Planet Money

In this economy it is boom times and doom times all at once. The statistics aren’t really capturing it. K-shaped only goes so far as a metaphor. So … we asked you to help. And you delivered! 

One one hand, the stock market is on a prolonged, upward trajectory. Unemployment is low and inflation has come down from its peak. But on the other hand, inflation is frustratingly sticky and higher than we want, job turnover is extremely low making looking for work an endless grind, and more than 75% of Americans say they’re stressed about money. 

So we asked you – our listeners – how is the economy working for you? We got a range of responses. Some people are going to great lengths to save money and make ends meet, others are thriving and feel kind of guilty about their good fortune. We also heard from a new generation being shaped by this economic moment into hyper cost-conscious shoppers. You might call them the inflation generation. Each story helps us understand what’s actually going on in the economy and what the stats aren’t capturing. 

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our Game: Sell Me A Sasquatch about the hilarious chaos of monstrous dealmaking.
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more atplus.npr.org.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Alex Goldmark. Reporting help from Charlotte Isidore. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Special thanks to all our listeners and all of you who wrote in to let us know how you’re doing. 

Music: NPR Source Audio  - "What I Need," "Feel the Love," and "Red Line"


See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

One week ago, President Trump announced a deal that would give the “U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American Taxpayer.”

The exact nature of this deal has been … obscure, to say the least. But today, we wanted to know, from someone who’s been through this before, what does this mean for Venezuela?

José Ángel Pereira Ruimwyk is both optimistic … and wary. He’s a longtime Venezuelan oil insider. When Venezuela invited in foreigners, decades ago, he was there to greet them. And when Venezuela wanted them out? Well, that’s how he ended up in a jail cell. 

On today’s show, we’re going to hear from one third-generation Venezuelan oilman who has seen everything … up until this, of course.

Check out our other episodes about Venezuela:  
- Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty
- How Venezuela imploded 

Read: 
- Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
- Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
- Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
- Instagram
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Facebook

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more atplus.npr.org.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Erika Beras and produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact checked by Emma Peaslee with help from Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Josephine Nyounai with help from Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

To a lot of people, Palantir is a mystery — what does the company know, what data do they have, and (if they have it) what do they do with it all? We dig into that mystery and take you to a singles event to see if Big Data is good for Big Dating.

That event, deep in the heart of Manhattan, is called: “Singles Dating Matching Using Palantir Data.” The evening promised: “Data analysis!” and “Pattern matching!” We decided that we needed to know more. 

Read: 
- Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
- Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
- Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
- Instagram
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Facebook

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more atplus.npr.org.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo and Maggie Luthar and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer.

Music: Universal Production Music - "Silvana’s Theme," "Masseria Del Sud," Sunset in Florence," and "An Italian Romance"

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The brilliance of "9 to 5" is that it is catchy even though it’s also kinda depressing. You will be dancing along. You're enjoying it. And, then when you really listen to the lyrics, you're like, Wait, this is messed up. This is real. This is a problem we need to fix. Like, why does it have to be this way?

That is the spirit of the song, why it became an anthem, and the heart of the movie9 to 5. 

There’s so much to say about Dolly Parton, about her music, acting career, her business savvy, not to mention Dollywood. Today though, we wanted to bring you the audacious true story of 9 to 5, the movie and the song. 

Between the 1960s and 1980s, there was a real sense that big workplace changes were just beyond the horizon. At the time, a very common job for women was clerical work. In 1973, a group of secretaries in Boston formed a women's labor organization. They called themselves the "9to5."

Today on the show, we revisit our 2021 episode where we meet the women behind the movement that inspired the movie. And a look at how far we have — or haven't — come since then.

This is a special Sunday bonus episode. For our latest episode on inventing new tomatoes, scroll down the feed orclick here. 

(Note: This episode originally ran in2021.)

Read: 
 - Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
 - Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
 - Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
 - Instagram
 - TikTok
 - YouTube
 - Facebook

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

Today's episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Sonari Glinton. The original episode was produced by Nick Fountain and James Sneed and edited by Mitra Kaboli. The update was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer.

Music: "9 to 5," "5 to 9," and "Fly on the Wall." 


See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

There’s a room where the fates of retail products are decided. Will they make it onto the shelves of the big box stores? Usually the rest of us can’t get inside the room where decisions are made – until now! Today on the show, we pitch the Planet Money game, Sell Me a Sasquatch, to big box retailers. We go behind the scenes to learn about how products end up on big box store shelves, what’s going on inside the minds of the deciders, and find out our board game’s fate. 

Learn more about the story of Pantone: The company that owns colors 


Support:
Planet Money+

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook

This episode ofPlanet Moneywas produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Jimmy Keeley.Planet Money’sexecutive producer is Alex Goldmark. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Silly Sevens," "Adventure Time," and "Virtual Machine"

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made.

Today on the show, we have the story of the once-humble squishy dumpling and what it teaches us about how to make a viral hit and how to manufacture it, without getting left holding the bag. Hear it all firsthand from the creator of this trendy toy. 

