NPR: Planet Money Podcast

Earth can sustain life for another 100 million years, but can we? This episode, we partner with Radiolab to take stock of the essential raw materials that enable us to live as we do here on Earth — everything from sand to copper to oil — and tally up how much we have left. Are we living with reckless abandon? And if so, is there even a way to stop? A simultaneously terrifying and delightful conversation about bird poop, daredevil drivers, and some staggering back-of-the-envelope math.

Radiolab's original episode was produced and edited by Pat Walters and Soren Wheeler. Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton. The Planet Money edition of this episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Alex Goldmark and Jess Jiang. Special thanks to Jennifer Brandel.

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Music: NPR Source Audio - "Wir Rollen"

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The deal seemed too good to be true. There's a website that's been selling top quality diamonds at bizarrely low prices. Prices we couldn't find at any retail outlet. Prices so low, we could buy a diamond on a public radio budget. So we did. What we got in the mail was a tiny ziploc bag containing a scintillating mystery.

On today's show: the Planet Money Diamond (or whatever this sparkly rock turns out to be). We get it analyzed by the experts at the Gemological Institute of America. We investigate where it came from. And, we dive into the economics of glittery stones. Was this a new kind of internet scam? Some supply chain anomaly? Or is something just really weird going on in the world of diamonds?

This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Keith Romer with help from Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Emma Peaslee, and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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There's one statistic that rules them all when it comes to keeping track of the economy: gross domestic product (GDP). It's the sum of all final transactions, so all the goods or services bought and sold, in an economy. GDP tells us how hot the economy is running, or how cool — like if we might be heading into a recession. And it's an important tool to compare countries, policies, and politicians. It's used by the U.S. government to allocate money and by businesses to make decisions about the future.

For close to a century the building blocks of GDP have been the same. Now Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, has proposed a big change: taking government spending out of GDP.

On today's show, can the U.S. change how it measures GDP? We talk with a former head of the BEA — about what he thinks they're likely to do now, and about the pressure he faced while trying to compile GDP for nearly two decades. Turns out, people have always been trying to bend it to make whatever grand project they're working on look better.

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Note: This original episode ran in 2020 .

Walter Schramm did everything right as an investor — at least according to the philosophy of Warren Buffett. So how come he lost a small fortune?

In this episode, we look into an obscure government program that slurps up forgotten money. We hunt for money we might have left vulnerable and we try to figure out how it got there in the first place so we can tell you where to find the money you've misplaced too.

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Tupperware is the stealthy star of our modern homes. These plastic storage containers are ubiquitous in our fridges, pantries, and closets. But the original product was revolutionary. So was its breakthrough sales strategy: the Tupperware Party.

Led in part by a charismatic housewife turned business innovator, Tupperware pioneered more than the party. Brownie Wise, and the company she came to represent, are behind a core sales technique that we might now recognize as influencer marketing.

The company was so successful at its peak, it reached almost cult status. But it didn't last.

On our latest episode: Tupperware's success and the company's demise. And how its descendants — in products, and in sales strategies — lived on.

This episode is in partnership with Decoder Ring . For even more on the legacy of Tupperware, listen to their full episode .

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If you cut every single federal job President Donald Trump wants to cut, how much money would that save?

A president has tried to massively shrink the size of the federal government before. It was in the 90s, under a Democrat.

Today on the show: Where they found waste the last time we really looked. (Hint: it wasn't jobs.) And why the pace of firings under Trump might start to slow down.

For more:
- Lessons for the Future of Government Reform
- Is government too big? Reflections on the size and composition of today's federal government
- Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. We had fact-checking help from Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Special thanks to Ben Zipperer.

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Music: Audio Network - "West Green Road," "Raise Up," and "Blue and Green."

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In some ways, starting a bank is a lot like starting any other business. Who will you hire? Where will you be located? What color will the couches be? But it's also way more complicated. There are tons of regulations on banks–and you can understand why. Lots of new businesses fail. But if a bank fails, it can have ripple effects for the entire economy.

Today on the show, a baby bank is born. We go along for the ride from idea to ribbon cutting as a community bank gets off the ground.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Katie Mingle. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: NPR Source Audio- "Numbers Game," "Smoke and Mirrors," and "Lets Start A Movement"

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Memecoins are having a moment. Everyone from Hawk Tuah to President Donald Trump to animal influencers like Moo Deng the pygmy hippo have been turned into cryptocurrency. But what are the costs of all the hype?

On today's show — a modern parable. How an orphaned baby rodent became a world famous animal influencer, became a political martyr, and was finally transmuted into a billion dollar cryptocurrency. It's a tale about how a chance encounter can lead to fame and fortune. But also how all that can spin wildly out of control in this brave, new – kind of terrifying – attention economy we're all living in.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Nic Neves. This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. And engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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What do Moo Deng the pygmy hippo, social media sensation Hawk Tuah, and the President of the United States all have in common? They've all inspired highly valuable, highly volatile memecoins.

The humble memecoin began as a sort of satirical send up of speculation in the crypto world. But it was a joke that soon became very real. In the decade since the launch of Dogecoin in 2013, a series of cultural shifts and technological leaps enabled an explosion in the number of new memecoins. And this memecoin explosion has not only minted millionaires but also led to hordes of unlucky investors and untold scams.

On today's show, what's in a memecoin? How they went from a one-off joke to a speculative frenzy worth tens of billions of dollars? And who are the winners and losers in this brazen new market? wow such tease many listens

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Last year, Tyson Foods shuttered a meat processing plant in Perry, Iowa. The company said it made the decision because the plant was old and inefficient. But the closure was devastating for the residents of Perry. The plant had employed some 1200 workers in a town with a population of only 8000.

At the same time, Tyson was also busy hiring workers elsewhere. It was working with a non-profit group that helps connect companies with asylum seekers and refugees looking for work. Tyson ultimately hired hundreds of new workers through this partnership.

Was this just a coincidence? Or were these two stories actually one story - a story about one of the country's biggest meat processors forcing out American workers and replacing them with migrants? On today's show we take a look at the controversy surrounding Tyson's hiring moves and how things look from the perspective of the workers themselves.

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There's this cautionary tale, in the finance world, that nearly any trader can tell you. It's about placing too much confidence in math and models. It's the story of Long Term Capital Management.

The story begins back in the 90s. A group of math nerds figured out how to use a mathematical model to identify opportunities in the market, tiny price discrepancies, that they could bet big on. Those bets turned into big profits, for them and their clients. They were the toast of Wall Street; it looked like they'd solved the puzzle of risk-taking. But their overconfidence in their strategy led to one of the biggest financial implosions in U.S. history, and destabilized the entire market.

On today's show, what happens when perfect math meets the mess of human nature? And what did we learn (and what did we not learn) from the legendary tale of Long Term Capital Management?

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Mary Childs and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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So the president can't spend more money than Congress has agreed and voted to spend. But can the president spend less money than Congress wants?

It all comes down to something called "impoundment" and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which controls when and how a president can take away money Congress has appropriated.

President Trump followed the Impoundment Control Act rules back in 2018. But now, in his second term, he's saying he thinks that law is unconstitutional.

On this episode: the history of impoundment, from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. And what constitutional scholars and judges are saying after Trump attempted to dismantle a federal agency and freeze trillions in federal funding that goes to states for everything from new school buses to public health research.

We've got more about impoundment in the latest Planet Money newsletter .

Check out The Indicator's episodes on the gutting of USAID and how American farmers are affected in USAID cuts . And, our previous episode on the big government money pipe that's being closely watched right now.

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There has been chaotic uncertainty around billions of dollars allocated by Congress. The Trump administration ordered a pause on — and review of — certain types of federal assistance. A judge blocked that freeze. But reports continue to emerge that certain parts of the government were not getting their money.

As a result, hundreds and hundreds of people have lost their jobs, clinics and daycares across the country have been left wondering if they'll have money to operate, retirees have worried about getting their payments.

But the United States is a country of transparency. And if you know where to look, there is a way to cut through all the confusion. Because there's this one big pipe from the US Treasury through which most federal spending flows.

So, today, we discover a way to go look at that money pipe. And we'll look at some of the people and the programs on the other end of that pipe. And we tell you about a tool (it's at The Hamilton Project! Right here .) that you can use to follow along from home, right now, as this gigantic federal spending story continues developing and developing.

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The trip that changed Tigran Gambaryan's life forever was supposed to be short — just a few days. When he flew to Nigeria in February of 2024, he didn't even check a bag. Tigran is a former IRS Special Agent. He made his name investigating high-profile dark web and cryptocurrency cases. Some colleagues called him the 'Crypto Wizard' because of his pioneering work tracing crypto transactions for law enforcement. Since 2021, he's worked at the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance.

