Planet Money
By NPR
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Description
The economy, explained, with stories and surprises. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening. That's what we're going for at Planet Money. People seem to like it.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 |
Clean#599: The Invisible Wall | A man goes looking for the invisible wall that traps poor people in poverty. Finding it almost gets him killed. | 5/31/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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2 |
Explicit#774: Unspeakable Trademark | You can name your business whatever you want. But the government won't register it as a trademark if it thinks it's offensive. It gets weird when you try to decide what is too offensive to trademark. | 5/26/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
3 |
Clean#773: Slot Flaws Scofflaws | As long as there have been casinos, people have tried to cheat them. The latest attempt was by a group of hackers who tried to take down slot machines using math, iPhones, and a whole lot of swiping. | 5/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
4 |
Clean#772: Small Change | How fast is the world really changing? The answer has implications for everything from how the next generation will live to whether robots really will take all our jobs. | 5/19/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
5 |
Clean#606: Spreadsheets! | The creation of the electronic spreadsheet transformed industries. But its effects ran deeper than that. | 5/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
6 |
Clean#771: When India's Cash Disappeared, Part Two | What happened when India's Prime Minister declared most of the paper money in India worthless? We travel to India to see what happened after the country's demonetization. | 5/12/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
7 |
Clean#770: When India's Cash Disappeared, Part One | Something incredible happened in India about six months ago. The government declared most of the paper money invalid. Demonetization they called it. Today, we meet the man who came up with the plan. | 5/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
8 |
Clean#769: Speed Dating For Economists | We visit a job market created by economists, for economists. It's a hyper-efficient, optimized system, tested by game theorists, tweaked by a Nobel Prize winner, but it requires comfortable shoes. | 5/5/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
9 |
Clean#768: A Chat With Ben Bernanke | Ten years ago, two little-known funds at Bear Stearns blew up, and the financial crisis was on its way. Today, we ask the person at the center of it all, former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, why it happened. | 5/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
10 |
Clean#553: The Dollar At The Center Of The World | Today on the show, how a New Hampshire hotel filled with boozing economists saved the global economy. | 4/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
11 |
Clean#767: Georgetown, Louisiana, Part Two | In 1838, the Maryland Jesuits sold 272 people, slaves, to pay the debts of Georgetown University. We talk with the descendants about what - if anything - they're owed. | 4/26/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
12 |
Clean#766: Georgetown, Louisiana, Part One | For the residents of a small Louisiana town, there's always been a question about their past: How'd they get there? Solving the mystery only raised more questions. | 4/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
13 |
Clean#765: The Holiday Industrial Complex | Where do holidays like National Potato Chip Day and Argyle Day come from? We trace the roots of one made-up holiday until we find out who is running the global holiday machine. | 4/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
14 |
Clean#381: When Business Loves Regulation | One in three American jobs require a license. Today on the show, why those licensing rules hurt the U.S. economy. | 4/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
15 |
Clean#764: Pub In A Box | One man figured out how to reproduce the magic of an Irish pub, and ship it in a container to anywhere in the world. | 4/12/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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16 |
Clean#763: BOTUS | On today's show, we get in on the future of investing. We build an automated stock-trading bot. It analyzes the twitter feed of President Donald Trump, then trades stocks with real money. Our money. You can follow our bot on twitter, @BOTUS. | 4/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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17 |
Clean#531: The Tough, The Sweet, The Nosy | The tricks and mind games tax collectors use to get people to pay up. | 4/5/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
18 |
Clean#762: The Fine Print | On today's show: Snuggies, printer toner, and a banking road trip. Three stories about what happens when you actually read the fine print. | 3/31/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
19 |
Clean#650: The Business Genius Behind Get Out | Jason Blum makes a lot of movies and makes them cheap. So why are so many turning into blockbusters? | 3/29/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
20 |
Clean#761: The Bank War | A populist president versus the most powerful banker in America. | 3/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
21 |
Clean#760: Tax Hero | One professor had a way to make filing taxes easy and painless. It worked. People loved it. But then a big tax lobby heard about it... | 3/22/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
22 |
Clean#759: What's It Worth To You? | Three short stories about putting a price on something hard to value precisely. We go from $4.66 under a pillow all the way up to $1 trillion across every inch of highway in America. | 3/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
23 |
Clean#522: The Invention Of 'The Economy' | A hundred years ago, nobody talked about "the economy." That's because easy ways to measure and talk about it hadn't been invented. On today's show: how we started boiling nations down to a number. | 3/15/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
24 |
Clean#758: Can Trump Take The Money? | The Constitution contains a paragraph known as the Emoluments Clause. It's 49 words meant to prevent foreign influence on US officials. How does it apply to a president with a global business empire? | 3/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
25 |
Clean#596: Hacking The iPhone For Fun, Profit, And Maybe Espionage | Wikileaks released documents listing the hacks the CIA uses to spy on people. So we revisit our story on hackers for hire: people hunting for flaws in your phone to sell to people, or even the CIA. | 3/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
26 |
Clean#757: Strong Feelings About Dodd-Frank | President Trump does not like Dodd-Frank, the 2010 law that transformed banking regulation. On today's show, we ask: What are the key parts of the law? And how are they likely to change? | 3/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
27 |
Clean#513: Dear Economist, I Need A Date | Here at Planet Money, we often wonder: how useful is economics in our everyday lives? Could the principles of economics be applied to the most intimate of human experiences, like, say, love? | 3/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
28 |
Clean#756: The Bees Go To California | Early every year, 30 billion bees make their way across the country to California's Central Valley. Here's why. | 2/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
29 |
Clean#654: When The Boats Arrive | In the span of a few months in 1980, more than 100,000 Cuban immigrants arrived in Miami. So what happened to Florida's economy with all these new people coming in? And what can we learn from it? | 2/22/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
30 |
Clean#755: The Phone At The End Of The World | A charismatic populist president wanted to boost manufacturing and create jobs. She told companies, 'if you want to sell your stuff here, you have to build it here.' This is what happened. | 2/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
31 |
Clean#754: I'm So Happy For You! | Here at Planet Money, our favorite stories are the ones we wish we'd done ourselves. On the show, we call out rivals and colleagues who did what we try to do better than we could have done it. | 2/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
32 |
Clean#753: Blockchain Gang | Charlie Shrem went to prison. While he was there, he thought up a better way to move money behind bars. Now he's out and trying to sell his idea to international investors. | 2/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
33 |
Clean#436: If Economists Controlled The Borders | What would the perfect immigration system look like? We ask three economists and get three very different answers. (None of which include building a wall.) | 2/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
34 |
Clean#752: Eagles vs. Chickens | Picture an organic farm, with thousands of free-range chickens roaming wide-open land. Now picture it from above, from the vantage of a soaring bald eagle. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet. | 2/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
35 |
Clean#751: The Thing About That Border Tax | Over the next few months, we're going to explain President Trump's economic plans. Today: a totally new idea for corporate taxes. What's the plan, what's the theory behind it, and does it work? | 2/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
36 |
Clean#750: Retraining Day | When an American loses his/her job to trade, there is program to help. It's been around for decades. It makes a lot of sense. It is a generous program. And almost nobody's heard of it. But why? | 1/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
37 |
Clean#632: The Chicken Tax | President Trump talks about putting tariffs on foreign cars. But there are already tariffs on auto imports and one got there because of chickens in Germany. This is how trade barriers tend to spread. | 1/25/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
38 |
Clean#749: Professor Blackjack | Ed Thorp started his career teaching math at MIT. Then he slid sideways into blackjack, changed the game forever, and set his sights on Wall Street investing. He changed that forever too. | 1/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
39 |
Clean#748: Undoing Obama | Congress writes laws, but the president makes the rules that put the laws in action. President Obama's staff has been scrambling to lock in rules before Trump takes the helm. But will they stick? | 1/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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40 |