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook

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.

This episode ofPlanet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Melty Heart," "Summer Escape," and "Twilight Sparkle"


See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean. 

So on today’s show, we tell you just how much lettuce Americans eat every year (SO MUCH!), how bagged lettuce came to dominate grocery store shelves, what that means for food safety, and why these outbreaks continue to happen — despite the FDA’s efforts to stop them.

Check out other related episodes:
Food Scare Squad
How refrigeration took over the world

Support:
Planet Money+

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune and it was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Electric Leak," "West Green Road," and "Melty Heart"

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Antonio arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.

In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death. They track down key eyewitnesses and surface crucial evidence that's never been made public.

Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed.

Listen toEmbeddedwherever you get your podcasts, including theNPR App,Apple Podcasts,Pocket Casts,Spotify, and viaRSS.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer scorer of all time. But when it comes to penalty kicks, Messi is merely average. Why? Maybe the answer involves game theory.

According to game theory, there’s an optimal strategy for taking penalty kicks. This strategy involves an idea that was once somewhat controversial in economics — that is, until economists started studying soccer players in real life. 

On today's show, we kick it over to the hosts of the Soccernomics podcast to explain how game theory has changed soccer, and how soccer has changed game theory. 

Watch the penalty shootout between Manchester United and Chelsea in the Champions League final in 2008. 

Support:
Planet Money+

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter

Follow: 
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

The Soccernomics episode was originally hosted by Ashish Malhotra, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski and sound designed by Alex Roldan.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

99% of chemicals in our food right now were added without FDA approval. Many were added in secret, through a sneaky loophole built into the 1958 Food Additives Amendment.

It was supposed to require FDA approval for new additives. But food companies and chemical makers found a workaround. And the FDA formally okayed the loophole in the 90s — in the process bringing attention to a loophole to the loophole.

The FDA has essentially admitted it doesn’t have the capacity to verify the safety of new food chemicals. So they leave it up to food companies and chemical makers to declare their brand new chemicals are safe. These chemicals are used in everything from chocolate and smoked fish, to tea bags, protein drinks, popcorn, and seeds.

So, how’d the loophole get there, and what does it tell us about the priority the U.S. places on safety versus speed and innovation? And, how much can one lawyer do about it?

Live show tour and book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodrguez with help from Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.  

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Do you work more for more money? Or work less for more time? For some, this is the ultimate economic choice. 

Every single worker in the European Union is guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation. No matter how long they’ve been at a company. No matter how low paying the job is. Vacation is a right. 

In fact, all but one of the richest countries in the world guarantees paid vacation, except: the U.S. 

According to a 2019 study, people in Japan get 10 paid vacation days and 15 paid holidays; in Australia it’s 20 paid vacation days and 8 paid holidays; and in Spain it’s 25 paid vacation days and 14 paid holidays. 

And it’s not just a rich country thing: Mexico, Afghanistan, Thailand, Tanzania - they all guarantee paid vacation from work, at least in the formal job sector. 

In the U.S: Zero paid vacation days and zero paid holidays. 

So, why is the United States the outlier? We go to several labor economists and historians, to find out what makes Americans different from Europeans. It’s a winding journey, so maybe put in a request for some paid time off and take a listen!

Note: This episode originally ran in2023.

Some articles we mention in this episode:

“No Vacation Nation”
“Study: A Record 768 Million U.S. Vacation Days Went Unused in ‘18, Opportunity Cost in the Billions”
“Why the US is one of only a few countries with no paid time off”

This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, engineered by Maggie Luthar, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

Book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,Google Podcasts,NPR Oneor anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

If you have a credit card, hope to buy a house, or just want stable grocery prices – let’s talk about the future of Fed independence!

It’s impossibly important for the Federal Reserve to steer monetary policy without political interference – an ideal pushed to its brink during Jerome Powell’s time as Fed Chair.

Powell’s Fed faced a once-in-a-century pandemic, oversaw the economy as inflation spiked to about 9 percent … went back down to nearly 2 percent … and has started to go back up as the U.S. has gone to war and continued to try and implement the most comprehensive tariffs since the early 1900s.

But perhaps Powell will be best remembered as a target – of angry tweets, speeches, and ultimately a criminal investigation, by the very president who nominated him in the first place.

On Powell’s last day as chair, we ask where his story fits into the sweep of history. We’ll hear from someone who was on the Fed Board when Powell was appointed … and when President Trump started to pressure Powell. Plus, we learn what to watch for to see if Fed Independence is crumbling – or holding – as a new Fed Chair nominated by President Trump takes office.

Recommend Listening:

- Happy Fed Independence Day
- The case for Fed independence in the Nixon tapes
- A primer on the Federal Reserve's independence
- Trump's unprecedented attack on the Fed
- Should presidents have more of a say in interest rates?
- Lisa Cook and the fight for the Fed
- What happens to central banks under pressure?