Tigran was in Nigeria as a sort of envoy. He was supposed to meet with government officials and show them that Binance – and crypto itself – was safe, reliable, and law-abiding.

One of the most important meetings was at the headquarters of the Office of the National Security Advisor. He says officials there made him wait hours. And when officials finally came into the room, they accused Binance of a host of crimes and of tanking the Nigerian economy. They then told Tigran that they weren't going to let him leave Nigeria until they were satisfied that Binance was going to remedy the situation.

On today's show, in a collaboration with Click Here from Recorded Future News , we hear about Tigran's eight month detention in Nigeria. In his first recorded interview after his release, he shares details about his captivity, how he survived one of Nigeria's most infamous prisons, and how he got out.

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The San Jose was a marvel of 17th century technology. The Spanish galleon weighed more than a thousand tons, was made of wood reinforced with iron, and featured three masts and 64 cannons. In its cargo were gold, silver, silk and porcelain. But in 1708, it sank after a battle with an English ship near what is now Colombia.

For centuries, the shipwreck was the stuff of legends, until 2015 when underwater investigators found what they believed to be the San Jose's wreckage. The treasure on board this ship could be worth billions of dollars. But who owns it? Today on the show, four groups stake their claims to the wreck of the San Jose. Those claims reveal a lot about who has a say over the bottom of the sea and how we can begin to untangle the complicated legacy of colonialism.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Erika Beras and Mary Childs. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with reporting help from Willa Rubin and edited by Keith Romer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Neil Rauch with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Americans spend more on scratch lottery tickets per year than on pizza. More than all Coca-Cola products. Yet the scratch ticket as a consumer item has only existed for fifty years. Not so long ago, the idea of an instant lottery, of gambling with a little sheet of paper, was strange. Scary, even.

So, how did scratch lotteries go from an idea that states wanted nothing to do with, to a commonplace item? It started in a small, super-liberal, once-puritanical state: Massachusetts. Adults there now spend – on average – $1,037 every year on lottery tickets – mostly scratch tickets. On today's episode, a collaboration with GBH's podcast Scratch & Win , we hear the story of... the scratch-off lottery ticket!

This episode was hosted by Ian Coss and Kenny Malone. Scratch & Win from GBH is produced by Isabel Hibbard and edited by Lacy Roberts. The executive producer is Devin Maverick Robins. Our version of the podcast was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Alex Goldmark, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On Monday, the stock market went into a tizzy over a new AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek. It seemed to be just as powerful as many of its American competitors, but its makers claimed to have made it far more cheaply, using far less computing power than similar AI apps like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. In one day, hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the valuations of companies related to AI.

This week, investors seemed suddenly to change their minds about what our AI future would look like and which companies will (or won't) profit from it. Will we really need all those high-end computer chips, after all? What about power plants to provide electricity for all the energy-hungry AI data centers?

On today's show – how DeepSeek might have changed the economics of artificial intelligence forever.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with an assist from James Sneed. It was edited by Keith Romer and engineered by Neil Tevault. Research help from Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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When it comes to solar and wind power, renewable energy has always had a caveat: it can only run when the wind blows or the sun shines.

The idea of a battery was floated around to make renewables available 24/7. For years, it existed as an expensive, little-used technology. Then in 2021, it took off.

In this episode, we explore how this new energy market works in two states: California and Texas.

In California, there is now enough grid-scale battery storage to power millions of homes — at least for a few hours — and it's growing fast. What does this success mean for the grid, and how did the state support it?

Then, we visit Texas, whose approach is more free-market rodeo. The state has the second-most battery storage capacity in the U.S. And in Texas, their system was recently put to the test. So, can these large-scale batteries can help prevent blackouts?

These two stories come from our sister show The Indicator , which recently reported a series about the electric battery market.

Today's show was hosted by Cooper Katz McKim, Darian Woods and Wailin Wong. The original Indicator episodes were produced by Cooper Katz McKim and Corey Bridges, and edited by Kate Concannon. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Neil Tevault. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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After being sworn into office, President Trump signed a whole host of executive actions and orders that affirm his campaign promise to crack down on immigration.

Trump's border czar has said Chicago is at the top of the list of places to be targeted. The city is expecting immigration raids, detentions and deportations. In the Little Village neighborhood, where the majority of residents are Mexican or of Mexican descent, people are on edge as they await what's next.

Beyond the many people personally affected, past research suggests everyone could feel the impacts of mass deportation.

On this episode of Planet Money we visit Little Village to see how the new administration is already having an impact. And then, we hear from an economist who looks to a recent chapter in mass deportation for insight into what the future could hold.

Today's episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Willa Rubin with an assist from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Kenny Malone, engineered by Cena Loffredo and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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The fires in Los Angeles are almost out. Residents are starting to trickle back into their burned-out neighborhoods. When they get to their houses, they face a series of almost impossible questions: Do we want to live here amongst all this destruction? And if we do, how do we even start?

Today, we meet a father and son from Altadena who are confronting those choices. We pass through the National Guard checkpoints and enter the burn zone, where we see for ourselves all the challenges waiting for residents who want to rebuild. And we talk with an insurance adjuster about how the industry tries to value people's homes — and all of their possessions — after they have been reduced to rubble.

For more on the California wildfires, check out our newsletter . We spoke with an economist who survived Oakland's wildfires in 1991 and has big ideas for how to rescue California from its insurance doom spiral.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Keith Romer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Neil Tevault with help from Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Donald Trump is just about to begin his second presidency. And it may be safe to say that every single person in America has at least one question about what's to come in the next four years.

So, we thought we'd try to answer your questions — as best we can — about the economics of a second Trump term. Is now the time to shop for new tech? Can Trump actually bring down grocery and oil prices? And, does the president have the power to get rid of NPR?

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Meg Cramer. It was engineered by Neil Tevault and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(Note: This episode originally ran in 2018 .)

Is it really cheaper to shop at an airport Duty Free store? And why are so many of them alike?

In the 1940s, if you were flying from New York City to London or Paris you would find yourself making a pit stop for fuel on the western coast of Ireland. The Shannon airport at the time wasn't much to look at, but the passengers arriving there were movie stars and celebrities, basically the super rich. And the people of Shannon realized pretty quickly that they needed to upgrade the local amenities for their wealthy clientele. They hired a man named Brendan O'Regan to make it happen. Being the quick-thinking entrepreneur that he was, O'Regan convinced the Irish government to create a tax loophole. And thus, duty free stores were born.

Today on the show, we follow the surprising origin of duty free, and try to answer the question: Are they really saving you any money?

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You know Watergate, but do you know Fedgate? The more subtle scandal with more monetary policy and, arguably, much higher stakes.

In today's episode, we listen back through the Nixon White House tapes to search for evidence of an alarming chapter in American economic history: When the President of the United States seemingly flouted the norms of Fed Independence in order to pressure the Chair of the Federal Reserve Board into decisions that were economically bad in the long run but good for Nixon's upcoming election.

The tale of Nixon and his Fed Chair, Arthur Burns, has become the cautionary tale about why Fed Independence matters. That choice may have started a decade of catastrophic inflation. And Burns' story is now being invoked as President-elect Trump has explicitly said he'd like more control over the Federal Reserve .

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The ZIP code is less like a cold, clinical, ordered list of numbers, and more like a weird overgrown number garden. It started as a way to organize mail after WWII, but now it pops up all over our daily lives. You type it into the machine at the gas station to verify your credit card. You might type it into a rental search website if you're looking for a new apartment. Back in 2013, the ZIP Code contributed about 10 billion dollars a year to the US economy.

On today's show, we turn our attention towards the humble ZIP code. Why was it born? How has it changed the mail? How has it changed the broader world? And... has it gone too far?

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Meg Cramer, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Ever since free trade opened up between the US and Mexico in the 1990s, trillions of dollars of goods have been going back and forth between the two countries, from cars to strawberries to MRI machines to underwear. But one major exception has been fresh American potatoes.

Today on the show, we tell the trade saga of the American potato. For more than 25 years, there was a place that American potatoes could not go to freely. A place that the entire American potato industry was desperate to access. A vast, untapped market: Mexico.

But standing in their way – the Mexican potato lobby and a trade loophole.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Meg Cramer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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If you believe the hype, translators will all soon be out of work. Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of the language learning app Duolingo, doesn't think AI is quite there... yet. In this interview, Greg Rosalsky talks with Luis about AI and how it's reshaping translation jobs and the language learning industry. We also ask him about headlines earlier this year suggesting Duolingo laid off some of its workers and replaced them with AI.

