Planet Money
1,202 episodes - English - Latest episode: 18 days ago - ★★★★★ - 28.8K ratingsWanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.
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Episodes
Japan's Lost Decades
April 05, 2024 22:14 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBLast month, Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years. That is a really big deal, because it means that one of the spookiest stories in modern economics might finally have an ending. Back in the 1980s, Japan performed something of an economic miracle. It transformed itself into the number two economy in the world. From Walkmans to Toyotas, the U.S. was awash in Japanese imports. And Japanese companies went on a spending spree. Sony bought up Columbia Pictures...
The real estate industry on trial
April 03, 2024 23:07 - 28 minutes - 26.3 MBIn 2019, Mike Ketchmark got a call. Mike is a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, and his friend, Brandon Boulware, another lawyer, was calling about a case he wanted Mike to get involved with. Mike was an unusual choice - he's a personal injury lawyer, and this was going to be an antitrust case. But Brandon knew Mike was great in front of a jury. And that he'd won huge settlements for his clients in the past. So the lawyer friend drops by Mike's office, and pitches him the case. Rhonda and ...
How much of your tax dollars are going to Israel and Ukraine
March 29, 2024 17:13 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBThere's been a lot of disagreement in Congress and in the country about whether the U.S. should continue to financially support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Some taxpayers don't think the U.S. should give Ukraine any money to fight off Russia's invasion. And some taxpayers have concerns about how they might be funding weapons that have been used to kill civilians in Gaza. And there are questions about how much individual taxpayers contribute to war efforts, generally. So in this episode,...
The trouble with Table 101 (Update)
March 27, 2024 22:33 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MB(Note: This episode originally ran in 2020.) In the restaurant game, you need to make the most of every table every minute you are open. And you need to make sure your guests are happy, comfortable, and want to come back. If you're a restaurateur, your gut tells you "more seats, more money," but, in this episode, restaurant design expert Stephani Robson upends all that and more. She helps Roni Mazumdar, owner of the casual Indian spot Adda in New York's Long Island City, rethink how a custo...
What is Temu?
March 22, 2024 22:08 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBIt is rare that a new e-commerce company has such a meteoric rise as Temu. The company, which launched in the fall of 2022, has been flooding the American advertising market, buying much of the inventory of Facebook, Snapchat, and beyond. According to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Temu is one of the most downloaded iPhone apps in the country, with around 50 million monthly active users. On today's show, we go deep on Temu: How does it work, how did it manage such a quick rise in...
How Big Steel in the U.S. fell
March 20, 2024 07:00 - 22 minutes - 20.4 MBSteel manufacturing was at one point the most important industry in the United States. It was one of the biggest employers, a driver of economic growth, and it shaped our national security. Cars, weapons, skyscrapers... all needed steel. But in the second half of the 20th century, the industry's power started to decline. Foreign steel companies gained more market power and the established steel industry in the U.S. was hesitant to change and invest in newer technologies. But then, a smaller ...
The billion dollar war behind U.S. rum
March 15, 2024 23:14 - 23 minutes - 21.4 MBWhen you buy a bottle of rum in the United States, by law nearly all the federal taxes on that rum must be sent to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's an unusual system that Congress designed decades ago to help fund these two U.S. territories. In 2021 alone, these rum tax payments added up to more than $700 million. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands split the money according to how much rum each territory produces. And the territories produce a lot of it — especially Puerto Rico,...
Wind boom, wind bust (Two Windicators)
March 13, 2024 22:42 - 16 minutes - 15.2 MBThe wind power business is a bit contradictory right now. It's showing signs of boom and bust seemingly all at once. The story of wind energy markets in two acts today. First, the Gulf of Mexico saw its first-ever auction of leases for offshore wind this summer. It was another sign of the Biden administration's desire to get more renewable energy online as fast as possible. Expectations were high, but results did not deliver. Two of the three patches of sea didn't get any bids at all. Hidde...
