Planet Money
By NPR
To listen to an audio podcast, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to download and subscribe to podcasts.
Description
The economy explained. 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.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Clean#657: The Tale Of The Onion King | How one man took the onion market hostage. | 9/19/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
2 |
Clean#864: The Central (Bankers') Question | We crash a party of central bankers to get an answer to one of the biggest economic questions of our time. | 9/14/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
3 |
CleanFor Our 10th Anniversary, Episode #1 | In honor of our 10th anniversary, we revisit our very first episode. | 9/12/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
4 |
Clean#863: The 13th Hole | What a hole-in-one gone awry says about the state of charity. | 9/7/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
5 |
Clean#729: When Subaru Came Out | Subaru's sales had been slumping for years. Then they went straight to their biggest fans: Lesbians. | 9/5/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
6 |
Clean#862: Big Government Cheese | That time we accidentally created a cheese surplus so large it had to be stored in a ginormous cave. | 8/31/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
7 |
Clean#783: New Jersey Bails Out | California just did away with cash bail. But credit where credit is due. New Jersey already tried something similar. | 8/29/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
8 |
Clean#861: Food Scare Squad | When food makes people sick all around the country, an army of germ detectives jumps into action. | 8/24/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
9 |
Clean#444: New Jersey Wine | Today on the show: Could New Jersey become the next Napa? | 8/22/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
10 |
Clean#860: The World's Longest Yard Sale | Six states. Three days. One ugly cookie jar. Today on the show: Yard sale! | 8/17/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
11 |
Clean#613: Trash! | The line between trash and recycling is moving a lot these days. It's a tough time to be a recycler. | 8/15/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
12 |
Clean#859: You Asked For Even More | You have a lot of questions... about tariffs, unemployment rates, and RV dealerships, to name a few. We have answers. | 8/10/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
13 |
Clean#704: Open Office | This episode is for everyone who ever had to ask their coworkers to quiet down. Today on the show: We meet the man who stole your office door. | 8/8/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
14 |
Clean#858: Venezuela's Fugitive Money Traders | The Venezuelan government doesn't want you to know the real value of its currency. But Ruben and Mila figured it out. Now they're on the lam. | 8/3/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
15 |
Clean#857: The Postal Illuminati | Is there a secretive postal organization fixing international shipping rates, and giving American businesses a bad deal? | 8/1/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
16 |
Clean#856: Yes In My Backyard | There's a simple way to solve the housing crisis in U.S. cities. Only problem is, almost everybody hates it. | 7/27/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
17 |
Clean#855: The Poop Cartel | What happens when a group of economists applies the number one rule of economics... to number two? | 7/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
18 |
Clean#854: The New Socialists | Socialism was political poison in the U.S. for decades. Now it's gaining ground. Who are these new socialists? And what do they want? | 7/20/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
19 |
Clean#472: The One-Page Plan To Fix Global Warming Revisited | Tax carbon emissions. That's basically the whole plan. What's the hold up? | 7/18/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
20 |
Clean#853: Peak Sand | Sand. It's in buildings, windows, your cell phone. But there isn't enough in the world for everyone. And that's created a dangerous black market. | 7/13/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
21 |
Clean#427: LeBron James Is Still Underpaid | The best player in basketball is getting hosed. The NBA team owners, the players, the fans and even LeBron James himself want to keep it that way. | 7/11/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
22 |
Clean#852: Two Summer Indicators | Two stories from our Indicator team. There's a province in China that makes many of the world's flags. It's a unique window on global trade right now. And we find out why so few teenagers are working summer jobs these days. | 7/6/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
23 |
Clean#700: Peanuts And Cracker Jack | It takes strategy and skill to sell snacks at a baseball game. Meet the hot dog vending legend of Fenway Park. | 7/3/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
24 |
Clean#851: The Rest Of The Story Summer 2018 | A pesticide wreaks havoc. A listener needs a bitcoin detective. And the search for the rarest economic good continues. | 6/29/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
25 |
Clean#850: The Fake Review Hunter | Fake product reviews are wrecking the internet. But help is on the way: From a bodybuilding fake review hunter. | 6/27/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 26 | CleanVideoVIDEO: The Chicken Tax | Which came first, the frozen chicken or the tax on foreign trucks? Just kidding, it was the frozen chicken — then came the American tax that helped shape the domestic market for trucks. | 6/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
27 |
Explicit#682: When CEO Pay Exploded | Politicians have argued for decades that CEOs are overpaid. But there's this precise moment in the 1990s when CEO pay suddenly shot up. We find out what happened. | 6/22/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
28 |