This is one of Greg's Behind The Newsletter conversations where he shares his interviews with policy makers, business leaders, and economists who appear in The Planet Money Newsletter.

This episode was first released as a bonus episode for Planet Money+ listeners earlier this year. We're sharing it today for all listeners. To hear more episodes like this one and support NPR in the process, sign up for Planet Money+ at plus.npr.org . We'll have a fresh bonus episode out in two weeks!

You can sign up for the The Planet Money Newsletter and check out past editions here:
https://www.npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter

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After the gift exchange comes another great holiday tradition: returns season. Once again, we are joining the fun in our own Planet Money way. We are returning to stories from years past to see what's changed since we last reported them. It's an episode we call The Rest of the Story.

We have updates on zombie mortgages, student loan forgiveness, Argentina's economy under its self-described anarcho-capitalist president, and the best place in the world to give birth to twins. Plus, a return to... returns.

So while you're looking for that holiday sweater in a better size, or waiting in line to trade in your Dutch oven for an air fryer, take a listen to all our latest little audio gifts. And see you in 2025!

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and edited by Keith Romer and Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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This year, there was some economic good news to go around. Inflation generally ticked down. Unemployment more or less held around 4-percent. Heck, the Fed even cut interest rates three times. But for a lot of people, the overall economic vibes were more important. And the vibes... were still off.

We might have achieved the soft landing the Fed was hoping for, but we saw some wackiness in the relationship between unemployment and job vacancies. Meanwhile, Bitcoin went to the moon. We have covered all of that in this past year, but which of these economic stories really defined the year?

Fortunately, we don't have to decide. You all do.

On today's show, a collaboration with our daily podcast The Indicator, we have Indicator Family Feud! Two Planet Money hosts enter, one Indicator host... also enters. And all three leave, having had a great time with lively discussion and light ribbing. Plus, some mild scheduling issues. But, we can't stress enough that no hosts were harmed in the making of this podcast.

Then, we look ahead to 2025 to see what indicators we think will define the coming year – the future and the past, on our latest episode!

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Our planet is in serious trouble. There are a million species of plants and animals in danger of extinction, and the biggest cause is companies destroying their habitats to farm food, mine minerals, and otherwise get the raw materials to turn into the products we all consume.

So, when Mauricio Serna was in college, he realized his family's plot of land in Colombia, called El Globo , presented a unique opportunity. Sure, it had historically been a cattle ranch. But if he could get the money to turn it back into cloud forest, perhaps it could once again be a habitat for the animals who used to live there — animals like the yellow-eared parrot, the tree ocelot, and the spectacled bear (of Paddington fame).

On today's show, Mauricio's quest to make a market for a new-ish financial instrument: the biodiversity credit. We peek under the hood to try to figure out how these credits actually work. Is the hype around them a bunch of hot air? Or could they be a critical tool for saving thousands of species around the world?

Today's episode was hosted by Stan Alcorn and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was co-reported by Tomás Uprimny. It was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Sports gambling isn't exactly a financial market, but it rhymes with financial markets. What happens on Wall Street somehow eventually also happens in sports gambling. So in the 1980s, when computers and deep statistical analysis entered the markets, it also entered the sportsbooks and changed the world of sports gambling in ways we see every day now.

On today's episode, we have a story from Michael Lewis' new season of his podcast Against The Rules . We hear from a bookie who was able to beat the odds using statistical analysis, and the other bookie who managed to beat those odds, using an even more subtle science: behavioral analysis. Plus, how it's harder than ever to win against the house, and why those offers of free bets in TV ads are maybe not such a good idea.

This episode was hosted by Michael Lewis and Mary Childs. Our version of the podcast was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Martina Castro. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Why do some nations fail and others succeed?

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, three economists formed a partnership that would revolutionize how economists think about global inequality. Their work centered on a powerful — and almost radically obvious — idea: that the economic fate of nations is determined by how societies organize themselves. In other words, the economists shined a spotlight on the power of institutions, the systems, rules, and structures that shape society.

We spoke with two of the Nobel-winning economists about their research on why some countries are rich and others are poor, why it took so long for economics to recognize the power of institutions, and what the heck those even are.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Greg Rosalsky. It was produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Martina Castro and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Gilly Moon with help from James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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The Smoot Hawley Tariffs were a debacle that helped plunge America into the Great Depression. What can we learn from them?

Today on the show, we tell the nearly 100-year-old story of Smoot and Hawley, that explains why Congress decided to delegate tariff power to the executive branch in the first place. It's a story that weaves in wool, humble buckwheat, tiny little goldfish, and even Ferris Bueller... Anyone? Anyone?

It's also what set the stage for the Trump tariffs.

President-elect Donald Trump enacted a heap of import taxes in his first term, in particular on goods from China. President Biden's administration largely kept those tariffs in place, and levied new tariffs as well, on electric vehicles and solar panels.

And now, as Trump's second presidency is on the horizon, he has promised even more tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China, and even on all imports across the board.

And now, as Trump's second presidency is on the horizon, he has promised even more tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China, and even on all imports across the board.

We update this classic episode about the Smoot Hawley Tariffs, and review the impact of more recent efforts from Trump and Biden alike.

Help support Planet Money by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney . You get bonus episodes!

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Windell Curole spent decades working to protect his community in southern Louisiana from the destructive flooding caused by hurricanes. His local office in South Lafourche partnered with the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers to build a massive ring of earthen mounds – also known as levees – to keep the floodwaters at bay.

But after Hurricane Katrina called into question the integrity of those levees, Windell decided to take a gamble that put him at odds with his partners in the Army Corps. He decided that the best thing he could do to protect his community was to go rogue and build his levees as tall as possible as quickly as possible, without federal permission.

On today's show, what the story of Windell's levee can teach us about how the federal government calculates and manages the risk of natural disasters, and how those calculations can look a lot different to the people staring straight into the eye of the storm.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Mary Childs. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentine Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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As people learn more about Donald Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, one story comes up over and over: a legendary trade that he played a small part in while he worked at George Soros' hedge fund in the 1990s.

In 1992, Soros' fund set its sights on the British pound, betting that some time in the fall of that year, the pound would plummet in value. Opposing them in this trade was the Bank of England, which was determined to keep its currency stable. The financial battle that followed was intense and proved to be a watershed moment in the balance of power between markets and governments.

On today's show, we speak to Robert Johnson, a former managing director at Soros' fund, for a blow-by-blow account of those fateful days in 1992.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Alex Goldmark. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Martina Castro. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

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The dreaded data breach notification... It tells you your personal data's been compromised and suggests steps you can take to minimize the potential harm. On today's episode, Kenny Malone pulls out a data breach letter he received and goes over what it recommends with Amanda Aronczyk. Amanda recently did a show about the legal and illegal markets for data and tells us how useful these steps actually are. It's news you can use to protect yourself, whether or not you've been part of a data breach!

This normally would be a bonus episode just for Planet Money+ listeners. With this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To hear more bonus content like this, regular episodes sponsor-free, and support the work of NPR, sign up for Planet Money+ at plus.npr.org .

Related links:
Data Breach Response: A Guide for Business (FTC)
Have you been affected by a data breach? (FTC)
Your Technology Is Tracking You. Take These Steps For Better Online Privacy (Life Kit)
What happens after you get scammed? Can you get your money back? (Planet Money)
Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons (cybersecurity and privacy podcast)
DeleteMe (personal data removal service)
Experian (credit bureau)
TransUnion (credit bureau)
Equifax (credit bureau)

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

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You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it. Because it was comfy. Or blue. Or the right price. But what if the style, the color, the cost, maybe even whether you would like it, were choices made for you years before you even thought about buying that piece of furniture.

Today on the show: The city that makes or breaks the furniture world. We travel to High Point, North Carolina and meet the people who make the bets – on whether or not you'll want that comfy blue couch.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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A couple years ago, Gina Leto, a real estate developer, bought a property with her business partner. The process went like it usually did: Lots of paperwork; a virtual closing. Pretty cut-and-dry. Gina and her partner started building a house on the property.

But $800,000 into the construction process, Gina got a troubling call from her lawyer. There was something wrong. At first, Gina thought the house had burned down. It turned out that the situation was... maybe worse.

On today's show: Buying land seems pretty secure, right? There's so much paperwork and verification along the way. But a messy system of how titles are sold, transferred and documented makes a perfect entry point for a new kind of criminal: Title Pirates.