On the Oscars campaign trail
March 08, 2024 22:10 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBWhen you sit down to watch the Oscars, what you are really watching is the final battle in a months-long war of financial engineering and campaign strategy. Because in Hollywood, every year is an election year. A small army of Oscars campaign strategists help studios and streamers deploy tens of millions of dollars to sway Academy voters. And the signs of these campaigns are everywhere — from the endless celebrity appearances on late night TV to the billboards along your daily commute. On t...
Is dynamic pricing coming to a supermarket near you?
March 06, 2024 23:16 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBDynamic pricing is an increasingly common phenomenon: You can see it when Uber prices surge during rainy weather, or when you're booking a flight at the last minute or buying tickets to your favorite superstar's concert. On an earnings call last week, Wendy's ignited a minor controversy by suggesting it would introduce dynamic pricing in its restaurants, but the company quickly clarified that it wasn't planning on using it for "surge pricing." One place you hardly ever see dynamic pricing? A...
Shopping for parental benefits around the world
March 01, 2024 23:53 - 29 minutes - 27.1 MBIt is so expensive to have a kid in the United States. The U.S. is one of just a handful of countries worldwide with no federal paid parental leave; it offers functionally no public childcare (and private childcare is wildly expensive); and women can expect their pay to take a hit after becoming a parent. (Incidentally, men's wages tend to rise after becoming fathers.) But outside the U.S., many countries desperately want kids to be born inside their borders. One reason? Many countries are ...
The secret world behind school fundraisers
February 29, 2024 01:54 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBFundraising is a staple of the school experience in the U.S. There's an assembly showing off all the prizes kids can win by selling enough wrapping paper or chocolate to their neighbors. But it's pretty weird, right? Why do schools turn kids into little salespeople? And why do we let companies come in and dangle prizes in front of students? We spend a year with one elementary school, following their fundraising efforts, to see how much they raise, and what the money goes to. The school – ...
A controversial idea at the heart of Bidenomics
February 23, 2024 23:30 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBRéka Juhász is a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and she studies what's known as industrial policy. That's the general term for whenever the government tries to promote specific sectors of the economy. The idea is that they might be able to supercharge growth by giving money to certain kinds of businesses, or by putting up trade barriers to protect certain industries. Economists have long been against it. Industrial policy has been called a "taboo" subject, and...
Two Indicators: Economics of the defense industry
February 21, 2024 22:48 - 19 minutes - 17.7 MBThe Department of Defense's proposed budget for 2024 is $842 billion. That is about 3.5% of the U.S.'s GDP. The military buys everything from pens and paper clips to fighter jets and submarines. But the market for military equipment is very different from the commercial market. On today's episode, we're bringing you two stories from The Indicator's series on defense spending that explore that market. As the U.S. continues to send weapons to Ukraine and Israel, we first look at why defense co...
How the Navy came to protect cargo ships
February 16, 2024 22:05 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MBThe Genco Picardy is not an American ship. It doesn't pay U.S. taxes, none of its crew are U.S. nationals, and when it sailed through the Red Sea last month, it wasn't carrying cargo to or from an American port. But when the Houthis, a tribal militant group from Yemen, attacked the ship, the crew called the U.S. Navy. That same day, the Navy fired missiles at Houthi sites. On today's show: How did protecting the safe passage of other countries' ships in the Red Sea become a job for the U.S...
It's giving ... Valentines
February 15, 2024 00:34 - 26 minutes - 23.9 MBL, is for the way you Listen to Planet Money O, is for the Only podcast I hear V, is Very, very, fiduciary E, is for... ECONOMICS! Every February, we dedicate a show to the things in our lives that have been giving us butterflies. Whether it's an obscure online marketplace or a piece of stunt journalism that made us green with envy. And then we go out into the world to proclaim our love...in the form of a Valentine. And we have a great roster this Valentine's Day: - A grocery store in Los ...
