ____?If you can identify these brands based on tagline alone, it's possible you... are a 90s kid.The '90s...

  • 2023 / 12 / 11
    The U.S. economy's biggest superpower, explained

    What if you could borrow money on the cheap and use it to pay for just about anything? The U.S. government can, and does, with U.S. Treasuries. But the market for Treasuries might be more fragile than we...

  • 2023 / 12 / 8
    Why do doctors still use pagers?

    Remember pagers? They were huge in the 80s — these little devices that could receive short messages. Sir Mix-A-Lot even had a song about them! But then cell phones came along, and pagers more or less became...

  • 2023 / 12 / 6
    Two food and drink indicators

    Today on the show, we have two episodes from our daily podcast, The Indicator, about things we spend a lot of time thinking about this time of year: food and drink. First up, we explore how changes in...

  • 2023 / 12 / 1
    Why are we so bummed about the economy?

    Would you say that you and your family are better off or worse off, financially, than you were a year ago? Do you think in 12 months we'll have good times, financially, or bad? Generally speaking, do you...

  • 2023 / 11 / 29
    So you want to sell marijuana across state lines

    In the state of Oregon, there is a glut of grass. A wealth of weed. A crisis of chronic. And, jokes aside, it's a real problem for people who work in the cannabis industry like Matt Ochoa. Ochoa runs the...

  • 2023 / 11 / 22
    A very Planet Money Thanksgiving

    Here at Planet Money, Thanksgiving is not just a time to feast on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casseroles and pie(s). It's also a time to feast on economics. Today, we host a very Planet...

  • 2023 / 11 / 18
    Economic fact in literary fiction

    Some of the most influential and beloved novels of the last few years have been about money, finance, and the global economy. Some overtly so, others more subtly. It got to the point where we just had to call...

  • 2023 / 11 / 15
    China's real estate crisis, explained

    China's economic growth for the past few decades has been extraordinary. And much of that growth was fueled by real estate – it was like this miraculous economic engine for the country. But recently, that...

  • 2023 / 11 / 10
    The alleged theft at the heart of ChatGPT

    When best-selling thriller writer Douglas Preston began playing around with OpenAI's new chatbot, ChatGPT, he was, at first, impressed. But then he realized how much in-depth knowledge GPT had of the books he...

  • 2023 / 11 / 8
    Never have I ever

    The world of economics has these two different sides. One one side, there are the economists in their cozy armchairs and dusty libraries, high up in their ivory towers. On the other, there's the messy world...

  • 2023 / 11 / 3
    FTC Chair Lina Khan on Antitrust in the age of Amazon

    When Lina Khan was in law school back in 2017, she wrote a law review article called 'Amazon's Antitrust Paradox,' that went kinda viral in policy circles. In it, she argued that antitrust enforcement in the...

  • 2023 / 11 / 1
    Antitrust in America (classic)

    Earlier this fall, the Federal Trade Commission filed a high-stakes lawsuit against Amazon.In that suit, the FTC claims Amazon is a monopoly, and it accuses the company of using anti-competitive tactics to...

  • 2023 / 10 / 27
    All you can eat economics

    You might expect to find economic concepts in the pages of an economics textbook. But you know where you can really see a lot of economic concepts in action? Buffets.Here at Planet Money we believe there's a...

  • 2023 / 10 / 26
    Cutting school... by 20%

    Right now, a lot of school districts across the country are making a pretty giant change to the way public education usually works. Facing teacher shortages and struggling to fill vacant spots, they are...

  • 2023 / 10 / 20
    How unions are stopped before they start

    Union membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, support for unions among Americans was the highest it's been in decades. This dissonance is due, in part, to the difficulties of one...

  • 2023 / 10 / 18
    Indicator exploder: jobs and inflation

    When someone says "the economy is doing well"—what does that even mean? Like, for workers, for employers, for the country as a whole? According to what calculation? How do you put a number on it?The world of...

  • 2023 / 10 / 13
    Maria Bamford gets personal (about) finance

    Note: There is swearing in this episode.In 2017, The University of Minnesota asked comedian Maria Bamford to give their commencement speech. But the University may not have known what it was in for. In her...

  • 2023 / 10 / 11
    Why the price of Coke didn't change for 70 years (classic)

    Prices go up. Occasionally, prices go down. But for 70 years, the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola didn't change. From 1886 until the late 1950s, a bottle of coke cost just a nickel.On today's show, we find out...