Clean#849: It Takes Two To Make A Trade War Fight | President Trump says China is stealing U.S. technology. So we looked into one case. And things got a little complicated. | 6/20/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
29 |
Clean#848: The World's Biggest Battery | California has a ton of solar power. But as soon as night falls, it's gone. Today on the show: How to bottle the sun. | 6/15/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
30 |
Clean#847: Inventing Accidents | The medical world has been trying to cure color blindness for centuries. Then a glass scientist figured it out. By accident. | 6/13/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
31 |
Clean#846: Ungerrymandering Florida | When Florida outlawed partisan gerrymandering, politicians tried to sneak it back in...in disguise. | 6/8/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
32 |
Clean#660: The T-Rex In My Backyard | Meet Sue, the dinosaur who sparked a gold rush for fossils buried in the badlands of North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. | 6/6/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
33 |
Clean#845: REDMAP | Meet the man who figured out how to reshape national politics by making tiny investments in the smallest of places. | 6/1/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
34 |
Clean#844: Nice Game | In game theory, sometimes the best way to win, is to lose. | 5/30/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
35 |
Explicit#843: Swamp Gravy | Today on the show: A small town stakes its future on writing, directing, and starring in a musical. | 5/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
36 |
Clean#643: The Taxi King | Gene Freidman built a taxi empire. We visited him before he was in legal trouble. | 5/23/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
37 |
Clean#842: Showdown at the WTO | The World Trade Organization: Can't live with it, hard to crush your trade opponents without it. | 5/18/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
38 |
Clean#696: Class Action | Class actions run from big civil rights cases to arguments about pepper. Are they noble, or silly? | 5/16/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
39 |
Clean#841: The Land Of Duty Free | We meet the man who invented duty free shopping and find out if these tax free stores are really saving us any money. | 5/11/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
40 |
Clean#840: Fixing Chicken | Today on the show: A chicken index, some Wall Street investors, and an unlikely whistle-blower. | 5/9/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
41 |
Clean#839: The Indicator Goes To California | California is way more than Hollywood. Today on the show, we look at what else is going on in this powerhouse state economy. | 5/4/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
42 |
Clean#575: The Fondue Conspiracy | Today on the show: How a cheese cartel abandoned the rules of economics and convinced the world to eat fondue. | 5/2/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
43 |
Clean#838: A Series of Mysterious Packages | Unordered trinkets have been arriving at homes around the country. We try to find out why. | 4/27/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
44 |
Clean#640: The Bottom Of The Well | Today on the show: the economics of drought, and why the rational thing to do in California right now is use more water. | 4/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
45 |
Clean#837: The Belt, The Road And The Money | Today on the show, we connect the dots between New York, Uganda, Prague, and China's thirst for resources. (Music Credit: Thanks to musician Giovanni Kiyingi for the use of his song "Kaleeba" from the album Amakondeere.) | 4/20/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
46 |
Clean#836: The Rational Madness Of The Used Car Salesman | Why are used car commercials so annoying? Meet the original sinner. | 4/18/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
47 |
Clean#835: Tariffied | We're in a full-fledged trade war with China. We dig into the list of tariffs on American products. It gets weird...and delicious. | 4/13/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
48 |
Explicit#661: The Less Deadly Catch | Today on the show: how an economic fix helped made the deadliest job in America safer, and why people are angry about it. | 4/11/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
49 |
Clean#834: NDA Tell-All | Today on the show, we talk to one of the most famous NDA breakers of all time, and ask: Is there a legal way out of your NDA? | 4/6/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
50 |
Explicit#685: Larry vs. The IRS | What exactly would happen if you didn't pay your taxes? Today on the show, we follow one man who did just that. | 4/4/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
51 |
Clean#833: Worst. Tariffs. Ever. | Tariffs are stupid. This is one of the few things economists can agree on. Today, we bring you the story of the worst tariffs ever. | 3/30/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
52 |
Clean#832: Mulvaney Vs The CFPB | What happens when you put someone who wants to close an agency, in charge of that agency? Today on the show, we find out. | 3/28/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
53 |
Explicit#671: An Insider Trader Tells All | A man who got caught insider trading explains everything — what he did, how he did it, and why. | 3/23/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
54 |
Clean#831: The Golden Rules | Planet Money joins the gold rush 170 years late. And the rules are still about the same. How did that happen? | 3/21/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
55 |
Clean#454: The Lollipop War | What do sugar farmers have against candy? A lot, according to candy manufacturers. | 3/16/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
56 |
Clean#830: XXX-XX-XXXX | How did the social security number become the most important identifier in the United States? And is that even a good idea? | 3/14/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
57 |