A lawsuit for your broken heart
February 09, 2024 23:13 - 22 minutes - 20.6 MBKeith King was upset when his marriage ended. His wife had cheated, and his family broke apart. And that's when he learned about a very old type of lawsuit, called a heart balm tort. A lawsuit that would let him sue the man his now ex-wife had gotten involved with during their marriage. On this episode, where heart balm torts came from, what relationships looked like back then, and why these lawsuits still exist today (in some states, anyway.) And also, what happened when Keith King used a h...
Morally questionable, economically efficient
February 07, 2024 23:45 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBThere are tons of markets that don't exist because people just don't want to allow a market – for whatever reason, people feel icky about putting a price on something. For example: Surrogacy is a legal industry in parts of the United States, but not in much of the rest of the world. Assisted end-of-life is a legal medical transaction in some states, but is illegal in others. When we have those knee-jerk reactions and our gut repels us from considering something apparently icky, economics ask...
Groundhog Day 2024: Trademark, bankruptcy, and the dollar that failed
February 02, 2024 22:53 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBIt's Groundhog Day, and the eyes of the nation have turned to a small town in western Pennsylvania. And, just like last year, all anyone can talk about is Punxsutawney Phil! It is impossible to find a news story that is not about one furry prognosticator. Well, almost impossible... Once again, our Planet Money hosts find themselves trapped in the endless Groundhog Day news cycle, and their only way out is to discover an economics story from Groundhog Day itself interesting enough to appease...
The Chicken Tax (Classic)
January 31, 2024 23:43 - 15 minutes - 14.6 MBNote: This episode originally ran in 2015. German families in the 60s loved tasty, cheap American-raised chicken that was suddenly coming in after the war. And Americans were loving fun, cheap Volkswagen Beetles. This arrangement was too good to last. Today on the show, how a trade dispute over frozen chicken parts changed the American auto industry as we know it. This episode was reported by Robert Smith and Sonari Glinton. It was produced by Frances Harlow. Help support Planet Money an...
Bonus: Janet Yellen on Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
January 29, 2024 22:37 - 10 minutes - 9.61 MBOur friends at NPR's news quiz Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! recently had a very Planet Money guest on their show: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. They asked her about smoking pot, her extremely high scores in Candy Crush, and when to expect the Harriet Tubman $20 bill. Today, we're sharing an excerpt of that episode with you, along with some exclusive questions just for Planet Money listeners. You can listen to the full show and subscribe to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! wherever you find your ...
Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortune
January 27, 2024 01:01 - 26 minutes - 24 MBAt around 1 a.m. on the morning of November 15, 1994, Captain Prentice "Skip" Strong III woke to a distress call. Skip was the new captain of an oil tanker called the Cherry Valley. He and his crew had been making their way up the coast of Florida that evening when a tropical storm had descended. It had been a rough night of 15 foot waves and 50 mile per hour winds. The distress call was coming from a tugboat whose engines were failing in the storm. Now adrift, the tugboat was on a dangerous...
Hear us out: We ban left turns and other big ideas
January 24, 2024 08:00 - 23 minutes - 21.4 MBOn today's episode, we have three big economic ideas for your consideration – ideas that could potentially improve the economy and make us more efficient. First, what if we ban left turns on roads? Then, what if we gave every new baby ... a trust fund? And lastly, what if we completely got rid of U.S. congressional districts? That's all on today's episode. This show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Willa Rubin and Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It wa...
Econ Battle Zone: Disinflation Confrontation
January 20, 2024 02:10 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBAfter very high inflation, the United States is finally feeling some relief in the form of "disinflation." But, why exactly has inflation slowed down? Three Planet Money hosts try to answer that question while competing to be the winner of our very own reporting challenge: Econ Battle Zone! It's economics journalism meets high-stakes reality TV competition! Will our contestants be able to impress our celebrity judges? How will they manage to incorporate their mystery ingredients? Who will ...