Today's episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Liza Yeager. Fact-checking by Sarah McClure. Engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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Mass deportations. What would actually happen—economically—if the President-elect follows through on promises to deport millions of people from America.

We don't have to guess.

Today we have two stories from Planet Money's daily podcast, The Indicator. First, the story from another time the US cracked down on immigration with the expressed intent of helping the economy. We look at how that worked out. And then we distill 20 years of research on immigrants and economic growth. What does immigration do for an economy? What types of immigration help? And who benefits?

Our most recent newsletter goes into more depth on some of this. Part one of two here. Subscribe to our newsletter here .

This episode is hosted by Adrian Ma, Darian Woods, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Cooper Katz McKim and Julia Ritchey, and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Maggie Luthar. They were fact-checked by Angel Carreras and Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.

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Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung , a ritual dating back centuries. Osing refers to the area. And verlosung means "lottery," as in a land lottery. All of the land in this communal land is randomly reassigned to farmers who commit to farming it for the next decade.

Hundreds of years ago, a community in Germany came up with their own, unique solution for how to best allocate scarce resources. For this community, the lottery is a way to try and make the system of land allotment more fair and avoid conflict.

Today on the show, we go to the lottery and follow along as every farmer has a shot at getting the perfect piece of land — or the absolute worst piece of land! And we see what we can learn from this living, medieval tradition that tries to balance fairness and efficiency.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Reporting help from Sofia Shchukina. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.

For years, few thought this technology was even possible. It still sounds like science fiction: A laser strong enough to blast holes in a bank vault hits a droplet of molten tin. The droplet explodes into a burst of extreme ultraviolet light. That precious light is funneled onto a wafer of silicon, where it etches circuits as fine as a strand of DNA. Only one company in the world that can make these advanced microchip etching machines: a Dutch firm called ASML.

Today on the show, how this breakthrough in advanced chipmaking happened — and how it almost didn't. How the long-shot idea was incubated in U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and nurtured by U.S. tech giants. And, why a Dutch company now controls it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sally Helm. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman, and engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On 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 selling — you can learn a lot about where the economy might be headed. Or at least, where people are willing to bet the economy is headed.

On today's show, we decode what Wall Street thinks about the next Trump presidency — what it means for different parts of the economy, and what it means for everyone. Does the wisdom of the market think President Trump will actually impose new tariffs and lift regulations? What about taxes and spending? And will inflation ultimately go up or down?

What markets bet President Trump will do. That's today's episode.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo, Sally Helm, Erika Beras, and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Martina Castro and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 – whether an address change alone could improve jobs, earnings and education.

The answer to that seems obvious. But it did not at all turn out as they expected.

Years later, when new researchers went back to the data on this experiment, they stumbled on something big. Something that is changing housing policy across the country today.

Today's episode was originally hosted by Karen Duffin, produced by Aviva DeKornfeld, and edited by Bryant Urstadt. The update was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Our supervising executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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Ray 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 of other Americans – needed help from emergency forbearance. They were told they could pause home payments for up to a year and then pick up again making affordable mortgage payments with no problems.

That's what happened for most American homeowners who took forbearance. But not for tens of thousands of military veterans like Ray Queen.

On today's show, we follow two reporters' journey to figure out what went wrong with the VA's loan forbearance program. How did something meant to help vets keep their houses during COVID end up stranding tens of thousands of them on the brink of foreclosure? And, once the error was spotted, did the government do enough to make things right?

Today's episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Meg Cramer. And fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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If 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 a hack that targeted companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, Advance Auto Parts and others that use the data cloud company Snowflake.

On today's show, we try to figure out where that stolen data ended up, how worried we should be about it, and what we're supposed to do when bad actors take our personal and private information. And: How our information is being bought, sold, and stolen.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Meg Cramer. It was engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin with an assist from Kwesi Lee, and fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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, things like dextrose and saline (aka sugar water and salt water).

So what's going on? The answer, as with anything in healthcare, is complicated.

On today's show: why hospitals keep running out of generic drugs. The story behind these shortages tells us a lot about how these drugs are made, bought and sold–and, it shows us how these markets can falter without the proper care.

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin, with help from James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Martina Castro. Fact-checking by Dania Suleman. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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On 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 Wong and Adrian Ma fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Then, Wailin and host Darian Woods discuss another romance medium: the romance novel. Once relegated to supermarket aisles, these books are now mainstream. And authors, an often-maligned group within publishing, have found greater commercial success than many writers in other genres. We find out how romance novelists rode the e-book wave and networked with each other to achieve their happily-for-now status in the industry.

This episode is hosted by Erika Beras, Wailin Wong, Adrian Ma, and Darian Woods. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Julia Ritchey and engineered by Kwesi Lee. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.

You can listen to the rest of the series at The Indicator's feed , or at npr.org/love

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Over 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 subscription. These days everything from razor blades to meal kits to car washes have become subscriptions. But all that convenience has also come with a dark side – some companies have designed their offerings to be as easy as possible to sign up for and also as difficult as possible to cancel. Many consumers are now paying for way more subscriptions than they even know about.

On today's show, we discover how we all fell into this subscription trap – who is winning and who is losing in this brave new subscription based world – and what both the government and the free market are doing to try and fix it.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(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 sometimes mean what you think they mean, but sometimes not at all. Not even close.

We surveyed 188 economists. And we asked them: What are the most misunderstood terms in the field of economics?

On today's show, their answers! Hear stories about near recessions, a problem with insurance, econ at your local movie theater, and... an economics term that will make undergrads blush. Strap in, and bring your popcorn!

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Sean Saldana. It was edited by Jess Jiang, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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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 longshoremans' strike closed the eastern ports for only three days, but those three days raised a lot of questions.

Like - why is a discount furniture store the fourth largest importer on the East Coast? How come so many bananas come through Wilmington, Delaware? Why do we need live frogs delivered into the US six times a month? And... how do we even keep track of all of these imports? On today's episode, we get into #PortFacts!

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Audrey Quinn, and fact-checked by Dania Suleman. Engineering by Cena Loffredo and Kwesi Lee with an assist from Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 emissions. The state establishes a cap on the total amount of carbon pollution it is willing to allow each year, and then gives away or auctions off carbon emission permits that add up to that total. Companies can then trade those permits on the open market.

Economists love cap and trade plans because they establish a limit on carbon emissions while letting the market find the most efficient way for decarbonization to occur. But cap and trade has had a hard time catching on, especially in the U.S.

The stakes are high for Washington's new plan. If it succeeds, it could convince other states to implement their own versions, but if it fails, it might serve as a cautionary tale. On today's show, we take a look at how Washington's grand experiment with cap and trade is faring.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Emily Siner. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 when you land in trouble, you don't have to think hard to remember their name. Odds are you can name one or two right now.

This world of law ads did not exist fifty years ago. Then, lawyers were not allowed to advertise. Not by law, by the exclusive organization that decides who gets to be a lawyer: state bars.

On today's episode, how that changed. How a couple of lawyers placing an ad in a local newspaper led to the inescapable world of law firm ads we know today. And, how the right to advertise got put on the same level as some of the most important, fundamental rights we have.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Sean Saldana. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(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 mortality was spiking. Businesses were shuttering. It's one of the epic economic collapses of our time. And it was totally avoidable.

Venezuela used to be a relatively rich country. It has just about all the economic advantages a country could ask for: Beautiful beaches and mountains ready for tourism, fertile land good for farming, an educated population, and oil, lots and lots of oil.

But during the boom years, the Venezuelan government made some choices that add up to an economic time bomb.

Today on the show, we have an economic horror story about a country that made all the wrong decisions with its oil money. It's a window into the fundamental way that money works and how when you try to control it, you can lose everything.

Then, an update on Venezuela today. How it went from a downward spiral, to a tentative economic stabilization... amidst political upheaval.

This original episode is hosted by Robert Smith and Noel King. It was produced by Nick Fountain and Sally Helm. Today's update was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Neal Rauch. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

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"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 stories about breakdancing , rum , pagers , buffets , colors , and heartbreak .

But then one host wondered: what if we really held ourselves to that promise? What if we challenged ourselves to find economic meaning in the most esoteric and far-flung topics imaginable?

That's when we turned to you, our listeners. And boy did you deliver. You sent in ideas so obscure, so banananas, so guaranteed to stump and bamboozle that our host maybe started to regret her life choices...but she was resolved to give it a try.

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm and Keith Romer. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Molly Messick and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Next 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 they have said and done, and how it turned out.