Book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo.Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Recently, a listener wrote in with a question about OPEC and oil prices. She was prepping for a camping trip… thinking about how much it costs to fill up her diesel-guzzling camper van at the pump. 

“It would be so awesome if you guys could do an episode explaining OPEC to us,” she emailed us. She wanted to know: why does OPEC exist? Why does it limit the supply of oil? And now that the United Arab Emirates has dropped out, what will happen to gas prices?  

We love when our listeners write in (and send us voice notes!). The simplest questions can reveal how the complicated web of the economy works.

On our latest: we answer our listener’s questions… and the questions behind those questions! 

Related episodes:
• Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty  

Book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by James Sneed with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Today the WNBA season tips off, but Dallas Wings veteran forward Alysha Clark has already won a high-stakes competition. She – and a Nobel Prize winning economist – were on the team that negotiated a ground-breaking contract for the players. And Alysha wrote all about it in her journal.

Alysha is the oldest player in the league – and when she started she was making a yearly salary of about $36,400. The players flew economy, the rookies in middle seats. They doubled up in hotel rooms. The league was just starting out, wasn’t bringing in money, and, as Alysha says, “That's just what you got.”

Jump forward to 2025 and fans are crowding into stadiums, games are on primetime TV, and the WNBA has a 3.1 billion dollar media rights deal.  

So when the players’ contract came up for renewal, they had a once in a generation opportunity to change the future for all of women’s basketball. Maybe all of women's sports. Today on the show, we hear Alysha’s minute by minute account of what it’s like to be a rookie doing high-stakes bargaining. It came right down to the buzzer. 

Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life is in stores now. 

Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Jimmy Keeley and James Willets. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Nights Like This," "Funk Dive," and "Tropical Heat"

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Curt Flood was the best center fielder in baseball and one of the game’s highest paid players. He took the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series three times. Then he got traded to the Phillies. He didn’t want to go. But baseball’s rules said he had no say in the decision. He could either go to Philly or quit the sport. Instead, Flood took Major League Baseball to court.

Flood argued that the league should act like any other business and let workers sell their labor to whichever team they liked. But for decades, courts had ruled in favor of the team owners. Curt’s fight would destroy his career and change the sport forever.

If you want to learn more about Curt Flood’s story, check out Business History’s original episode. 

Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life is in stores now. 

Support: Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Find us on Socials: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok 

Our weekly Newsletter.

This episode was hosted by Jacob Goldstein, Robert Smith and Keith Romer. It was produced and fact-checked by Emma Peaslee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Thanks to Gabriel Hunter Chang and Ryan Dilley at Business History.


See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place on the New York Times Best Seller List. But how does a book actually end up there? There is, of course, a playbook that publishers and authors use to try to gin up enough sales at the beginning of a new book’s life to launch it onto the list. But there is also a world of more shadowy techniques – a whole history of hacking shenanigans going back nearly a century.

Today on the show, the fourth episode in our series: Planet Money sets out to make the Planet Money book a best seller, and along the way, we uncover all the outlandish strategies that people have tried to hack their way onto the New York Times Best Seller List. There will be mass hallucinations, legal exorcisms, shady book launderers, and scarlet daggers. And we learn the hard way how trying to engineer your way onto the list, just might be the thing that keeps you from getting there.

Related:

- “Night People's Hoax On Day People Makes Hit With Book Folks” 
- New York Times: “Jacqueline Susann Dead at 53; Novelist Wrote 'Valley of Dolls'”
- New York Times: “Blatty Sue Times On Best-Seller List”
- New York Times: “Court Bars A Suit Over Books List”
- Bloomberg Businessweek: “Did Dirty Tricks Create A Best Seller?” 
- Episode 1: Inside a BOOK auction
- Episode 2: Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain 
- Episode 3: BOOKstore Economics
- Series: Planet Money makes a book
- Laura McGrath’s new book: Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction


Our book:Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Lifeis in stores now. 

Support:Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Find us on Socials:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok.

Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Quirky Episodes," “Dramedy Scheme,” "Unforeseen Consequences,” and “Impractical Jokes.” 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

It’s way more than fuel costs that pushed Spirit Airlines to the brink of liquidation and led President Trump to muse about “buying” them. Many low cost airlines are struggling due to a canny and calculated set of strategies from bigger airlines that we can think of as ‘revenge of the legacy carriers.’ 

Today on the show, we go back in time to when Spirit was riding high and pressuring the whole industry to cut costs. We talk with then-CEO Ben Baldanza about his radical vision for cheap air travel and then travel to the present day to hear how legacy airlines beat Spirit and other budget airlines at their own game. Plus, what happens to us passengers if Spirit does go away. 

Newsletters:
Greg’s weekly deep dive
The brand new Indicator link roundup

Related Episodes: 
People Express and how flying got so bad (or did it?)

Book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life is in stores now. 

Support: Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Find us on Socials: 

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok 

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Greg Rosalsky, Jacob Goldstein, Zoe Chace and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

At one point in history, one U.S. company monopolized the rare earths industry. Then China took over the industry. Can the U.S. bring it back?