Mid-East conflict escalation, two indicators
January 17, 2024 23:17 - 16 minutes - 15 MBOn today's show, we look at two indicators of the economic disruptions of the war in Gaza and try to trace how far they will reach. We start in the Red Sea, a crucial link in the global supply chain connecting to the Suez Canal, with around 15% of the world's shipping passing through it. This includes oil tankers and massive container ships transporting everything from microchips to furniture. With Houthi rebels attacking container ships in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, shipping lin...
The Maine Potato War of 1976
January 13, 2024 00:54 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBWhen you think of a potato, one state probably comes to mind: Idaho. But for much of American history, Maine was home to the nation's largest potato crop. That status had changed by the 1970s, with the West growing more and more of the nation's potatoes. But Maine still had one distinct advantage: A privileged position in the commodities market. The New York Mercantile Exchange, one of the largest such marketplaces in the country, exclusively dealt in Maine potatoes. And two deep-pocketed W...
The Universal Basic Income experiment in Kenya
January 10, 2024 22:16 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBThere's this fundamental question in economics that has proven really hard to answer: What's a good way to help people out of poverty? The old-school way was to fund programs that would support very particular things, like buying cows for a village, giving people business training, or building schools. But over the past few decades, there has been a new idea: Could you help people who don't have money by ... just giving them money? We covered this question in a segment of This American Life ...
The case of the serial sinking Spanish ships
January 05, 2024 22:26 - 26 minutes - 24 MBPicture the Pacific Ocean of the 16th century. Spanish Galleons sail the wide open seas, carrying precious cargo like silver, porcelain, and textiles. The waters are dangerous; ship logs show concerns over pirates. But pirates are not to blame for a mysterious event that keeps happening. For, you see, one in five of the ships leaving from the port of Manila didn't make it to Acapulco. It's a shipwrecking rate much higher than rates for other routes of the time. And the mystery of the serial ...
The Rest of the Story, 2023
December 29, 2023 22:45 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBIt's that time of year again! Our annual year-end tradition of checking in on the stories we've reported and the people we met along the way. We'll hear from a Hollywood strike captain who tried to pull off one last job, an update from the data detective trying to uncover the truth in academic research, and tribute to a very special member of the Planet Money family. Check out the original stories: Vacation, and why the U.S. takes so little of it The secret entrance that sidesteps Hollywoo...
The Indicators of this year and next
December 27, 2023 08:00 - 15 minutes - 14.3 MBToday on the show, hosts from Planet Money and The Indicator debate the economic indicators of this year and next year. First up, we try to identify the figure that best captured the essence of 2023. The contenders: the possible soft landing, consumer sentiment, and the housing market. And looking ahead to 2024, what will the economic indicator of next year be? Interest rates, Bidenomics, or junk fees? Listen to our hosts make their case, and then tell us who won by submitting your vote vi...
We buy a lot of Christmas trees (Update)
December 22, 2023 22:25 - 31 minutes - 29 MB*Note: This episode originally ran in 2020* 'Tis the season for Americans to head out in droves and bring home a freshly-cut Christmas tree. But decorative evergreens don't just magically show up on corner lots, waiting to find a home in your living room. There are a bunch of fascinating steps that determine exactly how many Christmas trees get sold, and how expensive they are. Today on the show, we visit the world's largest auction of Christmas trees — and then see how much green New Yorke...
Dollarizing Argentina
December 21, 2023 00:35 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBArgentina has been on a decades-long search for economic stability, but it always seems to be out of reach. High inflation has been plaguing the country and just surpassed 160% a year. Over the past couple of years, the local currency has collapsed. One U.S. dollar used to be worth 20 Argentinean pesos in 2018. Today, one U.S. dollar is worth 1,000 pesos on the black market. And that means for Argentineans, the real prices of everything — from groceries to gas — have spiked. In a country wh...
How to be better at hybrid work, according to research
December 19, 2023 00:58 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBThe research keeps coming in on remote work. New evidence suggests working from home, at least full-time, may not be as productive as we once thought. Economist Jose Maria Barrero and his co-authors have reviewed this and other studies for a recent paper. In this episode, we hear about the challenges that come with working fully remote and some best practices for hybrid work. This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today, we're making it availabl...