Clean#747: The Man Who Sued Iran | When Steve Flatow's daughter was killed in a terror attack, he wanted someone to pay. His target was the Iranian government. His quest would pit him against both Iran and the White House. | 1/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
41 |
Clean#577: The Kansas Experiment | A Republican governor lives the dream. He cuts taxes dramatically in his state and he promises good times ahead. But the good times do not come. | 1/11/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
42 |
Clean#746: Wall Street Goes To Vegas | Wall Street traders and Las Vegas gamblers have a lot in common. But when a Wall Street firm set up shop taking Vegas bets, both sides got a surprise. | 1/6/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
43 |
Clean#443: Don't Believe The Hype | People are talking about how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is about to hit a new record: Twenty thousand. We have a pretty strong opinion about the Dow. We think you should ignore it. | 1/4/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
44 |
Clean#745: The Rest Of The Story, 2016 Edition | It's time for an annual Planet Money tradition--we revisit some of our favorite stories from the past year, and see what's changed since we turned off our mics. | 12/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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45 |
Clean#744: The Last Bank Bailout | The man who ran the last bank bailout has a plan to prevent the next one. | 12/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
46 |
Clean587: Jubilee! (?) | There's an idea that dates back at least to biblical times. That there should be a moment when debts are forgiven. Its called a jubilee. One country tried it. | 12/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
47 |
Clean#743: 50 Ways to Leave Your Union | Today on the show, two unions separated by 200 years, an ocean and an exit clause. The United States has no exit clause. It led to civil war. Europe, on the other hand, has Article 50. | 12/21/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
48 |
Clean#742: Making Bank | On today's show, how a band of medieval warrior monks sworn to poverty got into the banking business and changed the way we think about money forever. | 12/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
49 |
Clean#592: Bell Wars | A special holiday episode about the epic, decades-long feud between the two companies that make just about every handbell in the world. | 12/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
50 |
Clean#741: Amy and Steve vs. Facebook | The story of a court case. On one side, the best lawyers money can buy. On the other, a night school lawyer who had never argued a case before. The outcome could affect everyone on the internet. | 12/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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51 |
Clean#740: Burnout | All types of companies are struggling with burnout. Many try to fix it. Most of them fail. One exception: A 26-year-old call center manager, with stress balls and costumes in her arsenal. | 12/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
52 |
Clean#739: Finding The Fake-News King | We track down a fake-news creator in the suburbs, uncover his empire of fake-news sites, and get him to tell us his secrets. | 12/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
53 |
Clean#534: The History Of Light | In this episode: How we got from candles made out of cow fat to as much light as we want. The history of light is the history of economic growth — of things getting faster, cheaper, and more efficient. | 11/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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54 |
Clean#738: Russian Cowboys | Russia's latest ambition: To build a steak empire. On today's show, a fourth-generation American cowboy teaches Russian ranchers how to make American-style steaks. Some things get lost in translation. | 11/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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55 |
Clean#737: 17 Deals In 17 Minutes | We go on a madcap dash through discounts, bargains and tough tradeoffs. Like the headline says: We bring you stories of 17 deals in just 17 minutes (not counting the intro, the ad, or the credits). | 11/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
56 |
Clean#736: Messy Nobel | What happens when a creativity guru meets the winner of this year's Nobel Memorial Prize in economics? You get life lessons in making art, and negotiating contracts. | 11/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
57 |
Clean#574: The Buffalo Talk-Off | The story of a guy who tried to make something of himself by getting into a rough business. And the story of a time when the world went wild for debt. | 11/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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58 |
Clean#735: President Trump | Candidates promise all kinds of things. But once they get into office, it's not always possible to carry through on them. We ask, can Trump do the things he's pledged to do? | 11/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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59 |
Clean#734: The Trump Indicators | Donald Trump is our president elect. We look at three economic indicators to see what they can tell us about a Trump presidency. | 11/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
60 |
Clean#733: A Trunk Full of Truffles | Truffles are a lumpy, smelly fungus. They're also one of the most coveted foods in the world. Why are they so expensive? And why are people willing to pay so much for them? | 11/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
61 |
Clean#413: Our Fake Candidate Meets The People | On today's show, Planet Money's economist-approved fake candidate makes his first ads. Then we nervously watch to see what a focus group thinks of them. | 11/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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62 |
Clean#732: Bad Form, Wells Fargo | Banks like Wells Fargo have a weapon that can destroy an employee's career: A form. A long, boring form most people don't even know exists. | 10/28/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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63 |
Clean#387: The No-Brainer Economic Platform | Behold the Planet Money economic platform, crafted by brilliant economists of all stripes, and pure poison to any politician who embraces it. | 10/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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64 |
Clean#731: How Venezuela Imploded | Venezuela has just about every economic advantage a country could ask for: fertile land, good climate, educated population, and oil, lots and lots of oil. So how did it go so wrong? | 10/21/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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65 |
Clean#730: Self Checkout | A doctor treating psychiatric patients in an emergency room created the first self-checkout machine in his spare time. Now he can't stand self checkout. So we take him shopping. | 10/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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66 |
Clean#729: When Subaru Came Out | Subaru's sales had been slumping for years. So the car company took a big risk and targeted a group of consumers that just about everyone else was ignoring. | 10/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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67 |
Clean#627: The Miracle Apple | How we got from mealy, nasty apples to apples that taste delicious. The story starts with a breeder who discovered a miracle apple. But discovering that apple wasn't enough. | 10/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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68 |
Explicit#728: The Wells Fargo Hustle | We take you inside the headquarters of Wells Fargo bank. It's a place where a bunch of young, stressed-out workers were rewarded for doing some very bad things. | 10/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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69 |
Clean#521: The Town That Loves Death | On today's episode, we'll take you to a place where dying has become acceptable dinner conversation. A place that also happens to have the lowest healthcare spending of any region in the country. | 10/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
70 |
Clean#727: You Asked For It, Again | New show! You asked us questions about the economy and oddities in your world. We answer. | 9/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
71 |
Clean#726: Terms of the Debate | We made an audio glossary for the confusing economic jargon that came up during the first presidential debate. | 9/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
72 |
Clean#725: Trade Show | On today's show: The fight over free trade. Come for the man who dreamed of world peace through trade. Stay for Robert Smith in the mean streets of Seattle. | 9/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
73 |
Clean#555: Why Is The Milk In The Back Of The Store? | We test two competing theories, from a food writer and an economist. Are customers being forced to walk through the store or is it just practical to keep the milk at the back? | 9/21/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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74 |
Clean#573: Why Textbook Prices Keep Climbing | Prices of new textbooks have been going up like crazy — faster than food, cars, even healthcare. On today's show: Why textbooks have gotten so expensive. | 9/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
75 |
Clean#724: Cat Scam | The internet was supposed to get rid of middlemen--but instead they are taking over the global economy. | 9/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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76 |
Clean#566: The Zoo Economy | If you're a zoo or aquarium and you want a new animal, you don't use money to get it. You have to find another way. In this episode, we investigate: How many mackerel is a flock of puffins worth? | 9/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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77 |
Clean#723: The Risk Farmers | There is a mystery in many poor countries. Why don't farmers specialize and grow more food? Two economists with very different theories go head to head to find out. | 9/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
78 |
Clean#532: The Wild West of the Internet | For decades, most websites ended in either .com, .net, or .org. But a few years ago, everything changed. | 9/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
79 |