Rare earths are critical to making, like, everything. From smart phones to electric vehicles to microwaves. They’ve also become a powerful political weapon for China, which controls the majority of mining and processing of rare earths. 

Today, we have the story of the rise and fall of America’s rare earth industry told through that single company. It’s a corporate saga made for prestige television about the elements that literally, once, made prestige televisions. 

Live event info and tickets here. 

Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

We talk with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and Chief Economist at Redfin Daryl Fairweather about two of the biggest issues of our time: AI and housing. 

We have been crisscrossing America doing live shows to help promote the new Planet Money book. In each city, we’ve been doing interviews with special guests. And since we won’t be able to make it to every city in America (or most cities) we wanted to bring the tour to you!

Live show tour and book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was edited and produced by Eric Mennel and Emma Peaslee. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Have you noticed a lot of young people getting into antenna-maxxing as alpha? Or, maybe searching for any bit of copium after they fat-fingered and got rinsed? Or maybe they farmed during a yes-fest on Mention Markets resulting in some serious printing? 

If none of that made sense to you, then we have the perfect episode for you. 

Prediction markets have taken off in the past few years, using the same legal loopholes as the crypto market to essentially claim they are a “swap,” or “futures market,” similar to that of the totally legal grain and pork belly markets, and less like the state-regulated sports gambling market. 

And they are great for the bondsharps who print on the regular (or, in English, “well known market makers who often make a lot of money”). 

These prediction market companies exist because they’ve convinced regulators that they’re also great for the rest of us. They're adding new knowledge to the world. Making us more informed about the future. 

On today’s episode, the case Kalshi has been making to regulators, the courts and the public as to why what looks like gambling and seems like gambling … is not. Why that argument’s kinda been working. And – if no one stops them – what prediction markets could do to our future.

For more, listen toformer CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson onThe Indicator from Planet Money.

Live show tour and book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Bobby Allyn and Mary Childs. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The United States has been at war with Iran since February 28th. And for a month and a half, Iran’s main leverage over the U.S. has been their control over the Strait of Hormuz — a key global shipping route. Iran has attacked ships that try to pass without approval. And recently they’ve insinuated that one part of the Strait — the part near Oman — is not safe. Which means that captains had to go right by Iran’s shores to get through the Strait … effectively creating a chokepoint for the global economy. 

On today’s show, a source inside Iran tells us how ships had been getting through the strait, and how the tollbooth Iran set up works. And we ask: What does this all mean for the global economy? 

Live show tour and book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

How do bookstores choose the books they stock, and how does that affect what customers read? It may not seem like it, but every shelf in a bookstore is a highly valuable and contested piece of commercial real estate. And for every new book that a bookstore decides to stock, there are thousands of others that did not make the cut. So how do bookstores make those decisions? And how will the Planet Money book fare under the discerning eyes of the booksellers, the final gatekeepers in the long gauntlet of the publishing industry?

Today on the show: the third episode in our series. Planet Money sets out to actually sell a book. We burrow behind the bookstore shelves to learn the secret codes that publishers use to try to convince booksellers to carry the book, from little mom and pops to airport juggernauts. There will be corporate intelligence networks, bargain bin shenanigans, and a giant industrial saw chewing up books by the thousands. Call it Pulp Non-fiction.

Related:

- Fisher Nash’s Substack
- Episode 1: Inside a BOOK auction
- Episode 2: Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain 
- Episode 4: How to make a BOOK into a bestseller
- Series: Planet Money makes a book

Live show tour and book info./Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - “A Peculiar Investigation,” “Round Round,” and “Neighbourhood Watcher.”

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 permanent and pay for those tax cuts by cutting Medicaid and a few other things and also...by borrowing money.

A lot of money.

Even more than we've already been borrowing over the past twenty years. (And that was already a lot, too!)

Today: simple arithmetic with profound ramifications. Tax cuts, spending cuts, and whether they balance out. (Spoiler: no.)

We look under the hood to see how all this is calculated. And we ask: how will a bigger deficit play out for all of us, in our normal, regular lives?

We've covered a bunch more having to do with the big taxing and spending bill and the federal debt recently on Planet Money and our short daily show The Indicator:

- So, how's this No Tax On Tips thing gonna go?
- A thought experiment on how to fix the national debt problem
- The paperwork trap: A sneaky way to cut Medicaid in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill'?
- The debt limit, the origins of the X Date, and why it all matters
- What's a revenge tax?
- Is the federal debt REALLY that bad?

SupportPlanet Money, getbonus episodes and sponsor-free listening and now Summer School episodes one week early by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Listen free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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

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

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

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

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 need.

So what makes government think that it's smarter than capitalism? Why offer tax breaks to Hollywood or incentives to build silicon chip factories in Arizona? Why those industries and not others? And when does the free market fail and need government to step in?

Today, we discuss what happens when the government really wants to get its hands dirty and shape the direction of the economy, even decide which companies should prosper and which ones should fail, through industrial policy.

