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 / 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 24The junkyard economistOn today's episode, we ride through the streets of San Francisco with a long-time junkman, Jon Rolston. Jon has spent the last two decades clearing out houses and offices of their junk. He's found all sorts...
- 2024 / 5 / 22Anatomy of a layoffBy one estimate, 40 percent of American workers get laid off at least once in their careers. And when that happens, companies will often say, "It's not personal. It has nothing to do with you or your...
- 2024 / 5 / 17The hack that almost broke the internetLast month, the world narrowly avoided a cyberattack of stunning ambition. The targets were some of the most important computers on the planet. Computers that power the internet. Computers used by banks and...
- 2024 / 5 / 15Why Gold? (Classic)In the past few months, the price of gold has gone way up – even hitting a new high last month at just over $2,400 per troy ounce. Gold has long had a shiny quality to it, literally and in the marketplace....
- 2024 / 5 / 10Zombie mortgages are coming back to lifeKaren MacDonough of Quincy, Mass., was enjoying her tea one morning in the dining room when she sees something odd outside of her window: A group of people gathering on her lawn. A man with a clipboard tells...
- 2024 / 5 / 8Inside video game economics (Two Indicators)Why do video game workers offer labor at a discount? How can you design a video game for blind and sighted players? Does that design have lessons for other industries?These and other questions about the...
- 2024 / 5 / 3The birth of the modern consumer movementToday on the show, the story of the modern consumer movement in the U.S. and the person who inspired it: Ralph Nader. How Ralph Nader's battle in the 1960s set the stage for decades of regulation and sparked...
- 2024 / 5 / 1Hire Power (Update)(Note: This episode originally ran in 2021.)Millions of American workers in all sorts of industries have signed some form of noncompete agreement. Their pervasiveness has led to situations where workers...
- 2024 / 4 / 26The case of the stolen masksAbout thirty years ago, Yagya Kumar Pradhan woke up to the news that the temple he and his clan used had been broken into. The temple had been ransacked. And someone had stolen two holy Bhairav masks. Yagya...
- 2024 / 4 / 24How unions are stopped before they start (Update)(Note: This episode originally ran in 2023.)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...
- 2024 / 4 / 19FTX and the Serengeti of bankruptcyFor the last year and a half, the story of FTX has focused largely on the crimes and punishment of Sam Bankman-Fried. But in the background, the actual customers he left behind have been caught in a financial...
- 2024 / 4 / 17Grocery prices, credit card debit, and your 401K (Two Indicators)What's going on with consumers? This is one of the trickiest puzzles of this weird economic moment we're in. We've covered a version of this before under the term "vibecession," but it's safe to say, the...
- 2024 / 4 / 17Grocery prices, credit card debt, and your 401K (Two Indicators)What's going on with consumers? This is one of the trickiest puzzles of this weird economic moment we're in. We've covered a version of this before under the term "vibecession," but it's safe to say, the...
- 2024 / 4 / 12TikTok made me deduct itTikTok, and other apps like it, are filled with financial advice. Some of it is reliable, some... less so. There are videos about running a business, having a side hustle, generating passive income. And also,...
- 2024 / 4 / 10How much does this cow weigh? (Classic)This episode originally ran in 2015.About one hundred years ago, a scientist and statistician named Francis Galston came upon an opportunity to test how well regular people were at answering a question. He...
- 2024 / 4 / 5Japan's Lost DecadeLast month, Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years. That is a really big deal, because it means that one of the spookiest stories in modern economics might finally have an...
- 2024 / 4 / 5Japan's Lost DecadesLast month, Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years. That is a really big deal, because it means that one of the spookiest stories in modern economics might finally have an...
- 2024 / 4 / 3The real estate industry on trialIn 2019, Mike Ketchmark got a call. Mike is a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, and his friend, Brandon Boulware, another lawyer, was calling about a case he wanted Mike to get involved with. Mike was an...
- 2024 / 3 / 29How much of your tax dollars are going to Israel and UkraineThere's been a lot of disagreement in Congress and in the country about whether the U.S. should continue to financially support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Some taxpayers don't think the U.S. should give...
- 2024 / 3 / 27The 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 / 22What 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 / 20How Big Steel in the U.S. fellSteel 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 / 15The billion dollar war behind U.S. rumWhen 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 / 13Wind 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 / 8On the Oscars campaign trailWhen 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 / 6Is 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 / 1Shopping for parental benefits around the worldIt 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 / 29The secret world behind school fundraisersFundraising 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 / 23A controversial idea at the heart of BidenomicsRéka 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 / 21Two Indicators: Economics of the defense industryThe 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 / 16How the Navy came to protect cargo shipsThe 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...