Explicit#829: Rigging The Economy | Two guys from different ends of the political spectrum agree that the economy is rigged. And they think they know who's responsible. | 3/9/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
58 |
Clean#677: The Experiment Experiment | There's something wrong with the way we're doing science. Today on the show, we find out how to fix it. | 3/7/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
59 |
Clean#828: You Asked For More | We ponder the price of chicken, safe haven currencies, and the cash value of coupons. Why? Because you asked. | 3/2/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
60 |
Clean#827: Three Indicators | What do human blood, the conservative tax plan, and beer hops tell us about the world? Find out in today's episode. | 2/28/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
61 |
Explicit#826: The Vodka Proof | Vodka is the best selling spirit in the United States, and there are zillions of brands. But is there any difference between them? | 2/23/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
62 |
Clean#545: The Blue Pallet | How do you reinvent something as simple as the wooden shipping pallet? | 2/21/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
63 |
Clean#825: Who Started The Wildfire | After a wildfire, teams of investigators start combing the wreckage for clues. Finding the cause means, maybe, finding someone to pay. But where's the line between a natural disaster and a human one? | 2/16/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
64 |
Clean#824: Our Valentines | If you can't beat 'em, send 'em a valentine. | 2/14/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
65 |
Clean#823: Planet Monet | Investors are pouring money into art, and a lot of it is disappearing into storage. We try to find out where the art goes, and why it goes there. | 2/9/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
66 |
Clean#337: The Secret Document that Transformed China | In 1978, a group of farmers in a Chinese village wrote a contract and hid it in the roof of a hut. They were afraid the document might get them executed. Instead, it transformed the Chinese economy. | 2/7/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
67 |
Explicit#822: The Shortest Super Bowl | How does the market for Super Bowl tickets work? And why did it collapse in 2015? | 2/2/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
68 |
Clean#821: The Other Davos | Billionaires, diplomats, thinkfluencers. This is the Davos everyone hears about. Today on the show, we take you to a different Davos. | 1/31/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
69 |
Clean#820: P Is For Phosphorus | Phosphate is a crucial element, for farming, and for life. And there aren't too many places to get it. What if it runs out? | 1/26/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
70 |
Clean#819: Tax Me If You Can | Douglas Bruce had a bold vision for Colorado. | 1/24/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
71 |
Clean#508: A Bet On The Future Of Humanity | A biologist predicts a population bomb that will lead to global catastrophe. An economist sees a limitless future for mankind. The result is one of the most famous bets in economics. | 1/19/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
72 |
Clean#818: The Problem Of The Root | The wild ginseng market has gone crazy. We go to a farm hidden in the Appalachian mountains to find out why. | 1/17/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
73 |
Clean#817: The Gun Man | Will 3-D printing make gun control impossible? | 1/12/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
74 |
Clean#489: The Invisible Plumbing Of Our Economy | Why does it take days to send money electronically? | 1/10/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
75 |
Clean#816: Bitcoin Losers | The Bitcoin market has gone crazy. And it's revealing something strange. A lot of people can't find their Bitcoins. We go looking for lost billions. | 1/5/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
76 |
Clean#273: When The U.S. Paid Off The Entire National Debt | What does a country with no debt look like? To find out, we went back to the United States in 1835. | 1/3/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
77 |
Clean#815: The Rest of the Story 2017 | Every year at Planet Money, we take a cue from radio legend Paul Harvey and bring you "The Rest of the Story." It's a show where we check in on some of the episodes that we've done in the past year, and tell you what's changed. | 12/29/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
78 |
Clean#544: The M&M Anomaly | David Kestenbaum noticed that a pack of Milk Chocolate M&M's weighs 1.69 ounces, but a pack of Peanut Butter M&M's weighs 1.63 ounces. He had to know why. But the confectionary world has its secrets. | 12/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
79 |
CleanBONUS INDICATOR: How Airfare Is Changing | Why flying to small airports keeps costing more and more, just as flying to big airports is getting cheaper. (This episode is from our new podcast, The Indicator. Subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts.) | 12/25/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
80 |
Clean#814: The Tax Plan Is Huge | Congress just passed the largest tax overhaul in decades. We dig in. | 12/22/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
81 |
Clean#670: The Santa Suit | Today on the show: A lawsuit over a Santa suit is a window into countless hidden fights that shape the stuff we buy. It's one man's battle against the U.S. government — and, in a way, against himself. | 12/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
82 |
CleanBONUS INDICATOR: Forget Neutrality | From our new podcast, The Indicator: Opponents of net neutrality argue that the government should get out of the way and let the market work, that's what leads to better service and more choice. We examine that logic. | 12/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
83 |
Clean#813: The Produce Show | Five reporters go to the New York Produce Show and Conference, each on a mission. | 12/15/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
84 |