The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Emily Crawford.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Always free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify, theNPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 on safety. In theory, the government as referee steps in to make the rules and enforce them, and manage competition in a way that hopefully makes things better for us all.

But you have to ask... When is the government protecting you and when is it protecting the already rich and powerful?

We'll meet a man trying to corner the market for frozen meat, with the help of patents. And then we'll head to the salon, and ask — Should the government really require dozens of hours of training for a license to braid hair?

Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the code!)

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

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 spend so much money on some things and not on others? And honestly, is there any limit?Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code!)The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Emily Crawford.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.Always free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.Find more Planet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Ourweekly Newsletter.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 tax code. Can taxes help lift people out of poverty? What about saving the planet?

Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code!)

The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Emily Crawford and Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Robert Rodriguez.

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

Find more Planet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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 economics. Call it political economy. Call it government and business. Call it our big topic each Wednesday through Labor Day.

We're kicking off another semester of Planet Money Summer School asking the biggest question: Why are some nations rich and others poor? With stories from India, New York City and Peru, we look at the ways in which government bureaucracy can help make or break an economy.

Tickets for Planet Money Live at the Bell House available here. Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Go to plus.npr.org to sign up, if you haven't already, and listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code.

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

Find more Planet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

Planet Money+ supporters get early access to new episodes of Summer School this season! You also get sponsor-free listening, regular bonus episodes, and you'll help support the work of Planet Money.

Sign up for Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Over the last few months U.S.-China trade relations have been pretty hard to make sense of – unless you look at what's happening through the lens of game theory. Game theory is all about how decisions are made, based not just on one side's options and payoffs, but on the choices and incentives of others.

So, are Donald Trump and Xi Jinping competing in a simple game of chicken? Or is the game more like the prisoner's dilemma? On today's show, we try to decide which of four possibilities might be the best model for this incredibly high-stakes game. And we take a look at who is playing well and who might need to adjust their strategy.

For more on the U.S.-China trade war:

- The 145% tariff already did its damage
- What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
- What "Made in China" actually means

This show was hosted by Keith Romer and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez and Cena Lofreddo. Additional production help from Sylvie Douglis. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money's executive producer.

Find morePlanet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

Listen free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Ever wondered why you can buy fresh Peruvian blueberries in the dead of winter? The answer, surprisingly, is tied to cocaine. Today on the show, we look at how the War on Drugs led to an American trade policy and a foreign aid initiative that won us blueberries all year round.

And for more on trade and tariffs check out Planet Money's homepage. We've got articles looking at how much the new tariffs will raise prices and shows on everything from diamonds to potatoes to why you bought your couch.

This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Find morePlanet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklynewsletter.

Listen free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Music: Source Audio: "Martini Shaker," "You the Man," and "Leisure Girls."

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

What are tariffs good for?

For years, mainstream economists have basically said: tariffs are not good. They are an import tax paid by consumers, they've said, and they discourage free trade, and we want more! Because free trade has broadly led to more global economic growth.

But global trade hasn't been all positive for Americans, and in the worldview of President Trump's administration, tariffs can be used to right some of those wrongs. And the U.S. has economic leverage. So if the U.S. wants to level the playing field, it should use that leverage, and use tariffs to accomplish its policy goals.

Today on the show: the case for tariffs. We talk to a lonely economist who's been sounding the alarm for years that more and free-er trade isn't always better. And we speak to economists in President Trump's orbit who make the case for how tariffs can be a potent economic and political tool.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Meg Cramer. It was fact-checked by Sarah McClure and engineered by James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Find morePlanet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

Listen free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Music: Universal Music Production: "Funky Reverie" and "With It;" Audio Network: "Slush Puppy Soul."

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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

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

Find morePlanet Money:Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

Listen free at these links:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Wir Rollen"

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Help supportPlanet Moneyby subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney. You get bonus episodes!

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were selling — you can learn a lot about where the economy might be headed. Or at least, where people are willing to bet the economy is headed.

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

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

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

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Ray and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because of Ray's service in the Army. During COVID, the Queens – like millions of other Americans – needed help from emergency forbearance. They were told they could pause home payments for up to a year and then pick up again making affordable mortgage payments with no problems.

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

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

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

Help supportPlanet Moneyand hear our bonus episodes by subscribing toPlanet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

There's been a lot of disagreement in Congress and in the country about whether the U.S. should continue to financially support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Some taxpayers don't think the U.S. should give Ukraine any money to fight off Russia's invasion. And some taxpayers have concerns about how they might be funding weapons that have been used to kill civilians in Gaza. And there are questions about how much individual taxpayers contribute to war efforts, generally.

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

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

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

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Remember 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... wait for them to call you back.

Almost everyone agrees that pagers are a clunky and error-prone way for doctors to communicate. So why do so many hospitals still rely on them?On today's show: A story about two doctors who hatched a plan to finally rid their hospital of pagers. And the surprising lessons they learned about why some obsolete technologies can be so hard to replace.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Right 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 are just four days long.