Planet Money's newsletter author Greg Rosalsky has spent some time combing through the economic records of Vance and Walz , and has some knowledge to share. Why does Walz support universal free school lunches, and why do some criticize him for it? Why have some called Vance a "Khan-servative?" And, how much do these candidates represent a break from the past?

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Greg Rosalsky. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Sierra Juarez fact-checked it, and it was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's Executive Producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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Table 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 those injuries are enormous. Are they also avoidable?

In 1999, inventor Steve Gass had a realization: Humans conduct electricity pretty well; Wood does not. Could he develop a saw that could tell the difference between the two?

Steve invented a saw that can detect a finger and stop the blade in milliseconds. Then, he tried to license it to the big tool companies. He thought it was a slam dunk proposition: It would dramatically reduce the injuries, and the cost of medical treatments and lost wages associated with them.

On today's episode: What does it take to make table saws safer? When someone gets hurt by a power tool, there are tons of costs, tons of externalities. We all bear the cost of the injury, in some way. So, it can be in society's best interest to minimize those costs. We follow Steve's quest to save thousands of fingers. It brought him face-to-face with roomfuls of power tool company defense attorneys, made him the anti-hero of the woodworking world, and cost the lives of many, many hot dogs.

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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 study found that higher household income correlates with greater emotional well-being, but only up to around $75,000 a year. After that, more money didn't seem to matter.

This was a famous study by two famous academics. The result stood for over a decade. And it feels good, right? Maybe the rich aren't so much happier than anyone else. But researchers have recently done a complete 180 on this idea. In 2021, psychologist Matt Killingsworth found nearly the opposite: That more money does correlate with more happiness. And that the relationship continues well beyond $75,000 per year.

Today on the show: Does more money mean fewer problems? Two researchers with totally different takes come together to hammer out a better understanding of the relationship between money and happiness.

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Sean Saldana, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Today 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 Castle is really the proto-burger chain.

Our friends at the excellent podcast 99 Percent Invisible bring us the origin story of White Castle and trace its influence on the business of fast food, and on American eating habits. The story is about one man who had an idea for a world where you could get a slider anywhere in the country and get the same tasty, onion-y quality each time. Think of this as a forebear of the modern global economy of sameness.

This episode is hosted by Roman Mars and reported by Mackenzie Martin. It was produced by Jeyca Maldonado-Medina, and edited by Joe Rosenberg. Mix and sound design by Martín Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real with additional music by Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Neufeld. Fact-checking by Graham Hacia. Kathy Tu is 99 Percent Invisible's executive producer. Kurt Kohlstedt is their digital director, and Delaney Hall is their senior editor.

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The 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 who managed to get a lower mortgage rate years ago. They have a sort of... champagne problem. Or, "golden handcuffs" as it's called.

These homeowners may find they are "locked in" to their current home. In order to move to a new home, they have to take out a new mortgage at a much higher rate. It is one of the many problems plaguing the housing market right now.

The Fed is expected to start cutting rates next week. Will the golden handcuff mess finally start to unlock? And what does it mean for people looking to buy their first home?

On today's episode: We go deep into the golden handcuff problem and why it matters for everyone (including non-homeowners). We have FOMO about a big economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And we contemplate how to pronounce one of the most important interest rates in the economy: The IORB.

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sean Saldana. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 remake work as we know it? Or, should it not even be called intelligence at all, artificial or otherwise.

On today's episode, we take sides. Two reporters flip a coin to see who argues which point: is AI overrated or underrated? They bring research, real world examples, expert opinions and warm blooded human insight. You decide who makes the best case.

If you're interested in learning more, check out Greg's article 10 reasons why AI is overrated . It includes all sorts of reporting we couldn't fit into the episode. And while you're there, subscribe to the Planet Money newsletter .

Today's episode was hosted by Darian Woods and Greg Rosalsky. These episodes of the Indicator were originally produced by Corey Bridges and they were edited by Paddy Hirsch. They were engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez and Neal Rauch and they were fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannan is the Indicator's editor.

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Summer 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 learn how to survive in a free market economy?

That's part of the idea behind a summer camp at JA BizTown, in Portland, Oregon. Kids at the camp run tiny fake businesses in a tiny fake town. There are retail stores and restaurants, insurance companies and power utilities. As camp begins, a gaggle of child CEOs take out business loans from their peers in the tiny fake banking industry – and they spend the day racing to run their businesses profitably enough to get out of debt before pickup time.

On today's show, Planet Money takes a romp through capitalism summer camp. Will the children of BizTown be able to make ends meet and pay back their loans to the banks? Or will a string of defaults send this dollhouse economy into financial collapse? It's Shark Tank meets Lord of the Flies.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Sally Helm. It was produced by James Sneed, and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Gilly Moon. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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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 that accompany a presidential campaign into something a little less exhausting: A game of bingo.

Follow along as we dig into five terms that we expect to hear in the upcoming presidential debate, along with some others we hope to hear.

You can play along, too, at npr.org/bingo . Play online or print cards to play with friends on debate night!

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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When 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 well-timed because, in 2019, Minneapolis's city council passed one of the most ambitious housing plans in the nation. One aim of that plan was to alleviate the city's housing shortage by encouraging developers like Cody to build, build, build.

But when Cody tried to build, he ran into problems. The kinds of problems that arise all over the country when cities confront a short supply of housing, and try to build their way out.

Today on the show, NIMBYism, YIMBYism and why it's so hard to fix the housing shortage. Told through the story of two apartment buildings in Minneapolis.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and Sofia Shchukina, and edited by Molly Messick. It was engineered by James Willets and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Take 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 video Summer School .

We are assembled here on the lawn of Planet Money University for the greatest graduation in history – because it features the greatest economic minds in history. We'll hear from Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and some surprising guests as they teach us a little bit more economics, and offer a lot of life advice.

But first, we have to wrap up our (somewhat) complete economic history of the world. We'll catch up on the last fifty years or so of human achievement and ask ourselves, has economics made life better for us all?

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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When 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 hoses to retailers at a much lower price.

Then, in 2018, the Trump administration threw companies like Rashid's a lifeline, by announcing tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, including some autoparts. Rashid thought the tariffs would finally force Sunsong to raise its prices, but, somehow, the company never did.

It was a mystery. And it led Rashid to take on a new role – amateur trade fraud investigator. How could his competitor, Sunsong, absorb that 25% tax without changing its prices? And why had all of Sunsong's steering hoses stopped coming from China and started coming from Thailand?

On today's episode, the wide gulf between how tariffs work in theory... and how they actually work in practice. And David Rashid's quest to figure out what, if anything, he could do about it. It's a quest that will involve international detectives, forensic chemists, and a friendship founded on a shared love for hummus.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Molly Messick. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Find 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, it was the early 1900s and the country's leaders were starting to feel like they had the economic situation all figured out. Flash forward a decade or so, and the financial picture was still looking pretty good as America emerged from the first World War.

But then, everything came crashing down with the stock market collapse of 1929. Businesses closed, banks collapsed, one in four people was unemployed, families couldn't make rent, the economy was broken. And this was happening all over the world. Today we'll look at how leaders around the globe intervened to turn the international economy around, and in the process, how the Great Depression rapidly transformed the relationship between government and business forever.

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter .

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You 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 your parents' boring old banks." But the truth is: Even though they might resemble banks, they aren't.

These "bank-like" companies are a type of "fintech" or financial technology company. And this is a story about the potential risks of putting your money into these apps.

Banks go through a whole regulatory gauntlet in order to exist. But, in the past several years, there has been a rise in fintechs that skirt regulations. And many of these pose a real threat to even the most savvy of depositors.

When a little known tech company filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, thousands of people couldn't access the millions of dollars they saved. On today's show, we meet some of the people affected and learn what the fintech industry reveals about banking regulation.

Today's show was hosted by Erika Beras and Sally Helm. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Sofia Shchukina with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Kevin Volkl. It was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez with help from James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Episodes 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, China and its neighbors in East Asia were poor, mostly rural economies. China had been wrecked by a brutal civil war. Taiwan became the home of people fleeing from that conflict. Japan and Korea were rebuilding after their own wars. And then in the later half of the twentieth century, they started their comeback. The governments made some explicit choices that unleashed the power of individual incentives and free market forces and lifted millions of people out of poverty. We focus specifically on China and Taiwan during this time, when they showed a burst of economic progress rarely seen on this globe. Why then? Why there? Can other nations copy that? We'll try to find out.