Explicit#722: The New Telenovela | One telenovela actress-turned-executive decided to write a new kind of drama. Her show changed the landscape of Spanish language TV--and of all TV. | 8/31/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
80 |
Explicit#721: Unbuilding A City | Why is it so hard to knock down 17 vacant houses in a shrinking city? | 8/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
81 |
CleanOil #5: Imagine A World Without Oil | Last of five episodes. We follow the Planet Money oil to a gas station. And we ask: What would our world look like if there were no fossil fuels? | 8/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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82 |
CleanOil #4: How Oil Got Into Everything | Fourth of five episodes. Oil is in our sneakers, our clothes, and the computer or phone you're using right now. On today's show: The story of the man who made it happen. | 8/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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83 |
CleanOil #3: How Fracking Changed the World | Third of five episodes. The Planet Money oil faces a test, we sell it, and we meet the man who set off the fracking boom in America. | 8/17/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
84 |
CleanOil #2: The Price Of Oil | Second of five episodes. Oil is priced down to the penny, and the price changes every day. Who sets that price? | 8/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
85 |
CleanOil #1: We Buy Oil | First of five episodes. We're getting into the oil business. We go to Kansas, and negotiate with a preacher to buy 100 barrels of crude. | 8/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
86 |
Clean#524: Mr Jones' Act | There's an obscure law that governs just about anything that travels by ship in the U.S. — bananas, hairdryers, gasoline, even people. Economists do not like it. But it just won't go away. | 8/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
87 |
Clean#715: The Sewing Robot | Building a robot that can sew even simple clothes is surprisingly hard. A retired professor in Atlanta thinks he's solved the problem. It could bring textile manufacturing back to America. | 8/3/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
88 |
Clean#548: Project Eavesdrop | The computer or phone that you use knows a lot about you. It knows your secrets — and it might be giving them away. | 7/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
89 |
Clean#714: Can a Game Show Lose? | Crafting a TV game show is a balancing act. Producers have to carefully calibrate the rules, the drama and the prizes just right. Sometimes they get it way wrong. | 7/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
90 |
Clean#576: When Women Stopped Coding | A lot of computing pioneers were women. For decades, the number of women in computer science was growing. But in 1984, something changed. | 7/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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91 |
Explicit#713: Paying for the Crime | A tale of violence, payback, and how to make things right. | 7/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
92 |
Clean#712: I Want My Money Back | Three stories of people getting their money back — or trying to. From a hospital, a scammer, and the ever-exciting global bond market. | 7/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
93 |
Clean#711: Hooked on Heroin | Scoring a fix is cheap and today's heroin is strong. But that's just part of the reason why America got hooked. Today on the show, we trace the roots of America's heroin epidemic with a dealer, a user, and a DEA agent. | 7/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
94 |
Clean#710: The Brexit Break-Up | Brexit is like a breakup. So today, a divorce story in two acts. We hear from both sides: The people who voted to leave, and the Europeans being left. | 7/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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95 |
Clean#575: The Fondue Conspiracy | When you think of cartels, maybe you think of drugs, maybe you think of oil. But what probably doesn't come to mind? Swiss cheese. | 7/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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96 |
Clean#709: The Quiet Old Lady Who Whispers "Fair Use" | Where is the line between being inspired by somebody's creative work and stealing it? | 7/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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97 |
Clean#708: Bitcoin Divided | Bitcoin was supposed to revolutionize the way money works. But the thing people love about it may be destroying it. | 6/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
98 |
Explicit#707: Brexit | What just happened in the UK? And what's coming next? | 6/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
99 |
Clean#538: Is A Stradivarius Just A Violin? | How much of a brand is real? How much is in our heads? | 6/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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100 |
Clean#706: Water's Worth | If your country's main export is water, what happens when your wells run dry? | 6/17/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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101 |
Clean#583: Cow Noir | There is a crime wave in the West right now. Cattle rustling — stealing cattle — is on the rise. The crime is as old as America, and it's making a big comeback. | 6/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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102 |
Clean#705: The Muscle Patents | Two bodybuilders go at it over a Stanford University patent. And we dive in to make sense of it. | 6/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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103 |
Clean#563: The Future Of Work Looks Like A UPS Truck | Technology means that no matter what job you have — whether you're alone in a truck on an empty road or sitting in a cubicle in front of a computer — your company can now track everything you do. | 6/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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104 |
Explicit#704: Open Office | This episode is for everyone who's ever had to ask their coworkers to quiet down or walk laps of the office to make a private phone call. Today on the show: We meet the man who stole your office door. | 6/3/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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105 |
Clean#463: How To Get A Country To Trust Its Banks | It's something you can see on every day and on every block in most major cities. But in Myanmar, a country that was cut off from the rest of the world for decades, an ATM is a small miracle | 6/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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106 |
Clean#703: How To Hide A Million Dollars In Plain Sight | How do you secretly stash away a million dollars? One way is to hide the money in plain sight, right in the heart of New York City. Today's show: the case of who owns Apartment 5B. | 5/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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107 |
Clean#217: The Art Of Living At The Poverty Line | Meet a single mother who makes $16,000 a year and managed to fund a vacation at a Caribbean resort with an interest-free loan from one of the world's largest banks. | 5/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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108 |
Clean#702: Nigeria, You Win! | One night, Lariat Alhassan heard an ad on the radio. It said the Nigerian government was offering millions of dollars to people with business ideas, practically no strings attached. She gave it a go. | 5/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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109 |
Clean#366: How To Make It In The Food Truck Business | In New York City, more than 5,000 food trucks and carts compete for the business of hungry office workers. And finding the right spot to set up shop can mean the difference between fortune and ruin. | 5/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
110 |
Clean#701: A Bank Without Interest | To serve Muslim customers, a bank in Michigan tried to comply with both U.S. regulations and Islamic law. One problem: Islamic law prohibits charging interest. | 5/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
111 |
Clean#430: Black Market Pharmacies And The Spam Empire Behind Them | On today's show, we open up some of those annoying pharmaceutical spam emails and find out who's clicking to buy herbal viagra? Also, what happens when they do? | 5/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
112 |
Clean#700: Peanuts and Cracker Jack | Beer. Water. Pretzels. It takes effort, strategy, and some serious lungs to sell expensive junk food at a baseball game. Meet the hot dog vending legend of Fenway Park. | 5/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
113 |
Clean#699: Why Did The Job Cross The Road? | To get to the other side... where there are millions of dollars in tax breaks. | 5/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
114 |
Clean#698: The Long Way Home | Housing subsidies are often given out through a lottery. But why do we let random chance decide who gets help with the rent? We don't do that for food stamps or health care, so why housing? | 4/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
115 |
Clean#417: Lance Armstrong and The Business of Doping | In this episode, we consider a world where everybody cheats, and where you can't win unless you game the regulators: Professional cycling. | 4/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
116 |
Clean#697: Help Wanted | When you're an employer looking at a giant stack of resumes, you have to find some way to quickly narrow the field. How do you do that fairly? And what happens when your good intentions backfire? | 4/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
117 |
Clean#468: Kid Rock Vs. The Scalpers | We talk to Kid Rock about how he tried to cut scalpers out of the business — and still sell cheap tickets to his shows. | 4/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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118 |
Clean#696: Class Action | The modern class action was created on a typewriter in the back of a car. (Sort of.) Now, thousands of these lawsuits are filed every year. How did we get here? Is this really a good way to do things? | 4/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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119 |
Clean#695: Put A Chip On It | Credit cards with chips in them have been around for four decades. So why is America only getting them now? And now that they are here, why are so few places using them? | 4/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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120 |
Clean#694: The Gun That Wouldn't Shoot | Imagine a safer kind of gun. Imagine a company with a plan to build it. Imagine customers ready to buy it. Imagine what could go wrong. A whole lot. | 4/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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121 |
Clean#562: A Mall Divided | A California mall straddles the border between two cities — and the minimum wage is higher on one side. | 4/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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122 |
Clean#693: Unpayable | Puerto Rico is part of the United States, but not one of the United States. And this limbo status has brought a world of economic trouble. | 4/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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123 |
Clean#403: What Can We Do With Our Shell Companies? | And how can we meet our fake shareholder and fake director? | 3/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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124 |
Clean#692: The Secret Life Of Line 24 | On today's show, we tell the stories of a few mysterious lines on IRS form 1040 — the basic tax form. In its own, maddening way, the 1040 is a great American document. | 3/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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125 |
Clean#691: The Great Unbundling | There's a revolution underway in the world of cable TV--more and more people are getting rid of it. And there are some unforeseen consequences when we cut the cord and go our separate ways. | 3/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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126 |
Clean#690: All In | We talk to a professional poker player who lost on the first day of poker's most famous tournament--but went on to get a huge payout. Turns out there's a game behind the game. | 3/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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127 |
Clean#390: We Set Up An Offshore Company In A Tax Haven | In this show, we dive deep into the world of hiding money. We look for the easiest place to shelter a bank account and set up our own shell company in an offshore tax haven. Good times. | 3/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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128 |
Clean#689: A Hedge Fund, A Country, And A Big Sailboat | Argentina decided that it could take on the world. They had a bunch of debt and said, 'we're not paying.' Then a group of hedge funds took the entire country to court. | 3/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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129 |
Clean#418: The Government's Fake Bank For Drug Money | One day in the early 1990s, a man walked into the U.S. embassy in Ecuador. He said he had information on how to go after some of most powerful drug traffickers in the world. | 3/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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130 |
Clean#688: Brilliant vs. Boring | A million-dollar bet pits a bunch of really smart money managers against the simplest investment idea in the world. | 3/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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131 |
Clean#687: Buy This Passport | Most of us don't think of citizenship as a product. It's something more: It's part of who you are. On today's show, we look at what happens when citizenship goes up for sale. | 3/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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132 |
Clean#686: If Elected President | Today, we bring you the future as dreamt up by presidential candidates. Also: sober economists poking holes in the candidates' dreams. | 2/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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133 |
Clean#424: How Much Is A Firefighter Worth? | Firefighters don't go to fires as much as much as they used to. Yet the fire department is still set up the same way. What should change? | 2/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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134 |
Explicit#685: Larry vs. The IRS | A lot of people dream of not paying their taxes. Larry Williams scoured the fine print of IRS code, talked to lawyers, settled on a plan, then just stopped paying taxes. | 2/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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135 |
Clean#684: The Return Of The Colonel | There's a secret war going on inside every franchise. At KFC, it all goes back to a guy with a white beard and a black string tie: Colonel Harland Sanders. | 2/17/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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136 |
Explicit#683: Our Valentines | Regret. Self-loathing. Jealousy. Happy Valentine's Day! We bring you little stories that we love so much, we wish we had thought of them ourselves. | 2/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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137 |
Clean#466: DIY Finance | He has thousands of dollars stashed around his house. She's part of an informal savings club. And Miguelo Rada has a whole bank in his pocket. | 2/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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138 |
Explicit#682: When CEO Pay Exploded | Politicians have argued for decades that CEOs should earn less money. But there was a moment in the 1990s when CEO pay suddenly shot up. What happened? | 2/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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139 |
Clean#681: The Oil Kingdom | For years, Saudi Arabia has been living off one resource and one resource only: Oil. But now, the price of a barrel has plummeted, and the country is scrambling to adapt. | 2/3/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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140 |
Clean#680: Anatomy Of A Scam | You've seen these ads: "You can work from home and get rich. It's easy. Call this number!" So, what happens when you respond? | 1/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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141 |
Clean#679: You Asked For It | We ponder the origins of money, the economics of Santa, and the business of cemeteries. Why? Because you asked. | 1/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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142 |
Clean#678: Auction Fever | We uncover the secrets of the auction world. There is conniving. There are tricks. Also: Hydraulic hammers. | 1/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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143 |
Clean#283: Why Do We Tip? | According to one theory, we tip because we feel guilty, not because we want better service. | 1/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
144 |
Clean#677: The Experiment Experiment | How much of published scientific research is false? Scientists are trying to figure it out. | 1/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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145 |
Clean10 11 51 52 62 18 | If those are the winning Powerball numbers, this will be our last show. Also: The story of Queen Elizabeth's 1567 lottery, and we meet a man who has won multiple jackpots, no luck needed. | 1/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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146 |
Clean#675: The Cost Of Crossing | Sneaking people across the U.S.-Mexico border is a well established, booming business. Today on the show, we meet a businessman and a client in the evolving industry of human smuggling. | 1/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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147 |
Clean#15: Delicious Cake Futures | On today's Planet Money, the complex economy of one elementary-school lunchroom. | 1/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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148 |
Clean#674: We Cooked A Peacock | In the 1600s, a good spice rub was the ultimate display of wealth. People would risk their lives for a sack of cloves. On today's show, we cook a recipe from the spice trade days. | 1/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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149 |
Clean#673 The Rest of the Story, 2015 Edition | Not every story has an ending. Sometimes after we finish a podcast and send it to you, the facts change, a new chapter unfolds. Today on the show, we update some of our favorite episodes from 2015. | 12/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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150 |
Clean#672: Bagging The Birkin | There are people with Birkin bags and there are the rest of us. Today on the show: the elaborate, upside-down strategy that has kept a $60,000 purse the "it" bag for 30 years. | 12/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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151 |
Explicit#671: An Insider Trader Tells All | Today on the show: A man who got caught insider trading explains everything — what he did, how he did it, and why. Though he's still struggling with that last one. | 12/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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152 |
Clean#670: The Santa Suit | Today on the show: A lawsuit over a Santa suit. It's a window into countless hidden fights that shape the stuff we buy. | 12/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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153 |
Clean#590: The Planet Money Workout | Today on the show: The mind games that gyms play with you. From design to pricing to free bagels, gyms want to be a product that everyone buys, but no one actually uses. | 12/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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154 |
Clean#669: A or B | These days A/B testing is everywhere. It's shaped almost every website, some stores and even some school lessons. Today, the most meta episode ever. Planet Money A/B tests a show about A/B testing. | 12/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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155 |
Clean#668: Frank Sinatra's Mug | When you die you can pass on your money, your house. But your image--what you look and sound like--that's trickier. Today on the show: How Frank Sinatra made his image, and maybe yours, last forever. | 12/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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156 |