And this isn't the first time a bunch of schools have scaled back to four days, so there is a lot of data to lean on to figure out how well it works. In this episode, teachers love the four-day school week, and it turns out even parents love it, too. But is it good for students?

This episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Molly Messick and engineered by Maggie Luthar. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Union membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, supportfor unions among Americans was the highest it's been in decades. This dissonance is due, in part, to the difficulties of one important phase in the life cycle of a union: setting up a union in the first place. One place where that has been particularly clear is at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

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

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

They were wrong.

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

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

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

When contract negotiations between Alaska Airlines and their flight attendants' union broke down in 1993, the union had a choice to make.

The union — The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA — knew that if they chose to strike, Alaska Airlines could use a plan. While Alaska Airlines technically couldn't fire someone on strike, they could permanently replace the striking flight attendants with new workers. Essentially, if the union went on strike, they could risk thousands of people's jobs. The flight attendants knew they needed a counter-strategy.

They went with a strategy they called CHAOS: "Create Havoc Around Our System."

The strategy had two phases. Phase one: The union kept Alaska guessing about when, where, and how a strike might happen. They kept everyone, even their own members, in the dark. And in turn, Alaska Airlines had to be prepared for a strike at any place and any time. Phase two was to go on strike in a targeted and strategic way.

The havoc that the flight attendants created set off a sort-of labor-dispute arms race and would go on to inspire strikes today. And, it showed how powerful it can be to introduce a little chaos into negotiations.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

There seems to be headlines about floods, wildfires, or hurricanes every week. Scientists say this might be the new normal — that climate change is making natural disasters more and more common.

Tatyana Deryugina is a leading expert on the economics of natural disasters — how we respond to them, how they affect the economy, and how they change our lives. And back when Tatyana first started researching natural disasters she realized that there's a lot we don't know about their long-term economic consequences. Especially about how individuals and communities recover.

Trying to understand those questions of how we respond to natural disasters is a big part of Tatyana's research. And her research has some surprising implications for how we shouldbe responding to natural disasters.

This episode was hosted and reported by Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Josephine Nyounai. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The Nobel-prize winning economist Simon Kuznets once analyzed the world's economies this way — he said there are four kinds of countries: developed, underdeveloped, Japan... and Argentina.

If you want to understand what happens when inflation really goes off the rails, go to Argentina. Annual inflation there, over the past year, was 124 percent. Argentina's currency, the peso, is collapsing, its poverty rate is above 40 percent, and the country may be on the verge of electing a far right Libertarian president who promises to replace the peso with the dollar. Even in a country that is already deeply familiar with economic chaos, this is dramatic.

In this episode, we travel to Argentina to try to understand: what is it like to live in an economy that's on the edge? With the help of our tango dancer guide, we meet all kinds of people who are living through record inflation and political upheaval. Because even as Argentina's economy tanks, its annual Mundial de Tango – the biggest tango competition in the world – that show is still on.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from James Sneed. It was engineered by Maggie Luthar, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ inApple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

It's the thrilling conclusion to our three-part series on AI — the world premiere of the first episode of Planet Money written by AI. In Part 1 of this series, we taught AI how to write an original Planet Money script by feeding it real research and interviews. In Part 2, we used AI to clone the voice of our former colleague Robert Smith.

Now, we've put everything together into a 15-minute Planet Money episode. And we've gathered some of our co-hosts to listen along.

So, how did the AI do? You'll have to listen to learn what went surprisingly well, where it fell short, and hear reactions from the real-life hosts whose jobs could be at risk of being replaced by the machines.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin. It was engineered by James Willetts and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Keith Romer edited this series and Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

In the radio play, Mary Childs voiced Ethel Kinney; Willa Rubin voiced Alice; and Kenny Malone voiced Dr. Jones and Dial Doom 5000.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

In Part 1 of this series, AI proved that it could use real research and real interviews to write an original script for an episode of Planet Money. Our next task was to teach the computer how to sound like us. How to read that script aloud like a Planet Money host.

On today's show, we explore the world of AI-generated voices, which have become so lifelike in recent years that they can credibly imitate specific people. To test the limits of the technology, we attempt to create our own synthetic voice by training a computer on recordings of former Planet Money host Robert Smith. Then we introduce synthetic Robert to his very human namesake.

There are a lot of ethical, and economic, questions raised by a technology that can duplicate anyone's voice. To help us make sense of it all, we seek the advice of an artist who has embraced AI voice clones: the musician Grimes.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin, with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by James Willetts. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

We built a Planet Money AI chat bot. Help us test it out:Planetmoneybot.com.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+in Apple Podcastsor atplus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

When you come across a book at a yard sale or a bookstore, you might pay more attention to the words between the covers than the physical form of the book itself. But content and the form are both crucial to a book’s success. Each book you pull off the shelf, is the product of thousands of decisions, big and small, tying together vast supply chains and armies of workers from around the world. 