What econ says in the shadows
December 16, 2023 02:31 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBEconomics Job Market Rumors is a website that's half a job information Wiki, where people post about what's going on inside economics departments, and half a discussion forum, where anyone with an internet connection can ask the economics hive mind whatever they want. All anonymously. People can talk about finding work, share rumors, and just blow off steam. And that steam can get scaldingly hot. The forum has become notorious for racist and sexist posts, often attacking specific women and p...
Why '90s ads are unforgettable
December 14, 2023 02:46 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBMaybe she's born with it, maybe it's __________. The best part of waking up, is _______ in your cup! Got ____? If you can identify these brands based on tagline alone, it's possible you... are a 90s kid. The '90s were arguably the peak moment of advertisers trying to make an impression on us that could last for decades. They got us to sing their jingles and say their slogans. These kinds of ads are called brand or image marketing. And it became a lot harder to pull off in the 21st century...
The U.S. economy's biggest superpower, explained
December 11, 2023 20:03 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBWhat if you could borrow money on the cheap and use it to pay for just about anything? The U.S. government can, and does, with U.S. Treasuries. But the market for Treasuries might be more fragile than we know. In this episode, Yesha Yadav of Vanderbilt Law School explains why. This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today we're making it available for everyone. To hear more episodes like this, and to hear Planet Money and The Indicator without ...
Why do doctors still use pagers?
December 08, 2023 23:28 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBRemember pagers? They were huge in the 80s — these little devices that could receive short messages. Sir Mix-A-Lot even had a song about them! But then cell phones came along, and pagers more or less became obsolete. Except there's one group of people who still carry pagers: medical doctors. At a surprisingly large number of hospitals, the pager remains the backbone of communication. Need to ask a doctor a question? Page them. Need to summon a doctor to an emergency? Page them. And then... w...
Two food and drink indicators
December 06, 2023 23:01 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBToday on the show, we have two episodes from our daily podcast, The Indicator, about things we spend a lot of time thinking about this time of year: food and drink. First up, we explore how changes in economic conditions led to one of the U.K.'s iconic (and affordable) staple foods becoming a luxury. Then, the story of one Indigenous woman whose small business went head-to-head with Coca-Cola over a trademark dispute. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Plan...
Why are we so bummed about the economy?
December 01, 2023 23:11 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBWould you say that you and your family are better off or worse off, financially, than you were a year ago? Do you think in 12 months we'll have good times, financially, or bad? Generally speaking, do you think now is a good time or a bad time to buy a house? These are the kinds of questions baked into the Consumer Sentiment Index. And while the economy has been humming along surprisingly well lately, sentiment has stayed surprisingly low. Today on the show: We are really bummed about the e...
So you want to sell marijuana across state lines
November 29, 2023 23:44 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBIn the state of Oregon, there is a glut of grass. A wealth of weed. A crisis of chronic. And, jokes aside, it's a real problem for people who work in the cannabis industry like Matt Ochoa. Ochoa runs the Jefferson Packing House in Medford, Oregon, which provides marijuana growers with services like drying, trimming and packing their product. He has seen literal tons of usable weed being left in marijuana fields all over the state of Oregon. Because, Ochoa says, there aren't enough buyers. ...
A very Planet Money Thanksgiving
November 22, 2023 23:33 - 26 minutes - 24.3 MBHere at Planet Money, Thanksgiving is not just a time to feast on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casseroles and pie(s). It's also a time to feast on economics. Today, we host a very Planet Money Thanksgiving feast, and solve a few economic questions along the way. First: a turkey mystery. Around the holidays, demand for turkey at grocery stores goes up by as much as 750%. And when turkey demand is so high, you might think that the price of turkey would also go up. But data sho...