Clean#667: Auditing ISIS | What happens when ISIS takes over your city? Today on the show: We talk to a man who lived and worked in ISIS controlled territory. He tells us about how he paid taxes, where he kept his money and a $50 candy bar. | 12/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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157 |
Clean#216: How Four Drinking Buddies Saved Brazil | Two decades ago, shoppers in Brazil would run ahead of the worker who raised prices every day. Inflation was crazy. Today on the show: How four economists --who were also drinking buddies-- fixed it. | 12/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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158 |
Clean#666: The Hoverboard Life | The hottest toy this holiday season has no identifiable logo, no main distributor, and no widely agreed upon name. Today, we seek out the origin of the hands-free, two wheeled, self-balancing scooter. | 11/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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159 |
Clean#665: The Pickle Problem | A national network of food banks couldn't figure out how to get the right food to the right place at the right time. So they tried a bold experiment: the free market. | 11/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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160 |
Clean#664: The Great Inflation | For much of the 70s inflation was bad. Prices rose at over 10 percent a year. Nothing could stop it — until one powerful person did something very unpopular. Today's show: How we beat inflation. | 11/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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161 |
Clean#416: Why The Price Of Coke Didn't Change For 70 Years | Prices go up and down. But for 70 years, the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola stayed a nickel. On today's show, we find out why. The answer includes a half a million vending machines and a 7.5 cent coin. | 11/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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162 |
Clean#663: Money Trees | Each time you travel, you burn fossil fuels. That hurts the environment. Some people say you can plant a bunch of trees to offset the damage. Is that for real? We investigate carbon offsets. | 11/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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163 |
Clean#505: A Locked Door, A Secret Meeting And The Birth Of The Fed | A 70-year-old man with a bad cold and many mistresses, a nation that's ambivalent about a central bank, and a secret meeting on an island. Today on the show: The origin story of the Federal Reserve. | 11/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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164 |
Clean#662: OMG TPP | The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership isn't secret anymore. We dove in. From tariffs for waterproof overalls to copyright rules, we tell you what we found. Also, a way countries can get around it. | 11/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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165 |
Explicit#661: The Less Deadly Catch | Today on the show, how an economic fix took the deadliest job in America and made it safer. And why a lot of people are mad about it. | 11/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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166 |
Clean#660: The T-Rex In My Backyard | There's a boom going on for dinosaur bones, a veritable gold rush for fossils buried in the badlands of North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Today on the show: the T-Rex that started it all. | 10/31/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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167 |
Clean#518: Your Organs, Please | How do you get someone to sign up as an organ donor? Today on the show: The story of one woman who found a way by partnering with one of the more hated American institutions. | 10/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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168 |
Clean#659: How To Make $3 Trillion Disappear | After the financial crisis, the Fed created over $3 trillion. To undo this, they have a new trick. Today on the show, how the Federal Reserve plans to make that money disappear. | 10/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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169 |
Clean#550: When Salaries Aren't Secret | What would it be like if everyone at your office knew what everyone else earned? On today's show, we hear about a company where salaries aren't secret. | 10/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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170 |
Clean#658: Strike One | On today's show: The birth of unions as we know them. It's a story that includes, among other things, bravery, cunning, and auto-part projectiles flung out of giant sling shots. | 10/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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171 |
Clean#657: The Tale Of The Onion King | Vince Kosuga farmed onions. Then he tried trading them on the market, too. He made millions. Today on the show: How trading got so out of hand that the Chicago River flowed with America's onions. | 10/14/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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172 |
Clean#656: Bubblelicious | Things are booming in Silicon Valley. Maybe too booming. But economists say you can't call it a bubble until it goes POP. Today on the show: We find three bubbly barometers that could signal a bust. | 10/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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173 |
Clean#564: The Signature | The signature. We put it on checks, contracts, credit cards. It's supposed to say, "This is me." But where did the idea come from? And why are we still using it? We consult a rabbi, a lawyer and a credit card executive. | 10/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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174 |
Clean#655: Pay Patients, Save Money | We shop around when we get a plane ticket or buy a couch. But we spend thousands of dollars on health care without shopping around. What happens if we pay patients when they choose the cheaper option? | 10/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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175 |
Clean#653: The Anti-Store | Today on the show: How Price Club and its imitators changed the way we shop. And how a new company is taking what Price Club started to new extremes. | 9/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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176 |
Clean#386: The Power of Free | Everybody likes free. But free can be dangerous. On today's show, what happens when you take something that was free and give it a price. That's a highly risky move and the damage can be enormous. | 9/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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177 |
Clean#652: The Hydrox Resurrection | Hidden in the trash heap of commerce there is buried treasure. Abandoned brands, even beloved, trusted brands, are waiting to be claimed and reborn. Today on the show: a cookie comeback. | 9/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
178 |
Clean#651: The Salmon Taboo | Today on the show: How hard could it be to get a nation of sushi lovers to try raw salmon? | 9/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
179 |
Clean#650: The Scariest Thing In Hollywood | One Hollywood director leaves the world of big budget blockbusters for something even more lucrative: low budget Hollywood. | 9/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
180 |
Clean#649: China, China, China | What's going on in China? Is the second largest economy in the world about to come crashing down? | 9/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
181 |
Clean#648: The Benefits of Bankruptcy | When Roddey Player's business started heading south, he did everything he could to avoid the big failure: bankruptcy. But what's painful for Roddey might just be the secret weapon of the U.S. economy. | 9/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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182 |
Clean#200: The Moonshine Stimulus | We travel to Warm Springs to find out if the rumors are true: Did FDR really buy moonshine during Prohibition? Did he violate the Constitution he had sworn to protect? | 9/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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183 |
Clean#647: Hard Work Is Irrelevant | Patty McCord helped create a workplace at Netflix that runs more like a professional sports team than a family. If you're not up to scratch, you're off the team. Is this the future of work? | 8/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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184 |
Clean#502: The Afterlife Of A T-Shirt | When used clothes are donated to charity, they begin a second life of sorting, refitting, and lots of travel. We trace used T-shirts to a clothing market in Nairobi, Kenya. For more: http://npr.org/shirt. | 8/26/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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185 |
Clean#646: Why Can't We Bet On Elections? | In Las Vegas you can bet on all kinds of stuff. One thing you can't bet on: elections. But why? Not long ago, no election was too sacred to wager on, not even the pope's. | 8/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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186 |
Clean#500: The Humble Innovation At The Heart Of The Global Economy | Our women's Planet Money T-shirt got to you thanks to an overlooked innovation that's essential to the modern global economy. The innovation: a big, metal box. | 8/19/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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187 |
Clean#645: How To Stop An Asteroid | Some smart people say we should be doing more to protect the Earth from asteroids. The technical issues are relatively easy. The economics — figuring out who's going to pay — are much harder. | 8/14/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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188 |
Clean#497: The Sisters Who Made Our T-Shirt | Like lots of other clothes, the men's Planet Money T-shirt was made in Bangladesh. On today's show, we travel to Bangladesh and visit two sisters who made our shirt. | 8/12/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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189 |
Clean#644: How Much Does This Cow Weigh? | We wanted to understand an eerie phenomenon that drives everything from the stock market to the price of orange juice. So we asked you to guess the weight of a cow. | 8/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