On today’s episode, the second episode in our series: Planet Money sets out to actually write, design, and manufacture a book. We go spelunking deep inside the bowels of the publishing industrial complex. There will be trade wars, sunken cargo containers filled with lost cookbooks, deforestation regulations, and just a whiff of scratch and sniff. 

Related:
- Watch our book being printed: TikTok,Instagram,Spotify
- Episode 1: Inside a BOOK auction
- Episode 3: BOOKstore Economics
- Episode 4: How to make a BOOK into a bestseller
- The laws of the office revisited 
- Series: Planet Money makes a book 

Live event info and tickets here. 

Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money's executive producer. 


Music: NPR Source Audio - “Motivation Or Mayhem,” “Missing A Deadline,” and “No Limits After All.”

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

In the age of TikTok and Polymarket, it can be easy to overlook the humble book. But books are one of the most influential technologies ever invented. From “The Wealth of Nations” to “Das Kapital,” books have the power to shape whole economic systems… and everything else in our world. The market for books can determine which ideas make it to the masses. 

So when Planet Money was approached to make its own book, not only did it present an opportunity to spread the gospel of whimsical economic infotainment to new audiences everywhere, but it also presented an opportunity to get a rare peek behind the curtain of the notoriously opaque world of publishing.  

On today’s episode, the first chapter in our series on the making of a book: Planet Money sets out to land a book deal. We enter the high stakes, high school drama of the publishing industry, where literary agents try to woo powerful book editors. And we learn what happens when lofty artistic ideals meet the cold logic of the market. It’s a courtship dance with millions of dollars potentially on the line. There will be whale fights, corporate speed dating, and a literary shotgun wedding.

Related: 

- Episode 2: Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain
- Episode 3: BOOKstore Economics
- Episode 4: How to make a BOOK into a bestseller
- Series: Planet Money makes a book 

Live event info and tickets here. 

Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with production help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money's executive producer. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The cardinal tetra is one of the most popular pet fish in the world. They look like little red and blue sequins. You've almost certainly seen them at the pet store or the fish tank at your dentist's office. They're everywhere. 

Not so long ago, most of the world's supply of cardinals came from just one place. It's a little town deep in the rainforests of Brazil, where locals still catch these fish by hand. But the business that this town has relied on for decades has come under threat. 

Recently, we hopped on a plane to see this unusual economy for ourselves — and, two different visions for how to save it. 

For more information about these fish, check out Project Piaba. 

Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.
This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was co-reported and produced by Luis Gallo. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark isPlanet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

What do we want from sports? The very best athletes competing as hard as they know how, putting all their effort and training and natural ability to the test against their opponents. But this time of year, that’s not the product the NBA is putting on the court. Instead, teams at the bottom of the league are competing … to lose, because it could help them get a top pick in next year’s draft. It’s called tanking — it’s bad for fans, and it’s bad for the league.

Tanking has gotten especially egregious this year. Even NBA Adam Silver has called out teams for tanking. He recently announced that league bigwigs are considering “every possible remedy” to “align incentives.”

Today on the show — Planet Money fixes the NBA’s tanking problem by … fixing the NBA draft. We get solutions from Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford, World Cup Champion Sam Mewis, and long-time NBA analyst Zach Lowe. 

Handles for the NBA fans in the episode: thevoiceofevan, fullcourtblitz, ashleynevel, igotnxtpodcast, finesse.wes, basketballsavant, and mikedaddino__.

Live event info and tickets here / Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify, orthe NPR app

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with an assist from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

In the 1990s, Congress created HOPE VI, a program that demolished old public housing projects and replaced them with more up-to-date ones. But the program went further than just improving public housing buildings. HOPE VI was designed to transform neighborhoods with concentrated poverty into neighborhoods that attracted people with different incomes. Some people who moved to HOPE VI neighborhoods earned too much to qualify for public housing. And some even paid for market-rate housing. The idea was that this would help create new opportunities for the low-income people who lived there and even lift people out of poverty.

For years though, there wasn’t a clear answer to whether this approach actually succeeded. A new working paper from Raj Chetty and the team at Opportunity Insights finally provides some answers. On today’s show: Who really benefits when people living in poverty are more connected to their surrounding communities? Are there lessons from the HOPE VI experiment that could apply to other kinds of policies aimed at fostering upward mobility?

More about Opportunity Insights’ study and a link to their interactive map here.

Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Planet Money has teamed up with the company Exploding Kittens to make a board game inspired by the legendary economics paper The Market for Lemons. We’ve decided we want a mass-appeal party game that quietly sneaks in the economics, so that we can report from inside a world that no other Planet Money project has entered: the real shelves at real big box retail stores. 

We have a great game mechanic and a set of rules. Now all we need is a good name and theme. 

Turns out, that is way harder and way higher stakes than any of us could have imagined. 

In the third episode of our series, we learn the importance of a good game name and theme and try to come up with one for our game. 

Find our other episodes in the board game series, here and here.

Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Willa Rubin, and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Venezuela and Chevron have perhaps one of the strangest partnerships … ever? Chevron, one of the world’s most famous and profitable oil corporations, has for decades, been plugging away in Venezuela, one of the world’s most famous and infamous socialist countries. 

Today on the show, the story of their intertwined histories. Before Saudi Arabia, before Iran… there was Venezuela, the first petrostate. The first country whose entire economy became dependent on oil. With the blessing of oil, an entire economic textbook of complications opened up: from the Dutch Disease, to the resource curse, to mono-economic vulnerability.

And, oddly, along for that ride…Chevron. 


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.


Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.


This episode ofPlanet Moneywas hosted by Erika Beras and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Luis Gallo with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.


See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Before President Donald Trump’s first term, he was in a “tight spot” financially, according to New Yorker writer David Kirkpatrick. At the start of his second term, David says, Trump was in an “even tighter” spot. But after just six months into his second term, Trump’s financial situation started looking really good.


David has done a full accounting for what the family has been up to, and even using conservative estimates, David says Trump and his family have made almost $4 billion dollars “off of the presidency,” in just about a year.


Today on the show: we look at every new business and business deal and financial transaction that David says likely would not have happened if Trump wasn’t the president of the United States. And we stop at the most innovative ways Trump and his family have made all that.


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+


Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts. ??Listen to ourplaylist on Federal Reserve independence here.


Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.


Today’s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Mary Childs. It was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Robert Rodriguez engineered it. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Are we in an AI bubble? That’s the $35 trillion dollar question right now as the stock market soars higher and higher. The problem is that bubbles are famously hard to spot. But some economists say they may have found some telltale clues.


On our latest: How do economists detect a bubble? And, how much should society be worried about bubbles in the first place? 


Related shows:


-How to make $35 trillion ... disappear

-What is a bubble?(featuring Nobel prize winning economics Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller)

-What AI data centers are doing to your electric bill


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+


Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.


Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.


This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.


Music: NPR Source Audio - “The best is yet to come,” “Marsh mellow,” and “Sunshine beat”

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The Afro is one of the most iconic hairstyles of the last century. And one of its main ingredients was a hair product – Afro Sheen. But Afro Sheen did so much more than make Black afros shine. It was the money behind the television show Soul Train, it helped fuel the civil rights movement – all because of an entrepreneur named George Johnson. 

For decades, Joan and George Johnson owned and ran Johnson Products Company, a Black hair care company out of Chicago. Their intimate understanding of what Black people wanted and needed – for their hair and for their lives –  helped grow the Black middle class and became an engine for Black culture and power. They helped turn the Black haircare industry into what is now a multi-billion-dollar industry. But although they helped create this industry, they no longer have a part in it. 

Today on the show – the story of the rise and fall of Johnson Products. We’re gonna tell you this story in three hairstyles. The conk, the afro… and the jheri curl. 

Related episodes:

This Ad’s For You

'Soul Train' and the business of Black joy

Fashion Fair's makeover


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Sonari Glinton and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed, edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

We’ve been checking in on the economic conditions in Venezuela for about a decade now. In response to the U.S. strike and the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro this weekend, we’re re-surfacing this episode with an update.

The original version ran in 2016, with an update in 2024.

Back in 2016, things were pretty bad in Venezuela. Grocery stores didn’t have enough food. Hospitals didn’t have basic supplies, like gauze. Child mortality was spiking. Businesses were shuttering. It was one of the epic economic collapses of our time. And it was totally avoidable.

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

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

Today on the show, we run through the decisions that foreshadowed the collapse, and we hear from people in Venezuela in 2016 at a particularly low point for the economy, then again and in 2024 after a bounce back and a stabilization, in part due to the unlikely impact of the U.S. dollar. 


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This original episode was hosted by Robert Smith and Noel King. It was produced by Nick Fountain and Sally Helm. Our update in 2024 was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Neal Rauch. Today's episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and produced by James Sneed. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer. 

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator and Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

2025 is finally over. It was a wild year for the U.S. economy. Tariffs transformed global trading, consumer sentiment hit near-historic lows, and stocks hit dramatic new heights! So … which of these economic stories defined the year?

We will square off in a family feud to make our case, debate, and decide it. 

Also, as we enter 2026, we are watching the trends and planning out what next years stories are likely to be. So we’re picking  which indicators will become next years most telling. 

On today’s episode, our indicators of this past year AND our top indicator predictions for 2026.


Related episodes:

The Indicators of this year and next (2024)

This indicator hasn’t flashed this red since the dot-com bubble 

What would it mean to actually refund the tariffs?

What AI data centers are doing to your electric bill 

What indicators will 2025 bring? 


Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. /Subscribe to Planet Money+

Listen free:Apple Podcasts,Spotify,the NPR appor anywhere you get podcasts.

Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/ Our weeklyNewsletter.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by James Sneed. The episodes of The Indicator were produced by Angel Carreras, edited by Julia Ritchey, engineered by Robert Rodrigez and Kwesi Lee, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is the editor of the Indicator. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator and Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or atplus.npr.org.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy