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Planet Money

NPR

300 episodes

Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world. Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.

Episodes page 3 of 6

  1. Saving lives with fewer dollars

    · 33 min

    Givewell is a nonprofit organization that gives money to “save or improve the most lives per dollar.” Part of their whole thing is a rigorous research process with copious and specific datapoints. So, in the chaotic…

  2. The Consumer Sentiment vs. Consumer Spending Puzzle

    · 20 min

    Wherever consumer sentiment goes, consumer spending usually goes too. They’re like buddies that do everything together. Consumer sentiment wants a hair cut, its buddy consumer spending does too. But lately, these…

  3. Days of our Tariffs

    · 30 min

    Tariffs. They’ve been announced, unannounced, re-announced, raised and lowered. It’s an on-going saga with billions at stake! On today’s episode, we run full-on at the twisty, turny drama of life with broad-based…

  4. The obscure pool of money the US used to bail out Argentina

    · 29 min

    Last month, during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the United States had offered to functionally loan Argentina $20 billion. Despite the sums involved,…

  5. Buy now, pay dearly? (update)

    · 25 min

    (Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2022.) Every time you shop online and make it to the checkout screen, you see those colorful pastel buttons at the bottom. Affirm. Klarna. Afterpay. Asking: Do you…

  6. A new experiment in remote work … from the inside

    · 28 min

    When people in Maine prisons started getting laptops to use in their cells for online classes and homework, it sparked this new idea. Could they have laptops in their cells to work remotely for real outside world jobs,…

  7. Everything’s more expensive!! Pet care!! Concert tickets!! (Two Indicators)

    · 18 min

    People in the U.S. are feeling the financial squeeze, in part because of rising inflation, higher consumer prices and slowing job growth. The Indicator from Planet Money is tackling a special series on the rising cost…

  8. After the shutdown, SNAP will still be in trouble

    · 30 min

    This week’s SNAP crisis is just a preview. Tucked inside the giant tax-cut and spending bill signed by President Donald Trump this summer are enormous cuts to SNAP: Who qualifies, how much they get, and who foots the…

  9. The remittance mystery

    · 28 min

    For decades, the U.S. has been the single biggest source of remittances worldwide. A remittance is a transfer of money, typically from an immigrant to their family in their country of origin. But we are in the middle…

  10. Should the fine have to fit the crime?

    · 26 min

    The U.S. Constitution famously outlaws “cruel and unusual punishments.” But there's another, far more obscure part of the Constitution called the Excessive Fines Clause, which basically says that the fine has to fit…

  11. TikTok’s Trojan Horse Strategy

    · 25 min

    When TikTok videos started to go viral on Instagram and Reddit, TikTok turned to professional sound designers to protect their content. More and more companies are paying to develop a “sonic identity” – a series of…

  12. How Russia’s shadow fleet is sailing around oil sanctions

    · 31 min

    Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he’s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, the tankers started getting weird. They were flying…

  13. The year NYC went broke

    · 32 min

    In 1975, New York City ran out of money. For a decade it had managed to pay for its hundreds of thousands of city employees and robust social services by taking on billions of dollars in debt. But eventually investors…

  14. How the government got hedge funded

    · 28 min

    The U.S. government spends a ton of money, on everything from Medicare to roads to defense. In fact, it spends way more than it takes in. So…it borrows money, in the bond market. By selling U.S. Treasurys, basically…

  15. Two ways AI is changing the business of crime (Two Indicators)

    · 20 min

    Pre-order the Planet Money book here for your free gift. Our sister show, The Indicator, is chronicling the evolving business of crime for its Vice Week series. Today, we bring to you two cases of crime in the age of…

  16. How to design an economics GAME

    · 36 min

    It’s here! It’s free to download and playtest! It’s the Planet Money game! (Download here.) • Download and playtest the game go here • Sign up for the 11/1 virtual AMA event and get updates about the game • Submit…

  17. We're making a GAME

    · 32 min

    We want to make a board game. It must, of course, teach the world about economics. It must be fun. It’d be nice if it sold lots of copies! How hard could that be!? (Monopoly and Catan are hugely popular and basically…

  18. How refrigeration took over the world

    · 23 min

    The next time you open your fridge, take a second to behold the miracles inside of it: Raspberries from California, butter from New Zealand, steak from Nebraska. None of that would have been remotely possible before…

  19. How Jane Street’s secret billion-dollar trade unraveled

    · 29 min

    On Wall Street, fortunes are often won and lost with the tiniest advantages. And for the past few years, one trading firm has stood out from the rest for both huge profits and careful secrecy — Jane Street Group. But…

  20. In Gaza, money is falling apart

    · 35 min

    Israel has been blocking the flow of physical money into Gaza since the start of the war. So whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war, that’s all that’s been circulating. It's falling apart from overuse. Two best…

  21. When CEO pay exploded (update)

    · 23 min

    (Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.) It’s no secret that CEOs get paid a ton – and a ton more than the average worker. More than a hundred times than what their average employee makes. But it…

  22. The U.S. now owns a big chunk of Intel. That’s a huge deal.

    · 25 min

    Last month, President Donald Trump announced an unusual deal. Intel, the biggest microchip maker in America, had agreed to give the United States a 10 percent stake in its business. That means the U.S. government is…

  23. Asking for a friend … which jobs are safe from AI?

    · 29 min

    There’s one question we seem to be hearing everywhere: “Is my job safe from AI?” Dozens of you, our listeners, have written to us about this. Saying things like, “Maybe my yoga teacher side gig is actually my safest…

  24. What happens to central banks under pressure?

    · 26 min

    President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve from a few angles. So we wanted to look at other examples of political pressure on central banks, to see what it might mean for us and for the economy.…