190 |
Clean#496: Where The Planet Money T-Shirt Began | We made a T-shirt, and followed it every step of the way. First step: a high-tech cotton farm. | 8/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
191 |
Clean#643: The Taxi King | Gene Freidman built a taxi empire in New York City. Now his empire is starting to crumble. | 7/31/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
192 |
Clean#642: The Big Red Button | The big question surrounding automation isn't just about economics or technology. It's also about psychology. How do designers make us comfortable with something that can be really scary? | 7/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
193 |
Clean#641: Why We Work So Much | The world economy is more productive than ever before. A lot of people could work fewer hours and still meet their basic needs. But we don't. Why? | 7/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
194 |
Clean#640: The Bottom Of The Well | On today's show: the screwed-up economics of drought, and why the rational thing to do in California right now is use more water. | 7/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
195 |
Clean#639: Where To Hide €50,000, And Other Stories From Greece | On a visit to Greece, we talk to a guy who found an ingenious place to hoard his cash, a government-protected milk peddler, and a would-be olive oil tycoon. | 7/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
196 |
Clean#638: Tweak The World | Today on the show: We're going small. We ask some of the smartest people we know what little thing they would change to improve the world. | 7/15/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
197 |
Clean#288: Manufacturing The Song Of The Summer | The story of the secret battle to create the song of the summer — the music industry's holy grail. | 7/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
198 |
Clean#637: The Last Euro In Greece | Greece's monetary system is in crisis right now, and the government is closing the financial pipes. The effects are widespread and weird. | 7/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
199 |
Clean#363: Why People Do Bad Things | We sit down with a psychologist and a mortgage broker who committed large-scale fraud to try to figure out why respectable people commit fraud. | 7/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
200 |
Clean#636: Yes Or No | What do you do when your country's future is put in your hands? On today's show: The referendum in Greece. | 7/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
201 |
Clean#635: Trade Deal Confidential | Big trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership are often negotiated in secret. On today's show, trade negotiators tell us what happened when they were locked in a hotel for days on end, and told to hash out a deal. | 6/26/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
202 |
Clean#478: The Raisin Outlaw | A farmer wanted to sell all his raisins, but the federal government said no. So he took it to the Supreme Court. | 6/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
203 |
Explicit#634: Worst Case Scenario | We ask three economists: Is there some falling anvil that's about to crush the economy? | 6/19/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
204 |
Clean#633: The Birth And Death Of The Price Tag | The price tag is a fairly recent invention. And it's already on its way out. | 6/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
205 |
Clean#631: The Long Run | Stories about a $50,000 loophole, what neighborhoods mean for kids, and what the Six Million Dollar Man would cost today. | 6/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
206 |
Explicit#630: Free Parking | The story of a 24-year-old kid and the idea he thought would reduce congestion, cut greenhouse gasses and make urban life easier for everyone. Instead, it brought him nothing but trouble. | 6/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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207 |
Clean#629: Buy Low, Sell Prime | Sam Cohen has made a big business out of buying stuff at big retail stores, then turning around and selling it on Amazon. In an era when stores are profit-maximizing machines, how is that possible? | 6/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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208 |
Clean#628: This Ad's For You | In the early 1960s, Tom Burrell became the first black man in Chicago advertising. Today on the show, the story of how he changed the way people think about ads and how advertising thinks about us. | 5/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
209 |
Clean#626: This Is The End | Machines have been taking jobs forever. In the past, when jobs disappeared, new ones were created. But is this time different? | 5/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
210 |
Clean#625: The Last Job | What if robots did all the work? In today's show, we imagine a world without jobs. | 5/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
211 |
Clean#624: I, Waiter | We go out for pizza and meet the latest group of workers getting replaced by machines: servers. | 5/15/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
212 |
Clean#623: The Machine Comes To Town | In Greenville, SC, the best job option isn't to compete against the robots, but to make friends with them. Note: Today's show originally aired in January 2012. | 5/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
213 |
Clean#622: Humans vs. Robots | If you aren't already worried about being replaced by a robot, maybe you should be. Today on the show, three races pit humans against machines. | 5/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
214 |
Clean#621: When Luddites Attack | Today on the show, the true story of the Luddites. | 5/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
215 |
Clean#620: Why Batteries Suck | While most technology is getting smaller and cheaper, batteries still suck. Today on the show, we learn exactly why, and meet some of the people trying to make batteries better. | 5/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
216 |
Clean#372: How Do You Decide Who Gets Lungs? | You're not allowed to buy and sell organs. So doctors created a different system. Today on the show: how do you decide who gets lungs? | 4/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
217 |
Explicit#619: The Free Throw Experiment | Casinos are worried that young people aren't interested in playing slots or other games of luck. They're turning to games that require skill, like basketball. | 4/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
218 |
Clean#399: Can You Patent A Steak? | We visit the workshop of the meat inventor who came up with Steak-Umm and KFC's popcorn chicken. And we try to figure out what meat inventors tell us about patents and innovation. (Today's show originally ran in August 2012.) | 4/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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219 |
Clean#618: The Square Deal | In the early 1900s, the president of the largest shoe company in the world tried to create a Utopia for his workers. He called his big experiment in welfare capitalism: The Square Deal. | 4/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
220 |
Clean#617: How Do You Feel? | Today on the show: how a bunch of rational economists try to deal with our feelings. And the story of a man who came up with five simple questions that he hoped would predict the future. | 4/15/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
221 |
Clean#616: How Solar Got Cheap | Just a few years ago, solar power was an expensive luxury for the environmentally conscious. Now it's a good deal for lots of people. How did solar power get so cheap, so fast? | 4/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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222 |
Clean#361: The Matzo Economy | How do you make money manufacturing a dry, bland cracker that a tiny percentage of the population eats just one week a year? | 4/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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223 |
Clean#615: A 12-Year-Old Girl Takes On The Video Game Industry | Maddie Messer is 12, and she loves a good video game. One of her favorites is called Temple Run. In fact, it's one of the most successful games out there. Temple Run is free to play—if you play as the default character, Guy Dangerous. But playing as a | 4/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
224 |
Clean#614: Two Radio Guys Walk In To A Bar | We got on stage at a comedy club to read a bunch of weird economics jokes. We bombed. Today on the show, we do what you're never supposed to do: explain the joke. | 4/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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225 |
Clean#613: Trash! | One day it's profitable to recycle a bottle. The next day, some number in the global economy changes and that bottle suddenly becomes trash. The line between trash and recycling is moving a lot these days. For a bunch of reasons, it's a tough time to be a | 3/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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226 |
Clean#612: The Indicator Strikes Back | Look at the numbers today, and things seem promising for the economy. The unemployment rate is low, and home prices are up. But when you look under the hood, you see that in a lot of ways the financial crisis is still with us. Today on the show: the retur | 3/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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227 |
Clean#611: Community | Free community college. When the President proposed making the first two years free for everyone, it seemed like a magic bullet for expanding opportunity. But only one in three students graduate—and money is not the problem. Today on the show: why i | 3/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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228 |
Explicit#610: The Prisoner's Solution | Frederick Hutson is an entrepreneur whose biggest early venture landed him in prison for nearly five years—distributing marijuana through UPS and FedEx. While in prison, he realized that a lot of the problems of everyday prison life could use a business | 3/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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229 |
Clean#609: The Curse Of The Black Lotus | In a classic bubble—housing for example, or tech stocks or Beanie Babies—the fun ends in a crash. Things go belly up, and people can lose a lot of money. The creators of the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering faced such a bubble. The cooler | 3/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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230 |