Clean#812: High Rise, Low Returns | As a businessman, President Trump is known for his towering buildings. Today we tell the story of one of those skyscrapers and what it says about how and with whom Trump does business. | 12/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
85 |
CleanBONUS: The Indicator, From Planet Money | We've made a new show. You can subscribe to it now. It's called 'The Indicator'. It's for those times you want Planet Money to explain the news, quickly. It's short (about five minutes) and three days a week. | 12/11/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
86 |
CleanSPACE 4: 3 2 1 | We've got a satellite. We got a rocket. We're heading to the launch pad. | 12/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
87 |
CleanSPACE 3: Rocket Shopping | We found a satellite. We tried to figure out what it would do. Now we need to choose our rocket. | 12/6/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
88 |
CleanSPACE 2: Wait, Why Are We Going To Space? | We hitched a ride on a satellite. Now we have to figure out what we're going to do up there. | 12/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
89 |
CleanSPACE 1: We're Going To Space | We really are going to space. | 11/29/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
90 |
Clean#807: Anatomy of a Hustle | What did Paul Manafort do, exactly? Robert Mueller's indictment is 31 pages of hard-to-understand financial crime. We try to figure it out. | 11/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
91 |
Clean#665: The Free Food Market | A while back, the charity Feeding America was a mess. It was sending pickles to food banks that wanted produce, and potatoes to Idaho. So they called some economists, and a free food market was born. | 11/22/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
92 |
Clean#806: Walmart's Pickle | Walmart and Amazon are in a battle to be the store where you buy everything. But when both companies sell everything, what sets them apart? Food inventions like a bright, red pickle! | 11/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
93 |
Clean#805: War And Peace And Cows | In South Sudan, there is a kind of money that works even through bank failures and unstable governments. But when war struck, it upended a whole economy: the economy of cows. | 11/15/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
94 |
Clean#672: Bagging the Birkin | Once you've got a Birkin bag, you've made it. But to get one, you need more than just money. Birkins always seem to be mysteriously out of stock. This is no accident. | 11/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
95 |
Clean#804: Your Cell Phone's A Snitch | Timothy Carpenter stole cell phones. Then his phone sold him out to the Feds. Now the Supreme Court has to decide how private our cell phone data should be. | 11/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
96 |
Clean#369: If Teens Ran the Fed | Once a year, teenagers from across the country team up and compete to run the U.S. Federal Reserve. | 11/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
97 |
Clean#803: Nudge, Nudge, Nobel | Why do smart people make dumb decisions? Figuring that out won Richard Thaler a Nobel Prize. | 11/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
98 |
Explicit#802: The Hotel at the Center of the World | A Chinese company pays millions of dollars for a failing hotel in a small, rural town. We follow the trail of money, and it explains the world economy. | 10/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
99 |
Clean#579: Is the NCAA An Illegal Cartel? | In any other industry, it's illegal for a group of companies to get together and cap wages. What makes the NCAA different? | 10/25/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
100 |
Clean#801: The Death Show | Today on the show: death. We have four stories about how people prepare for death and what they leave behind for the living. | 10/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
101 |
Clean#581: Free Money | Bob Peterson claims to have found the thing people have sought for thousands of years — an investment guaranteed to double in value. He keeps it in a storage locker in Utah. It's protected by a single padlock. | 10/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
102 |
Clean#800: North Korea's Capitalists | Capitalism isn't supposed to exist in North Korea. But all over the country, small businesses are popping up, growing the nation's economy. And much of that money is going straight to the country's nuclear program. | 10/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
103 |
Clean#799: Corporate! Income! Tax! | Republicans are proposing big changes to the corporate income tax. Trillions of dollars are at stake. Here's what it all means. | 10/11/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
104 |
Clean#798: Bad Credit Bureau | For most of our lives, Equifax has been slurping up our financial data. Now the company's been hacked and our data is loose. Today, we trace this mess back to two brothers and one fateful decision. | 10/6/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
105 |
Clean#648: The Benefits of Bankruptcy | It might just be the secret weapon of the U.S. economy. | 10/4/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
106 |
Clean#797: Flood Money | Bill Pennington's house floods a lot: Three times in the last three years. And every time his house floods, the government pays to help him repair the damage. Is something wrong here? | 9/29/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
107 |
Clean#524: Mr Jones' Act | The government suspended the Jones Act last week, to allow non-US ships to move fuel to victims of hurricanes in Houston and Florida. Which once again made us wonder why the act even exists. | 9/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
108 |
Clean#796: The Basic Income Experiment | The basic income. A flat payment to citizens, without strings. Is it a progressive fever dream, or sensible policy? We may soon find out. The Finnish Government is testing it on 2,000 citizens. | 9/22/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
109 |