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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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, don't call it breakdancing), the criteria aren't quite that straightforward. How do you judge an event whose core values are dopeness, freshness, and breaking the rules?

That was the challenge for Storm and Renegade, two legendary b-boys who set out to create a fair and objective scoring system for a dance they say is more of an art than a sport. Over the years, their journey to define the soul of breaking led them to meetings with Olympics bigwigs, debates over the science of dopeness, and a battle with a question many sports — from figure skating to gymnastics — have tried to answer: Can art and sport coexist?

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jenny Lawton. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez with help from James Willets and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Episodes 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 of Summer School so far. An early use of money was to make trade easier. Trade was responsible for the birth of companies and the stock market. And trade was the lifeblood of the early United States.

Today's episode covers 250 years of trade history in three chapters. We start with one of the founding texts of economics, Wealth of Nations, in which Adam Smith argues a country's true value is not measured in gold and silver, but by its people's ability to buy things that enhance their standard of living. Then we'll watch American politicians completely ignore that argument in favor of protecting domestic industries – until one congressman makes a passionate case for free trade as the means to world peace. And finally we'll follow the trade debate up to the modern day, where the tides of American politics have turned toward regulation.

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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Maybe 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 chance that someone somewhere was suing on your behalf and you have real money coming your way... if you know what to do.

Class action settlements are on the rise. And, on today's show, we're helping decipher the class action from the perspective of the average class member. How do class actions work? Why are these notices sometimes undecipherable? And, what do you stand to gain (or lose) by responding?

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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Episodes 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 at the birth of the United States and the chance to set up a whole new economy from scratch. Should there be a centralized bank? Should there be a single currency? We'll travel to two moments in the country's early history when the founders said "nope" to these questions and see what happened.

First we'll witness one of the great economic battles in U.S. history – the president of the United States versus the president of the Bank of the United States – and see how the outcome ushered in an age of financial panics. Then we'll drop in on a time before the U.S. dollar existed as we know it, when you could buy things using one of about 8,000 forms of money circulating in the country. We watch as the Civil War leads to the first standard currency. Along the way, we'll learn why the cycle of economic booms and busts persists to today despite efforts to centralize America's economy throughout history.

This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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Episodes 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 small business. It was run by the owner, maybe the spouse and the kids. Maybe they borrowed money from friends and relatives, but there was only so big it could get. Then came what can only be described as the big bang of economics. Over the span of a few decades, people figured out a way for businesses to sell ownership shares – otherwise known as stocks – and let people trade those shares. There was suddenly money to buy machines and expand.

Today, we head to the Netherlands around the year 1600. First, we'll visit the bridge in Amsterdam where some of the first stock trading took place. Then we track down the Dutch water company that's the source of the oldest "living" bond. It's the origin of stocks and bonds and the stock market and it leads directly to many of the financial innovations that we still have today.

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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Last 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 our heads around what it means now that Harris is almost certainly going to be the Democratic nominee for president.

We expect to see the Harris campaign come out with some official policy proposals in the coming weeks and months. But for now, all we've got are clues, little breadcrumbs that she has dropped throughout her career that might lead us to a rough idea of what economic policies she might support.

Today on the show, we're going to visit three key moments from Harris' political career that might give us an idea of how her economic agenda might look. First, the 2019 presidential primary debates, where she laid out her own economic policies. Next, a vote in her Senate years that shows where she might fall on future trade agreements. And finally, a fight with some of the country's biggest banks from her very first year as Attorney General of California.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Emma Peaslee, edited by Jess Jiang with help from Meg Cramer, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez and Sofia Shchukina. Engineering by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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In 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 taken the colors away? The story of what happened begins with one company, Pantone.

Pantone is known for their Color of the Year forecasts, but they actually make the bulk of their money from selling color reference guides. These guides are the standard for how designers pretty much anywhere talk about color.

On today's show, how did Pantone come to control the language of the rainbow? We look back at the history of Pantone, beginning with the man who made Pantone into the industry standard. And, we hear from Stuart, who tried to break the color monopoly.

Share your thoughts — What color should we choose to be Planet Money's color?

This episode was hosted by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Jeff Guo, and produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Debbie Daughtry with help from Carl Craft. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Who 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? What does history have to say about labor power right now?

We travel to Sicily, Italy in the year 1347, where the bubonic plague is about to strike. The horror known as the Black Death will remake European society in countless ways, but we'll focus on one silver lining: how economic conditions shifted for workers.

Then we head about 500 years into the future, to an English factory at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, where textile workers take up arms against the machines taking their jobs and show how rapidly labor supply and demand can change. This is the famed tale of the Luddites, now a byword for knee jerk anti-technology, but the true story has nuance and a desperate but rational violent rebellion.

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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4.5 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 thousands and thousands of people are really disappointed with what they've been sold. Their panels are more expensive than they should be, and they say it is hard to get someone to come fix them when they break.

It turns out this sometimes crummy customer experience is no accident. It ties back to how big, national solar companies built their businesses in the first place. To entice people to install expensive solar panels, companies developed new financing models which cut upfront costs for customers. And they deployed lots and lots of salespeople to grow their businesses. But in the drive to get more households installing solar panels, consumer costs went up and the focus seemed to shift away from making sure those panels actually worked. All of this left some consumers feeling like they've been sold a lie.

On today's episode, we look into how the residential solar business model has turned some people sour on solar. And we'll try to figure out where the industry could go from here.

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Planet 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 come from? We travel to a remote island in the Pacific Ocean for the answer. Then we'll visit France in the year 1714, where a man on the lam tries to revolutionize the country's entire monetary system, and comes impressively close to the modern economy we have today, before it all falls apart. Check out our Summer School video cheat sheet on the origins of money at the Planet Money TikTok .

The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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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 fighting for overhead space.

How did we get here? Most of the inconveniences we think about when we fly can be traced back to the period of time just after the federal government deregulated the airlines.

When commercial air travel took off in the 1940s, the government regulated how many national airlines were allowed to exist, where they were allowed to fly, and how much they could charge for tickets. But the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 swept all these restrictions aside – and stopped providing subsidies for the air carriers. Airlines had to compete on ticket prices. That competition led to a more bare-bones flying experience, but it also made air travel a lot more affordable.

In this episode, we trace the evolution of air travel over the past century to discover whether flying really is worse today — or if it's actually better than ever. We'll board a plane from the "golden age" of air travel, hear the history of one of the original budget airlines and meet feuding airline CEOs. Along the way, we'll see how economic forces have shaped the airline industry into what it is today, and what role we, as consumers, have played.

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At 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 healthcare, military systems, transportation, and clean energy. And they're also critical for artificial intelligence, providing the hardware needed to train complex machine learning.

On today's episode, we're bringing you two stories from our daily show The Indicator , diving into the two most important semiconductor chip companies, which have transformed the industry over the past 40 years.

First, we trace NVIDIA's journey from making niche graphics cards for gaming to making the most advanced chips in the world — and briefly becoming the world's biggest company. Next, we see how the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's decision to manufacture chips for its competition instead of itself flipped the entire industry on its head, and moved the vast majority of the world's advanced chip production to Taiwan.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episode about NVIDIA by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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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 surge of immigration hurt their wages?

The debate within the field of economics often centers on Nobel-prize winner David Card's ground-breaking paper, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market." Today on the show: the fight over that paper, and what it tells us about the debate over immigration.

More Listening:
- When The Boats Arrive
- The Men on the Roof

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Annie Brown, and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(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 carriages.

The carriage tax could be considered the first federal wealth tax of the United States. It led to a huge fight over the power to tax in the U.S. Constitution, a fight that continues today.

Listen back to our 2019 episode: "Could A Wealth Tax Work?"

Listen to The Indicator's 2023 episode: "Could SCOTUS outlaw wealth taxes?"

This episode was hosted by Greg Rosalsky and Bryant Urstadt. It was originally produced by Nick Fountain and Liza Yeager, with help from Sarah Gonzalez. Today's update was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Molly Messick and our executive producer, Alex Goldmark.

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When 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. Then Juul blew up, fueled a public health crisis over teen vaping, and inspired a regulatory crackdown. But when the government finally stepped in to solve the problem of youth vaping, it may have actually made things worse.

Today's episode is a collaboration with the new podcast series "Backfired: the Vaping Wars." You can listen to the full series at audible.com/Backfired .

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Leon Neyfakh. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang with help from Annie Brown. It was fact checked by Sofia Shchukina and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 that just implanted a computer chip into a human brain. And he believes there's a pretty high probability everything is a simulation and we are living inside of it.