Economic fact in literary fiction
November 18, 2023 00:48 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBSome of the most influential and beloved novels of the last few years have been about money, finance, and the global economy. Some overtly so, others more subtly. It got to the point where we just had to call up the authors to find out more: What brought them into this world? What did they learn? How were they thinking about economics when they wrote these beautiful books? Today on the show: we get to the bottom of it. We talk to three bestselling contemporary novelists — Min Jin Lee (Pach...
China's real estate crisis, explained
November 15, 2023 23:33 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBChina's economic growth for the past few decades has been extraordinary. And much of that growth was fueled by real estate – it was like this miraculous economic engine for the country. But recently, that engine seems to have stopped working. And that has raised all kinds of questions not just for China but also for the global economy. Today on the show, we look at what's happening inside China's real estate market. And we try to answer the question: how did we get here? Help support Plane...
The alleged theft at the heart of ChatGPT
November 10, 2023 23:54 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBWhen best-selling thriller writer Douglas Preston began playing around with OpenAI's new chatbot, ChatGPT, he was, at first, impressed. But then he realized how much in-depth knowledge GPT had of the books he had written. When prompted, it supplied detailed plot summaries and descriptions of even minor characters. He was convinced it could only pull that off if it had read his books. Large language models, the kind of artificial intelligence underlying programs like ChatGPT, do not come into...
Never have I ever
November 08, 2023 23:38 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBThe world of economics has these two different sides. One one side, there are the economists in their cozy armchairs and dusty libraries, high up in their ivory towers. On the other, there's the messy world we're all living in, where those economics are actually playing out. Sometimes, researchers will write about something that they themselves have never actually experienced. Sure, they've thought about it, theorized, come up with smart analyses...but that's not the same as getting out of ...
FTC Chair Lina Khan on Antitrust in the age of Amazon
November 03, 2023 21:45 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MBWhen Lina Khan was in law school back in 2017, she wrote a law review article called 'Amazon's Antitrust Paradox,' that went kinda viral in policy circles. In it, she argued that antitrust enforcement in the U.S. was behind the times. For decades, regulators had focused narrowly on consumer welfare, and they'd bring companies to court only when they thought consumers were being harmed by things like rising prices. But in the age of digital platforms like Amazon and Facebook, Khan argued in th...
Antitrust in America (classic)
November 01, 2023 23:25 - 40 minutes - 36.9 MBEarlier this fall, the Federal Trade Commission filed a high-stakes lawsuit against Amazon. In that suit, the FTC claims Amazon is a monopoly, and it accuses the company of using anti-competitive tactics to hold onto its market power. It's a big case, with implications for consumers and businesses and digital marketplaces, and for antitrust law itself. That is the highly important but somewhat obscure body of law that deals with competition and big business. And so, this week on Planet Mone...
All you can eat economics
October 27, 2023 22:23 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBYou might expect to find economic concepts in the pages of an economics textbook. But you know where you can really see a lot of economic concepts in action? Buffets. Here at Planet Money we believe there's a lot of economics going on at the all-you-eat buffet, tucked in between the mountains of brisket and troughs of mashed potatoes. From classic concepts like adverse selection, sunk costs, diminishing marginal returns, to more exotic economic mysteries, like the flat rate pricing bias. To...
Cutting school... by 20%
October 26, 2023 00:08 - 23 minutes - 21.8 MBRight now, a lot of school districts across the country are making a pretty giant change to the way public education usually works. Facing teacher shortages and struggling to fill vacant spots, they are finding a new recruitment tool: the four-day school week. Those districts are saying to teachers, "You can have three-day weekends all the time, and we won't cut your pay." As of this fall, around 900 school districts – that's about 7% of all districts in the U.S. – now have school weeks that...
How unions are stopped before they start
October 20, 2023 23:47 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBUnion membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, support for unions among Americans was the highest it's been in decades. This dissonance is due, in part, to the difficulties of one important phase in the life cycle of a union: setting up a union in the first place. One place where that has been particularly clear is at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Back in 2008, Volkswagen announced that they would be setting up production in the United States aft...