Clean#608: Shorters Gonna Short | Planet Money shorted the entire stock market a few weeks ago. We bet that instead of going up, the stock market would go down. So far, America is winning. And we are losing. It's been lonely being a short seller, but we know we are not alone. Today on the | 3/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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231 |
Clean#517: The Fastest Growing, Least Popular Airline In America | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in February 2014. It's cheap to fly on Spirit Airlines, but you have to pay extra for perks. And by perks, we mean a bottle of water or space in the overhead bin. It's totally rational: pay for what you use | 3/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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232 |
Clean#607: Captive Market | Someone is kidnapped every day in Nigeria. It's big business, with potentially big rewards in ransom money. And like any business, kidnapping has a particular set of principles and best practices. Today on the show: how a consultant analyzed the kidnappin | 2/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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233 |
Clean#605: 'What Goes Up' | Today on the show, the story of Roger Babson, a guy who made a very, very bold prediction, and got it right. He correctly forecast, really, one of the biggest things you could imagine predicting. It’s the story of how he did that, and what happened | 2/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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234 |
Clean#604: Hey Big Spender | Today on the show, we bring you three short stories. One about a guy at the center of a high stakes international negotiation. Another about poker players trying not to win money, but give it away. And finally, that thing everyone loves to hate, but mayb | 2/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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235 |
Clean#603: A Rose On Any Other Day | Red roses are a unique product — a commodity worth double the price for a very short, 24-hour period: Valentine's Day.To cash in on this demand, flower growers have to figure out how to make millions of roses bloom exactly the right amount, at exactly t | 2/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#510: The Birth Of The Minimum Wage | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in January 2014. For most of U.S. history, there was no minimum wage. A few times, politicians passed laws tiptoeing toward a minimum. But the Supreme Court struck those laws down. On today's show: how t | 2/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#602: Big Weed | Pot is now legal in some states. But on the federal level, it's illegal. The legal gray area means banks in the U.S. are wary to give pot businesses access to basic financial instruments – like checking accounts. Today on the show, we visit a country wh | 2/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#601: The Chocolate Curse | The world is running out of chocolate. Cocoa is in short supply. Demand is way up, thanks to China and India developing a taste for the sweet stuff. And producing more cocoa isn't so easy. Cocoa is a fussy plant. It doesn't grow in very many places and | 2/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#600: The People Inside Your Machine | They are hundreds of thousands of people out there doing stuff to your internet that you probably think is automatic. They aren't computer programmers, they're just regular people working from their offices, homes and bedrooms. They are the people of Amaz | 1/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#598: The Very First Short | There have been short sellers throughout history. Today, the story of a man who was the very first short seller. The first person to bet that a stock will go down. It doesn't go well for him. | 1/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#597: We're Short America | If you own a house, stock, bonds, or a retirement account, you're betting that things are going to get better — that the lines on the chart will keep going up. Historically, this is a reasonable bet. But you can place a bet in the opposite direction. Yo | 1/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#253: Gold Standard, R.I.P. | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in February 2011. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ignores the advice of America's big-name economists — and listens instead to a guy who helped take care of the trees on his estate. Montagu Norman, head of the | 1/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#252: The Gold Standard | We visit the respected finance writer (and charming curmudgeon) James Grant. He makes the case for going back on the gold standard. For more:n.pr/1IxK0L2 | 1/14/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Explicit#596: Johnny Mnemonic's Secret Door | Note: This episode contains explicit language. Every time there is a big new release of some software, an operating system or a new browser, hackers get to work. Each new release is the start of a race because there are all these giant players who despera | 1/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#222: The Price Of Lettuce In Brooklyn | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in October 2010. On today's Planet Money, we go shopping with George Minichiello. George is one of hundreds of federal employees who goes to stores all over the country and record the prices of thousan | 1/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean595: The Rest Of The Story, 2014 Edition | Sometimes all you can say at the end of a story is "time will tell." Today on the show, time has told. We follow up on our favorite stories of 2014 to find out what happened after we turned off our recorders. We follow up on one of the boldest plans of th | 12/31/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#594: Board Games | CEO pay comes up a lot in the news. The stories often include someone complaining that it's too high. Then there's someone on the other side, defending CEO pay. But that's usually that's where the stories stop. On today's show: an actual story about CEO p | 12/30/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#593: Who Had The First Job? | People have always worked. But the thing we think of today as a job — the thing you apply for instead of being born into, the thing you go to in the morning and leave at night — is actually a recent invention. The modern job can act as a buffer to pro | 12/24/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#591: War? What War? | Last month, a bunch of Ukrainian business owners flew to New York to try to convince a bunch of New York portfolio managers and private equity funds to invest in Ukraine. There are lots of reasons that it is crazy to hold an "Invest in Ukraine" conference | 12/20/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#590: The Planet Money Workout | Most businesses would close if their customers never showed up. An empty restaurant is a disaster. An empty store means bankruptcy. At a gym, emptiness equals success. Today on the show, the mind games that gyms play with you. From design to pricing to | 12/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#589: Hello, I'm Calling From La Mafia | Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world. Jobs that seem dull and safe in most countries have become incredibly dangerous professions in Honduras. For example: Driving a bus. On today's show: what it's like to live and work in the most dangerous | 12/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#588: The Technology Tango | How customers use a piece of technology can change what the product is. And what the product is can change the business model for the company. It's a constant dance between the customers and the sellers. Today on the show, three short stories about this d | 12/10/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#587: Jubilee! (?) | There's an idea that dates back at least to biblical times. There should be a moment when debts are forgiven. Its called a jubilee. The jubilee has not gotten a lot of traction in the modern world. You may remember after the financial crisis, some of the | 12/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#271: A City On The Moon | It's called "Iceland" for a reason. Polar bears sometimes wind up there floating by on chunks of ice. In the winter, there are only a few hours of daylight each day. Reykjavik feels like you took a European city — coffee shops, fancy cars, orderly str | 12/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#586: How Stuff Gets Cheaper | We tend to get obsessed with things that get more expensive over time — college tuition, say, or health care. But lots of things have actually gotten cheaper in real terms. Things made by machines. Things like consumer electronics. Some new gadget com | 11/28/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Explicit#585: Chasing The Dread Pirate Roberts | Today on the show, the story of the Dread Pirate Roberts of the internet age. A man who dreamed of setting up a utopian marketplace, a place where you could buy and sell almost anything in secret. The pirate created a market with no contracts, no regulati | 11/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#474: The North Korea Files | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in July 2013. U.S. citizens who want to buy stuff from North Korea have to write a letter to the U.S. government asking for special permission. As regular listeners know, we're sort of obsessed with North | 11/21/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#584: What The Lebron? | Nike is a smart multi-billion dollar company, but some sneaker fans have figured out how they can get a better price for Nike sneakers than Nike can. Some pairs trade like stocks — selling for double, quadruple, 12 times their retail price after they le | 11/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#583: Cow Noir | On September 9th, BJ Holloway's life savings were stolen. His 6 cows were taken in the dead of the night from his land in Spencer, Oklahoma. BJ looked everywhere for his stolen cattle. He asked his neighbors. He filed a police report. But out in Oklahoma, | 11/14/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#582: Guarding The Secret Path | In west Africa right now, there are two kinds of countries: Those that have Ebola and those that do not. Liberia for instance, has reported more than 6,000 cases of Ebola and 2,697 people have died. Right next door, in the country of Ivory Coast, there ha | 11/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#581: Free Money | There's a term in economics, arbitrage, that basically means free money. It's finding a difference in price, a pricing