But the latest Elon Musk headline-grabbing drama is less something out of sci-fi, and more something pulled from HBO's "Succession."

Elon Musk helped take Tesla from the brink of bankruptcy to one of the biggest companies in the world. And his compensation for that was an unprecedentedly large pay package that turned him into the richest person on Earth. But a judge made a decision about that pay package that set off a chain of events resulting in quite possibly the most expensive, highest stakes vote in publicly traded company history.

The ensuing battle over Musk's compensation is not just another wild Elon tale. It's a lesson in how to motivate the people running the biggest companies that – like it or not – are shaping our world. It's a classic economics problem with a very 2024 twist.

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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 little shrinkflation?

From Cookie Monster to President Biden, everybody is complaining about shrinkflation these days. But when we asked the packaging and pricing experts, they told us that shrinkflation is just one move in a much larger, much weirder 4-D chess game.

The name of that game is "price pack architecture." This is the idea that you shouldn't just sell your product in one or two sizes. You should sell your product in a whole range of different sizes, at a whole range of different price points. Over the past 15 years, price pack architecture has completely changed how products are marketed and sold in the United States.

Today, we are going on a shopping cart ride-along with one of those price pack architects. She's going to pull back the curtain and show us why some products are getting larger while others are getting smaller, and tell us about the adorable little soda can that started it all.

By the end of the episode, you'll never look at a grocery store the same way again.

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Graphite 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 "pencils," and everyone would clap and cheer. But true fans of graphite would be shouting out "batteries!" Because graphite is a key ingredient in another important thing that we all use in our everyday lives: lithium ion batteries.

Almost all of the battery-ready graphite in the world comes from one place: China. That's actually true of lots of the materials that go into batteries, like processed lithium and processed cobalt. Which is why it was such a big deal when, earlier this year, President Biden announced a tariff package that will make a bunch of Chinese imports more expensive. Included in this package are some tariffs on Chinese graphite. He wants to create a new battery future—one that doesn't rely so much on China.

In this episode, we get down on the ground to look at this big supply chain story through the lens of one critical mineral. And we visit a small town that realizes that it might be the perfect place to create an American graphite industry. And we find that declaring a new battery future is one thing, but making it happen is another thing entirely.

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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 have not been able to nail down how much debt a country can safely take on. But they have tried.

Back in 2010, two economists took a look at 20 countries over the course of decades, and sometimes centuries, and came back with a number. Their analysis suggested that economic growth slowed significantly once national debt passed 90% of annual GDP... and that is when the fight over debt and growth really took off.

On today's episode: a deep dive on what we know, and what we don't know, about when exactly national debt becomes a problem. We will also try to figure out how worried we should be about the United States' current debt total of 26 trillion dollars.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Molly Messick. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez with help from Sofia Shchukina and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 fat out of the cow, cook the fat, dip wicks into the fat. All that--for not very much light. Now, if we want to light a whole room, we just flip a switch.

The history of light explains why the world today is the way it is. It explains why we aren't all subsistence farmers, and why we can afford to have artists and massage therapists and plumbers. (And, yes, people who make podcasts about the history of light.) The history of light is the history of economic growth--of things getting faster, cheaper, and more efficient.

On today's show: How we got from dim little candles made out of cow fat, to as much light as we want at the flick of a switch.

Today's show was hosted by Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum. It was originally produced by Caitlin Kenney and Damiano Marchetti. Today's rerun was produced by James Sneed, and edited by Jenny Lawton. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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There 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 Telegram. And law enforcement has been even more frustrated by encrypted phones, specifically designed to thwart authorities from snooping.

But in 2018, in a story that seems like it's straight out of a spy novel, the FBI was approached with an offer: Would they like to get into the encrypted cell phone business? What if they could convince criminals to use their phones to plan and document their crimes — all while the FBI was secretly watching? It could be an unprecedented peek into the criminal underground.

To pull off this massive sting operation, the FBI needed to design a cell phone that criminals wanted to use and adopt. Their mission: to make a tech platform for the criminal underworld. And in many ways, the FBI's journey was filled with all the hallmarks of many Silicon Valley start-ups.

On this show, we talk with journalist Joseph Cox , who wrote a new book about the FBI's cell phone business, called Dark Wire . And we hear from the federal prosecutor who became an unlikely tech company founder.

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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 that money. Every year, we hear more and more stories of financial heartbreak. What you don't often hear about is what happens after the scam?

On today's show, we follow one woman who was scammed out of over $800,000 on her quest to get her money back. That journey takes her from the halls of the FBI to the fraud departments of some of the country's biggest financial institutions. And it offers a window into how the systems that are theoretically designed to help the victims of financial cybercrime actually work in practice.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Keith Romer. It was engineered by Neal Rauch and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On 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 of items: a life-time supply of toilet paper, gold rings, $20,000 in cash. Over the years, he's developed a keen eye for what has value and what might sell. He's become a kind of trash savant.

As we ride with Jon, he shows us the whole ecosystem of how our reusable trash gets dealt with — from metals (ferrous and non-ferrous) to tires to cardboard. And we see how our junk can sometimes get a second chance at life.

If you can understand the junk market like Jon, you can understand dozens of trends in our economy.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and James Sneed, and produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Engineering by Josh Newell. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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By 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 performance. We're just changing priorities, making a strategic shift."

It's like the business version of: "It's not you, it's me." And just like a breakup, it feels terrible.

This happened to a man we're calling V, who was working at the same company as his husband when he got laid off. And for V, the experience felt shocking. It left him and his husband with a lot of unresolved questions.

On today's show, the story of that layoff. And we help that couple get some answers by taking their questions to an HR expert who gives the low-down on lay-offs.

This story is adapted from a 3-part series on layoffs produced by Yowei Shaw for her show, Proxy. The layoff series was edited by John DeLore with research and reporting help from Kim Nederveen Pieterse. You can listen to the full layoff series from Proxy wherever you get your podcasts, and you can support the show and find out more by going to patreon.com/proxypodcast . And you can check out her original song "Gold Star" on Spotify and YouTube .

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Last 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 airlines and even the military.

What these computers had in common was that they all relied on open source software.

A strange fact about modern life is that most of the computers responsible for it are running open source software. That is, software mostly written by unpaid, sometimes even anonymous volunteers. Some crucial open source programs are managed by just a single overworked programmer . And as the world learned last month, these programs can become attractive targets for hackers.

In this case, the hackers had infiltrated a popular open source program called XZ. Slowly, over the course of two years, they transformed XZ into a secret backdoor. And if they hadn't been caught, they could have taken control of large swaths of the internet.

On today's show, we get the story behind the XZ hack and what made it possible. How the hackers took advantage of the strange way we make modern software. And what that tells us about the economics of one of the most important industries in the world.

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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. And we wondered, why is that?

Today on the show, we revisit a Planet Money classic episode: Why Gold? Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum will peruse the periodic table of the elements with one goal in mind: to learn which element would really make the best money.

This classic Planet Money episode was part of the Planet Money Buys Gold series, and was hosted by Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum.

This rerun was hosted by Sally Helm, produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Keith Romer, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Google Podcasts , the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

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Karen McDonough of Quincy, Mass., was enjoying her tea one morning in the dining room when she saw something odd outside her window: a group of people gathering on her lawn. A man with a clipboard told her that her home no longer belonged to her. It didn't matter that she'd been paying her mortgage for 17 years and was current on it. She was a nurse with a good job and had raised her kids there. But this was a foreclosure sale, and she was going to lose her house.

McDonough had fallen victim to what's called a zombie second mortgage. Homeowners think these loans are long dead. But then the loans come back to life because they get bought up, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, by debt collectors that then move to collect and foreclose on people's homes.

On today's episode: An NPR investigation reveals the practice to be widespread. Also, what are zombie mortgages? Is all this legal? And is there any way for homeowners to fight the zombies?

You can read more about zombie second mortgages online at: npr.org/zombie

Correction: An earlier version of this episode description misspelled Karen McDonough's last name as MacDonough.

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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 business of video games answered in todays episode. The Indicator just wrapped a weeklong series decoding the economics of the video game industry, we're excerpting some highlights.

First, we meet some of the workers who are struggling with the heavy demands placed on them in their booming industry, and how they are fighting back.

Then, we check in on how game developers are pulling in new audiences by creatively designing for people who couldn't always play. How has accessibility become an increasingly important priority for game developers? And, how can more players join in the fun?

You can hear the rest of our weeklong series on the gaming industry at this link , or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode was hosted by Wailin Wong, Darian Woods, and Adrian Ma. Corey Bridges produced this episode with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Kate Concannon, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Today 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 a debate in the U.S. about how much regulation is the right amount and how much is too much.