  25. The million dollar mystery behind Milk.com

    · 21 min

    When we stumbled upon Milk.com, we were mystified. It appears to be someone’s personal website. But memorable domain names can be worth a million dollars or more. So, why is someone using this valuable internet real…

  26. Lisa Cook and the fight for the Fed

    · 23 min

    The Federal Reserve has been under intense pressure from President Donald Trump as he pushes for more control over the historically independent agency. The Fed is tasked with keeping inflation and unemployment under…

  27. Summer School 8: Graduation LIVE!

    · 31 min

    Get your own personalized summer school diploma here. Today on our final episode of Summer School 2025, we will test your knowledge. We will salute the unsung heroes of government service. And we will pick our…

  28. Buy discount Ozempic here now click this link

    · 32 min

    In the past couple years, demand has gone wild for drugs like Ozempic – and its cousins, Zepbound, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. For people who had never been able to lose weight before, suddenly the numbers on the scale were…

  29. Summer School 7: Trade blocks and blockages

    · 39 min

    Tariffs are the favorite tool of our current president, but there are lots of other ways that governments insert themselves into the free exchange of goods and services. Some of these trade barriers are so insidious…

  30. When our inflation infeelings don’t match the CPI

    · 32 min

    For most Americans, we just lived through the highest period of inflation in our lives. And we are reminded of this every time we go grocery shopping. All over TikTok, tons of people have posted videos of how little…

  31. What happens when governments cook the books

    · 35 min

    After President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists and statisticians across the board were horrified. Because the firing raises the spectre of potential manipulation – and it raises the…

  32. Summer School 6: When the markets need a designer

    · 42 min

    LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here. (PM+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the code!) In economics, a market is a place (even virtual)…

  33. Summer School 5: The many ways governments influence industry

    · 37 min

    LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here. Traditional economics says the market is guided by the forces of supply and demand. Customers decide what they want to buy, and private enterprise responds to that…

  34. Would you trust an economist with your economy?

    · 32 min

    Trust in experts is down. In all kinds of institutions and professions - in government, in media, in medical science... and lately, economists are feeling the burn acutely. In fact, President Trump just fired the…

  35. Summer School 4: Who are all these regulations protecting?

    · 36 min

    LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here. There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things; maybe cheat at the game and steal other people's ideas, or cut some corners…

  36. The President's Golden Share in U.S. Steel

    · 28 min

    LIVE SHOW ALERT: August 18th, NYC. Get your tickets here. When news broke that a Japanese company, Nippon Steel, was buying the storied American steel company U.S. Steel, it was still 2023, just before an election. And…

  37. Summer School 3: How government decides what to spend our money on

    · 37 min

    Although it seems like the government can spend an endless amount of money, it cannot actually do all the things it wants to do. So the big question in this week's lesson is: How do we decide? Why does the government…

  38. Why are we so obsessed with manufacturing?

    · 23 min

    It seems like politicians cannot agree on a lot. But many seem to agree on... manufacturing. Leaders of both political parties have been working to try and make the U.S. a manufacturing powerhouse again. On today's…

  39. Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media

    · 2:01

    Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit donate.npr.org now. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our…

  40. Summer School 2: How taxes change behavior and the economy

    · 37 min

    We all know the government uses taxes to pay for things. But what about using taxes to control behavior? This week on Summer School, Professor Darrick Hamilton of The New School, helps us explore the true power of the…

  41. Made in America

    · 31 min

    What people might picture when they think of "Made in America" ... might not look like the "Made in America" we have today. The U.S. does have a domestic manufacturing industry, including a garment manufacturing…

  42. Summer School 1: A government's role in the economy is to make us all richer

    · 36 min

    Government. The Big G. We like to imagine the free market and the invisible hand as being independent from political influence. But Nobel laureate, Simon Johnson, says that influence has been there since the birth of…

  43. The simple math of the big bill

    · 32 min

    If we think about the economic effects of President Donald Trumps big taxing and spending and domestic policy bill, we can roughly sum it up in one line. It goes something like this: We will make many big tax cuts…

  44. A thought experiment on how to fix the national debt problem

    · 26 min

    There's an economic fantasy you sometimes hear in D.C. It often gets trotted out when politicians are trying to add billions or trillions to the national debt. They claim that all the new spending will be worth it in…

  45. When Trump met crypto

    · 32 min

    In 2019, President Trump tweeted: "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies." Today, the Trumps are all over crypto. There are memecoins for Trump and the first lady. They own a stablecoin, a bitcoin mining…

  46. Econ Battle Zone: Budget Showdown

    · 39 min

    Econ Battle Zone is back! On today's episode Mary Childs and Kenny Malone enter Econ Battle Stadium to throw down against reigning champion Erika Beras. Can Mary explain what effect extending the 2017 tax cuts will…

  47. The U.S. is the world's bribery cop. Is that about to change?

    · 28 min

    The U.S. has been policing bribery all over the world for nearly half a century using a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But now, President Trump has said that this anti-corruption law is crippling…

  48. Jay & Shai's debt ceiling adventure (Update)

    · 30 min

    Note: A version of this episode first ran in 2023. Every year, the U.S. government spends more money than it takes in. In order to fund all that spending, the country takes on debt. Congress has the power to limit how…

  49. Why I joined DOGE

    · 27 min

    What was it like to work inside Elon Musk's DOGE? The cost-cutting initiative promised transparency, but most of its actions have been shrouded in secrecy.For months, there were reports of software engineers and Trump…

  50. Are Trump's tariffs legal?

    · 25 min

    When President Trump announced his sweeping new tariffs this year, many trade law experts were startled. Typically, presidents don't have the authority to impose broad tariffs with a snap of their fingers. But Trump's…

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