Clean#795: Is Record Breaking Broken? | The Guinness Book of World Records had a problem. It was a book. And books aren't selling as well as they used to. So Guinness changed what they were selling, and who they were selling to. | 9/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
110 |
Explicit#794: How To Make It In The Music Business | Behind almost all popular music, there is this hidden economy of music producers buying and selling sonic snippets, texting each other half-finished beats, and angling for back-end royalties. | 9/15/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
111 |
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? | 9/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
112 |
Clean#793: This Week in Time Bombs | We look at three time bombs Congress is sitting on: The federal budget, the debt ceiling, and DREAMers. | 9/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
113 |
Clean#628: This Ad's For You | Tom Burrell was the first black man in Chicago advertising. He went on to change the way we think about ads, and the way advertisers think about us. | 9/6/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
114 |
Clean#792: The Ransom Problem | When someone has been kidnapped, what do you do? If you pay ransom, you create a market for hostages. If you don't, people die. Different countries have different policies with different results. | 9/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
115 |
Clean#791: Tips From Spies | There's an entire universe of things spies are not allowed to tell us. Today on the show, a few of the teeny things they can say. They might come in handy. | 8/30/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
116 |
Explicit#790: Rough Translation in Ukraine | Fake news from Russia helped spark a real war in Ukraine. What can Ukraine's fight against fake news teach the US? | 8/25/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
117 |
Clean#652: The Hydrox Resurrection | Hidden in the trash heap of commerce there is buried treasure. Abandoned brands--including trusted, beloved brands--are waiting to be claimed and reborn. Today on the show: A cookie comeback. | 8/23/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
118 |
Explicit#789: Robocall Invasion | Your phone rings--it looks like your neighbor's calling. But instead, it's the creepiest scam of the year. | 8/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
119 |
Clean#653: The Anti-Store | Costco made shopping harder, and customers loved it. Now a new company is taking the Costco experience to new extremes. | 8/16/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
120 |
Clean#788: Robert And Kenny Go To The Fair | When we go to the state fair, we don't go for the rides, deep-fried tacos or the butter cow. We head straight for the vendor marketplace to meet the masters of the lost art of salesmanship. | 8/11/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
121 |
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. | 8/9/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
122 |
Clean#787: Google Is Big. Is That Bad? | Google just got hit with a multibillion-dollar antitrust fine. Here's what it tells us about competition, market power, and the biggest corporations on the planet. | 8/4/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
123 |
Explicit#471: The Eddie Murphy Rule | We answer one of the most important questions in finance: What actually happens at the end of Trading Places? | 8/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
124 |
Explicit#786: Rest of the Story 2017, Vol. 1 | News moves fast. Some of our best stories from this year have new chapters. Here, we catch up on three: Dirty trademarks, trading bots, and the war against the bald eagle. | 7/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
125 |
Clean#629: Buy Low, Sell Prime | Sam Cohen buys stuff at big retail stores, then turns around and sells it on Amazon for a quick profit. It defies economic logic. But somehow, there's a whole multimillion-dollar industry doing this. | 7/26/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
126 |
Clean#785: The Starbury | Most athlete endorsements make a product more expensive. But what happens when an NBA All-Star uses his name to make a sneaker much, much cheaper? On today's show: How that worked out. | 7/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
127 |
Clean#594: Board Games | On today's show: The story of two guys who tried to cut the pay of a CEO at a small pneumatic tool company. | 7/19/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
128 |
Clean#784: Meeting The Russians | That meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer was two decades in the making. It began in 1996, when an adventurous American went to Russia, trying to make a buck. | 7/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
129 |
Clean#783: New Jersey Bails Out | Bail is broken. In New Jersey, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges banded together to try a dramatic solution: Blow it up. | 7/12/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
130 |
Clean#782: Budget Time | We run through the entire federal budget — in 10 minutes. More than $6 billion per second. Go. | 7/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
131 |
Clean#586: How Stuff Gets Cheaper | We visit a company where people work on figuring out how to make stuff get cheaper. | 7/5/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
132 |
Clean#781: The Money Fixers | In Washington, D.C., there is a place where millions of dollars of ripped, burned, and water-soaked dollar bills are made new. On today's show, we get inside that room. | 6/30/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
133 |
Clean#286: Libertarian Summer Camp | We visited a libertarian summer paradise. What we found: People paying in gold. Exotic bacon dishes. A nine-year-old selling alcohol. | 6/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
134 |
Clean#780: On Second Thought | Flip-floppers, this one's for you. Changing your mind is hard, but it's one of the smartest things you can do. | 6/23/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
135 |