This episode was made in collaboration with NPR's Throughline . For more about Ralph Nader and safety regulations, listen to their original episode, "Ralph Nader, Consumer Crusader ."

This Planet Money episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang.

The Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Julie Caine, Anya Steinberg, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, Peter Balonon-Rosen, Irene Noguchi, and fact-checking by Kevin Volkl. The episode was mixed by Josh Newell.

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(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 looking to change jobs can be locked out of their fields.

On today's episode: how one man tried to end noncompete contracts in his home state of Hawaii. And we update that story with news of a recent ruling from the Federal Trade Commission that could ban most noncompete agreements nationwide.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Amanda Aronczyk. The original piece was produced by Dave Blanchard, edited by Ebony Reed, and engineered by Isaac Rodrigues. The update was reported and produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Keith Romer, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Josephine Nyounai.

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About 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 says they had been in his family for more than five hundred years – since the 16th century.

Yagya is a kind of Hindu priest for his clan. And he says, these Bhairav masks were very holy. People made offerings to them during Dashaun, a festival held in the fall.

Yagya thought the masks were gone for good. He didn't realize... they were hiding in plain sight.

On today's show: The story of a group of amateur art detectives who use modern tools, subterfuge, and the power of the law to return stolen artifacts to their rightful owners. And we dive into the world of high-end auctions and art museums to ask: Can the art world survive the legacy of cultural theft?

Clarification: This episode has been updated to clarify that the reason the Rubin Museum is shuttering its building is not directly linked to repatriation.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(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 is due, in part, to the difficulties of one important phase in the life cycle of a union: setting up a union in the first place. One place where that has been particularly clear is at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Back in 2008, Volkswagen announced that they would be setting up production in the United States after a 20-year absence. They planned to build a new auto manufacturing plant in Chattanooga.

Volkswagen has plants all over the world, all of which have some kind of worker representation, and the company said that it wanted that for Chattanooga too. So, the United Auto Workers, the union that traditionally represents auto workers, thought they would be able to successfully unionize this plant.

They were wrong.

In this episode, we tell the story of the UAW's 10-year fight to unionize the Chattanooga plant. And, what other unions can learn from how badly that fight went for labor.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Josephine Nyounai, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Keith Romer. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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For 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 feeding frenzy over the remains of the company.

On today's show, we do a deep dive into the anatomy of the FTX bankruptcy. We meet the vulture investors who make markets out of risky debt, and hear how customers fare in the secretive world of bankruptcy claims trading.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 struggle is in fact real. It is not just in our heads. Sure, sure, some data is looking great. But not all of it.

What's interesting, is exactly why the bad feels so much worse than the good feels good. Today on the show, we look into a few theories on why feelings are just not matching up with data. We'll break down some numbers and how to think about them. Then we look at grocery prices in particular, and an effort to combat unfair pricing using a mostly forgotten 1930's law. Will it actually help?

Today's episode is adapted from episodes for Planet Money's daily show, The Indicator . Subscribe here .

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TikTok, 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, there are a lot of tips and tricks, many of them questionable, about saving on your taxes.

On this show, we run some of the greatest hits of TikTok tax advice by some bonafide tax experts. We'll talk about whether you can use gambling losses to reduce your tax bill, whether your pets qualify you for tax deductions – and we'll fact check the claim that all rich people own expensive Mercedes G-Wagons... for tax purposes.

Along the way, we'll drill down on the concepts like taxable income and the standard deduction. And we'll ask why so many videos on TikTok suggest that you (fraudulently) categorize personal expenses as business expenses. Sometimes with a literal wink and a nod.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain. It was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Willa Rubin, who also fact-checked this episode. It was edited by Molly Messick and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's Executive Producer.

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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 was at a fair where lots of people were guessing the weight of an ox, so he decided to take the average of all their guesses and compare it to the correct answer.

What he found shocked him. The average of their guesses was almost exactly accurate. The crowd was off by just one pound.

This eerie phenomenon—this idea that the crowd is right—drives everything from the stock market to the price of orange juice.

So, we decided to test it for ourselves. We asked Planet Money listeners to guess the weight of a cow.

Spoiler: You can see the results here .

This episode was hosted by David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein. It was produced by Nadia Wilson and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Last 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 ending.

Back in the 1980s, Japan performed something of an economic miracle. It transformed itself into the number two economy in the world. From Walkmans to Toyotas, the U.S. was awash in Japanese imports. And Japanese companies went on a spending spree. Sony bought up Columbia Pictures. Mitsubishi became the new majority owners of Rockefeller Center.

But in the early 1990s, it all came to a sudden halt. Japan went from being one of the fastest growing countries in the world to one of the slowest. And this economic stagnation went on and on and on. For decades.

On this episode, the unnerving story of Japan's Lost Decades: How did one of the most advanced economies in the world just fall down one day — and not be able to get up? Japan's predicament changed our understanding of what can go wrong in a modern economy. And gave us some new tools to try and deal with it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and engineered by Cena Loffredo. It was edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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In 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 unusual choice - he's a personal injury lawyer, and this was going to be an antitrust case.

But Brandon knew Mike was great in front of a jury. And that he'd won huge settlements for his clients in the past.

So the lawyer friend drops by Mike's office, and pitches him the case. Rhonda and Scott Burnett had just sold their home for $250,000, and out of that amount, they had paid $15,000 in commission (plus a small fee), which was split between two real estate agents - even though they had hired only one. And the commission was high - 6%. Mike's friend said the whole thing seemed... suspicious. Maybe even illegal.

Mike agreed to take the case, a case that would soon become bigger than one about just what had happened to the Burnetts. It would become a fight about the way homes are bought and sold in the U.S. and challenge the way real estate agents have done business for more than 100 years.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Keith Romer. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Keith Romer, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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There'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 Ukraine any money to fight off Russia's invasion. And some taxpayers have concerns about how they might be funding weapons that have been used to kill civilians in Gaza. And there are questions about how much individual taxpayers contribute to war efforts, generally.

So in this episode, we attempt to do the math: The average taxpayers' contribution to Israel and Ukraine. It's not so simple. But in attempting to do this math, we get this window into the role of our tax dollars on foreign assistance, and how the U.S. sells weapons to other countries.

For links to some of the reports we looked at to report this episode, check out the episode page on NPR.org.

This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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(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 to come back.

If you're a restaurateur, your gut tells you "more seats, more money," but, in this episode, restaurant design expert Stephani Robson upends all that and more. She helps Roni Mazumdar, owner of the casual Indian spot Adda in New York's Long Island City, rethink how a customer behaves at a table, and how small changes can lead to a lot more money.

It's a data-driven restaurant makeover.

This episode was originally produced by Darian Woods and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler produced this update. Engineering by Isaac Rodrigues and Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark originally edited the show and is now Planet Money's executive producer.

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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 Facebook, Snapchat, and beyond. According to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Temu is one of the most downloaded iPhone apps in the country, with around 50 million monthly active users.

On today's show, we go deep on Temu: How does it work, how did it manage such a quick rise in the U.S., and what hints might it offer us about the future of retail? Plus, we'll talk to the bicycle-loving U.S. Representative who is working to shut down a loophole that has proved very helpful to Temu's swift ascent.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi with reporting from Emily Feng. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Keith Romer, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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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, skyscrapers... all needed steel.

But in the second half of the 20th century, the industry's power started to decline. Foreign steel companies gained more market power and the established steel industry in the U.S. was hesitant to change and invest in newer technologies. But then, a smaller company took a chance and changed the industry.

On today's episode: What can the fall of a once-great industry teach us about innovation and technology? And why you should never underestimate an underdog.

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Mary Childs. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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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 decades ago to help fund these two U.S. territories. In 2021 alone, these rum tax payments added up to more than $700 million.

Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands split the money according to how much rum each territory produces. And the territories produce a lot of it — especially Puerto Rico, which single handedly supplies the majority of the rum that Americans drink.

But in 2008, the U.S. Virgin Islands pulled off a coup. It convinced one of the largest rum brands in the world, Captain Morgan, to abandon Puerto Rico and to shift its operations to the tiny island of St. Croix.

This was the beginning of the Rum Wars.

On today's show, the story of how a scheme designed to help Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands turned them into bitter rivals. And how it ended up putting hundreds of millions of dollars a year — U.S. taxpayer dollars — into the pockets of big liquor companies instead.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Molly Messick, engineered by Cena Loffredo, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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