mistake, you can exploit to make money. Arbitrage is a risk-free way to buy low and sell high. Everyday there are loads of people and so | 11/7/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#580: The Other Side Of The Pump | A gallon of gas is selling at some pumps for less than $3 right now. The price has been falling since early summer, and local TV news reporters are out at gas stations asking people 'how happy do you feel?' Today on the show, two stories from the other | 11/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#579: Is The NCAA An Illegal Cartel? | In big-time college football or basketball, money is everywhere. From giant TV contracts, to million-dollar coaches' salaries, to deals with shoe companies. But it's against NCAA rules for colleges to pay athletes. On today's show, we ask: Is the NCAA's b | 10/31/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#578: How To Steal A Million Barrels Of Oil | In Nigeria, millions of gallons of oil are stolen all the time. There are advertisements for stolen oil on the Nigerian version of Craigslist, and not JUST small containers. The advertisements are for giant tankers full of oil. Today on the show, how t | 10/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#400: What Two Pasta Factories Tell Us About The Italian Economy | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in September 2012. A decade ago, the Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, Italy, had a big problem with people skipping work. The absentee rate was around 10 percent. People called in sick all the time, ty | 10/24/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#576: When Women Stopped Coding | Mark Zuckerberg. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Most of the big names in technology are men. But a lot of computing pioneers, the ones who programmed the first digital computers, were women. And for decades, the number of women in computer science was growing. B | 10/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#381: Why It's Illegal To Braid Hair Without A License | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in June 2012. A few years ago, Jestina Clayton started a hair braiding business in her home in Centerville, Utah. The business let her stay home with her kids, and in good months, she made enough to pay | 10/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#575: The Fondue Conspiracy | The popularity of fondue wasn't an accident. It was planned by a cartel of Swiss cheese makers, which ruled the Swiss economy for 80 years. On today's show: Swiss cheese. A story about what happens when well-meaning folks decide that the rules of economic | 10/11/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean# 573: Why Textbook Prices Keep Climbing | Prices of new textbooks have been going up like crazy. Faster than clothing, food, cars, and even healthcare. Listeners have been asking for years why textbooks are getting so expensive. On today's show, we actually find an answer. | 10/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#572: Jewelers, Futurists And Whistleblowers | Today on the show: Stories about the secrets of jewelry stores, the problem with World's Fairs and a law signed by Abraham Lincoln that's being used today to go after the largest banks in the world. For more: n.pr/1prjqYP | 10/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#571: Why Raising Money For Ebola Is Hard | Charities raised $1.4 billion to help rebuild Haiti after the earthquake. After the tsunami in Asia in 2004, organizations raised $1.6 billion. But when something like Ebola happens, so far, people look the other way. On today's show: What does it take to | 9/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#477: Waiting For Robot Nannies | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in August 2013. More than half of all Japanese women quit their jobs after giving birth to their first child. That's more than double the rate in the U.S., and it's a problem for Japan's economy. If | 9/24/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#570: The Fine Print | On today's show, we read our homeowners insurance policy. The details are amazing. Lava! Vermin! Falling objects! And, hiding in all the fine print, the story of how insurance works — and what makes it break. | 9/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Explicit#569: How To Divide An Imaginary Pie | Alex Blumberg is starting a business, a podcasting business. And he's recording himself as he starts the company — he's making a podcast about starting his podcasting company. Meta, right? But starting a business can be lonely. Alex wants a partner | 9/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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CleanEpisode 568: Snoops, Hackers And Tin Foil Hats | An amazing amount of stuff on the internet is free — Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. Of course, it's not exactly free. We pay, with our data. And right now, we're kind of stuck trading our data, for all this free software. Today on the show: two people who | 9/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#567: Getting Unstuck | For years now, the economy has been kind of stuck. The unemployment rate is getting better, but slowly. Household incomes have actually been falling. It's easy to feel stuck. Today on the show, stories of two people trying to get unstuck. | 9/10/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#565: The Story Of Alibaba | A massive Chinese company, Alibaba, is about to have what could be the biggest public offering on planet earth. You can think of Alibaba like Amazon or Ebay, except you can buy way more — you can get a used 747 airplane, or an oil tanker, or 500 milli | 9/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#564: The Signature | Some people write a squiggle. Others just write an initial. One person draws a dude surfing. Today on the show: the signature. It's supposed to say, "This is me." But where did the idea come from? And why are we still using it? We consult a rabbi, a lawye | 8/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#563: "I Was Wrong" | The world is full of people talking about how right they are. Today on the show, we try something different: We talk to smart, thoughtful people about times they got things really, really wrong. For more: http://n.pr/1lfnG0Y | 8/27/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#562: A Mall Divided | The Westfield Valley Fair Mall in California is like any other mall except for one thing: half of the mall is in the city of San Jose and the other half is in the city of Santa Clara. The boundary line runs right through the mall. For a long time, this di | 8/22/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#485: What's Your Major? | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in September 2013. Sure, some college degrees lead to higher paying jobs than others. But what's shocking — at least, it was shocking to us — is just how big the gap can be. The most lucrative majors t | 8/20/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#561: How The Future Looked 50 Years Ago | We spend a lot of time thinking about the future and planning for the future. Fifty years ago, people at the 1964 World's Fair built their vision of the future. They imagined a world of jet-packs, steel, glass, and Formica. And they committed to it in a p | 8/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#560: Hunting For The Hundreds | The 100 dollar bill is the most popular product from the Federal Reserve. Eighty percent of all U.S. cash is in the form of 100 dollar bills, but you rarely see them. About twenty years ago, the Fed counted up all the hundreds it knew about — money in b | 8/13/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Explicit#559: Detroit's Water Bill | Thousands of people in Detroit haven't paid their water bills. Even some businesses have skipped payment. Today on the show, how a bankrupt city is dealing with the most basic of problems — how to get people to pay their bills. | 8/8/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#451: Why Some People Love Tax Day | Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in April 2013. In 2012, a federal program took about $60 billion from wealthier Americans and gave it to millions of working poor. This program — a massive redistribution of wealth — has been embraced | 8/6/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#558: Spending Big Money To Fight Big Money | Super PACs let rich people, corporations and unions spend as much money as they want to try to influence the outcome of elections. On today's show: How a Harvard professor created a super PAC to attack super PACs. He's raised millions of dollars — in | 8/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Explicit#557: Doing Business Like A Refugee | In most parts of the world, refugees are not allowed to work. But Mohammed Osman Ali is a refugee in Uganda, and there, he legally runs a video game arcade and a variety store. Today on the show, why most countries won't let refugees work. And why Uganda | 7/30/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Clean#556: Some Assembly Required | Today we build our show from three short Planet Money stories. We look at when a dollar is not worth a dollar; publishing without a publisher; and, of course, Ikea. For more: * When Ikea Raises Its Minimum Wage, Where Does The Money Come From? * Money M | 7/25/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 288 Items |
Customer Reviews
Economics for Dummies
Thanks for making this podcast. Coincidentally I went to the podcast listing looking specifically for a show that can help me understand the current financial crisis (me being largely clueless about these matters) and there was this show, recently launched. The host is good at coaxing clear, plain-spoken explanations out of his guests on rather complex, global issues. I hope you consider making the shows longer. At 20 minutes they're easily digestable, but I'd happily continue listening.
Great, but...
The Global Pool of Money episode of This American Life forever changed my understanding of the US and global economies. This podcast continues that great easy-to-understand viewpoint, demystifying the jargon and confusion previously associated with economics. Planet Money keeps me so well informed that my friends and family come to me with questions on the economic crisis. How to get five stars? Get rid of Laura Conoway. She's not a credible or interesting addition to the show. Her comments and remarks are not only unprofessional and ignorant at times, but also annoying and ill-informed.
Keep up the good work
The Global Economy show on This American Life was one of the absolute best I've yet heard in the 10 years I've been listening. Your first two podcasts here promise much much more of the same. Please and Thank You.