Clean#779: Shrimp Fight Club | What happens when an unstoppable shrimp meets an unmovable senator? A researcher goes to Washington to defend herself, her shrimp, and science itself. | 6/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
136 |
Clean#778: What the Falcon's Up With Qatar? | Qatar was on top of the world. Seemingly overnight, it became a pariah. On this episode, we drill into a rift years in the making: It's a tale of falcons, kidnapping, and a glowing Saudi Arabian orb. | 6/16/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
137 |
Explicit#610: The Prisoner's Solution | Today on the show, a businessman goes to prison, and decides he is going to disrupt the biggest captive market in America. | 6/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
138 |
Explicit#777: Free Love, Free Market | How a free-love commune embraced the free market and became a blockbuster brand. | 6/9/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
139 |
Clean#776: Here We Grow Again | The president's budget promises 3% growth. Is that doable? Yes, but he won't like what it would take. | 6/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
140 |
Clean#775: The Pigweed Killer | A battle with a weed divides neighbors and leads one farmer to shoot another dead. Today's show: The hunt for a better pesticide gets way out of hand. | 6/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
141 |
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 |
|
142 |
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 |
|
143 |
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 |
|
144 |
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 |
|
145 |
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 |
|
146 |
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 |
|
147 |
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 |
|
148 |
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 |
|
149 |
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 |
|
150 |
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 |
|
151 |
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 |
|
152 |
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 |
|
153 |
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 |
|
154 |
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 |
|
155 |
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 |
|
156 |
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 |
|
157 |
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 |
|
158 |
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 |
|
159 |
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 |
|
160 |
Clean#761: The Bank War | A populist president versus the most powerful banker in America. | 3/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
161 |
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 |
|
162 |
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 |
|
163 |
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 |
|
164 |
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 |
|
165 |
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 |
|
166 |
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 |
|
167 |
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 |
|
168 |
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 |
|
169 |
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 |
|
170 |
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 |
|
171 |
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 |
|
172 |
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 |
|
173 |
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 |
|
174 |
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 |
|
175 |
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 |
|
176 |
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 |
|
177 |
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 |
|
178 |
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 |
|
179 |
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 |
|
180 |
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 |
|
181 |
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 |
|
182 |
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 |
|
183 |
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 |
|
184 |
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 |
|
185 |
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 |
|
186 |
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 |
|
187 |
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 |
|
188 |
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 |
|
189 |
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 |
|
190 |
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 |
|
191 |
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 |
|
192 |
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 |
|
193 |
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 |
|
194 |
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 |
|
195 |
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 |
|
196 |
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 |
|
197 |
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 |
|
198 |
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 |
|
199 |
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 |
|
200 |
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 |
|
201 |
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 |
|
202 |
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 |
|
203 |
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 |
|
204 |
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 |
|
205 |
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 |
|
206 |
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 |
|
207 |
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 |
|
208 |
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 |
|
209 |
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 |
|
210 |
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 |
|
211 |
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 |
|
212 |
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 |
|
213 |
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 |
|
214 |
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 |
|
215 |
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 |
|
216 |
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 |
|
217 |
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 |
|
218 |
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 |
|
219 |
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 |
|
220 |
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 |
|
221 |
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 |
|
222 |
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 |
|
223 |
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 |
|
224 |
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 |
|
225 |
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 |
|
226 |
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 |
|
227 |
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 |
|
228 |
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 |
|
229 |
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 |
|
230 |
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 |
|
231 |
Explicit#713: Paying for the Crime | A tale of violence, payback, and how to make things right. | 7/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
232 |
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 |
|
233 |
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 |
|
234 |
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 |
|
235 |
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 |
|
236 |
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 |
|
237 |
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 |
|
238 |
Explicit#707: Brexit | What just happened in the UK? And what's coming next? | 6/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
|
239 |
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 |
|
240 |
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 |
|
241 |
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 |
|
242 |
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 |
|
243 |
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 |
|
244 |
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 |
|
245 |
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 |
|
246 |
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 |
|
247 |
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 |
|
248 |
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 |
|
249 |
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 |
|
250 |
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 |
|
251 |
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 |
|
252 |
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 |
|
253 |
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 |
|
254 |
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 |
|
255 |
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 |
|
256 |
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 |
|
257 |
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 |
|
258 |
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 |
|
259 |
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 |
|
260 |
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 |
|
261 |
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 |
|
262 |
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 |
|
263 |
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 |
|
264 |
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 |
|
265 |
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 |
|
266 |
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 |
|
267 |
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 |
|
268 |
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 |
|
269 |
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 |
|
270 |
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 |
|
271 |
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 |
|
272 |
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 |
|
273 |
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 |
|
274 |
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 |
|
275 |
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 |
|
276 |
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 |
|
277 |
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 |
|
278 |
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 |
|
279 |
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 |
|
280 |
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 |
|
281 |
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 |
|
282 |
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 |
|
283 |
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 |
|
284 |
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 |
|
285 |
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 |
|
286 |
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 |
|
287 |
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 |
|
288 |
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 |
|
289 |
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 |
|
290 |
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 |
|
291 |
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 |
|
292 |
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 |
|
293 |
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 |
|
294 |
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 |
|
295 |
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 |
|
296 |
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 |
|
297 |
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 |
|
298 |
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 |
|
299 |
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 |
|
300 |
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 |
| 300 Items |
Customer Reviews
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.
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.
A really good podcast
This is a fantastic show. Complex economic concepts are explained well with excellent guests providing great anecdotes from fighting in the tranches. Planet Money is just an intro away from being a near-perfect show.
- Free
- Category: Business
- Language: English
- © Copyright 2015-2018 NPR - For Personal Use Only