Plain English with Derek Thompson
Episodes
The End of the Everything Boom (Plus: The Federal Reserve's Risky Move)
15 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is a huge week for economic and finance news. On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points, its bi...
The Big Inflation FAQ: Why It’s So High, How Everyone Got It Wrong, and What's Next
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Inflation is the story that everybody keeps missing. In 2020, many people didn't expect inflation to rise. Wrong. In 2021, many expected inflation to ...
California’s Elections Sent an Important Message. What Is It?
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is about two California elections and the message they sent to the rest of the country. In San Francisco, progressive district attor...
Curiosity Corner: America’s Gun Dilemma, the Future of Corporate Politics, Relationship Advice, and More!
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to Curiosity Corner! In our first ever all-mailbag episode, Derek answers a Republican’s question about gun control, explains how American c...
America’s Gun Problem Is Impossible
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Texas school shooting is part of a grisly ritual in American life. A tragedy, followed by mourning, followed by inaction, followed by several mont...
What's Going on With the U.S. Housing Market?
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's our first Curiosity Corner podcast! We asked you to tell us what questions you wanted us to answer, and a lot of you had the same thought on your...
Why Does the Internet Hate Amber Heard?
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's the trial of the century—kind of. The legal showdown between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has captivated the country, and Derek is a bit confuse...
The Mystery of America's Missing Baby Formula
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America's infant formula shortage is very strange and very embarrassing. Nationwide, more than 40 percent of formula is out of stock, and in many stat...
Why the U.S. Could Be Headed For the "Weirdest Recession Ever"
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Crypto crashes, rate hikes, recession, fears, and inflation prints: The U.S. economy is in a very bizarre place right now, and Derek needs help explai...
Market Meltdown: Why Tech and Crypto Are Crashing - and What Happens Next
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The stock market is absolutely gross right now. Everything is down, except (as loyal listeners know) the CATAN portfolio. Crypto has cratered, growth ...
The Future of AI Is Thrilling, Terrifying, Confusing, and Fascinating
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This might sound like a hot take but it's not: In 50 years, when historians look back on the crazy 2020s, they might point to advances in artificial i...
The 300-Year History of Abortion in America—in 30 Minutes
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes, people ask “why study history?” How about this: American history is the weapon being used to strike down Roe Vs Wade. In the leaked dra...
How Would the End of Roe v. Wade Change America?
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court is poised to end the era of Roe. In a leaked draft of a majority opinion, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito struck down Roe v. Wade...
Economic Mystery Hour: How Low Will Stocks Go? Is a Recession Inevitable?
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan Housel, author of 'The Psychology of Money' and a partner at Collaborative Fund, joins the show to play stock doctor and diagnose what's killin...
Why Is It So Hard to Predict the Next Great Quarterback?
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week we have the NFL draft, which is an annual exercise in failure. Every year, some NFL team makes a disastrous quarterback decision but also ov...
The End of the Golden Age of Streaming
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What can save Netflix? Who killed CNN+? What the hell is going on between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis? It's a big media hellscape roundup...
Instant Reaction Pod! Elon Musk Buys Twitter. So, What Happens Next?
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Charlie Warzel, author of the Galaxy Brain newsletter at The Atlantic, joins to talk about what Elon Musk will do to Twitter and how his acquisition c...
Why Are American Teenagers So Sad and Anxious?
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. It is one of the most troubling and fascinating social phenomena in the cou...
How Joe Biden Lost Millennials
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The White House has a big youth problem. Since the day of his inauguration, Joe Biden’s approval has declined by about 7 points among Americans over...
The News About Shanghai’s COVID Lockdown Is Shocking. The Reality Might Be Worse.
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What’s happening in China’s largest and richest city right now is quite unbelievable. Shanghai is now several weeks into a government lockdown to ...
Instant Reaction Pod! Elon Musk Offers to Buy 100 Percent of Twitter.
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Well, that escalated quickly. Days after Elon Musk become the single largest individual shareholder of Twitter, he has offered to buy the company and ...
When Will the Ukraine War End? (Plus: 10 Good Minutes on What the Hell Elon Musk Is Doing With Twitter)
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On today's show, we start with Ten Good Minutes on the extremely funny and very chaotic saga of Elon Musk vs. Twitter. Last week, Musk bought enough T...
It's Not Just You: America's Epidemic of Bad Behavior
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There is an epidemic of bad behavior sweeping the country. In 2020, homicides increased by a record-high rate. Last year, pedestrian and vehicular dea...
Why U.S. Population Growth Crashed to a Record Low
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
America has never grown at a slower pace than right now. Not only have deaths soared in the pandemic, but immigration is falling and our birth rate is...
Should You Be Afraid of TikTok?
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week, the Washington Post reported that Facebook’s parent company Meta has been paying a Republican consulting firm to slime the reputation of ...
What Is the “Don’t Say Gay” Law Really About? (Plus: The Big Disney vs. DeSantis Showdown in Florida.)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that prohibits much classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity. Th...
How Ukraine Wins
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Derek talks to The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum about Zelensky’s global appeal, the roots of Putin's lust for empire, and Ukraine’s prospects for v...
Could Putin’s War Crash the U.S. Economy?
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Economic crises are piling up. U.S. inflation was surging before Russia invaded Ukraine. Since the war began, commodity prices have spiked, with gas s...
Five Reasons Putin’s War Was Doomed From the Start
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s military isn’t just a little bit bigger than Ukraine's—it has three times more armored vehicles; four times more ground forces; five ti...
Why a No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine Could Be—Literally—the Worst Idea Ever
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Three in four Americans say the U.S. and its allies should ban Russian aircraft over Ukraine by establishing a “no-fly zone.” Dozens of foreign po...
“Every Person Is Ready to Die for Our Country”: Five Ukrainians on Life Inside Putin’s War Zone
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine running from your home, from a foreign army, knowing that every decision you make could be the difference between life and death—stay or fle...
SPECIAL DOUBLE EPISODE: What Putin Will Do Next and the West’s Unprecedented "Financial War" on Russia
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are two wars happening right now. There is a military conflict led by Vladimir Putin in Eastern Europe that we should all hope ends as soon as p...
Russia’s Economic Meltdown, Putin’s Big Mistake, and the West’s Financial War Against Vlad and the Oligarchs
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Things are moving very, very fast in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine—and in the global response to punish Russia. The U.S. and Europe are not...
How Putin's War Will End
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Quagmire. Regime change. Conquest. Empire. World War III. Derek considers five ways that the war in Ukraine could end with Paul Poast, a professor of ...
What Vladimir Putin Wants—and How Russia’s War in Ukraine Could Reshape the World
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Derek explains why three years—1989, 2008, and 2014—are the key to understanding why Putin is willing to take a massive risk in invading Ukraine. ...
Four Brilliant Frames for Finding the Next Big Thing, With Venture Capitalist Josh Wolfe. Plus, What's Eating Tech Stocks in 2022?
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
All-star VC Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital joins the show to talk about picking winners and losers, tech's rough start to the year, and his four favorite m...
The Great Debate: What's the Single Most Amazing Sports Statistic in U.S. History?
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game. Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak. Jerry Rice's gazillion receiving records. Which of these athletic achievemen...
What American Media Is Getting Wrong About Canada’s Big Protests
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What if I told you that the anti-vaccination trucker protests in Canada weren’t principally about vaccines or truckers (or even Canada)? The Atlant...
The Meaning of Life and the Power of Regret
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Derek goes deep with bestselling author Dan Pink on his new book, 'The Power of Regret.' This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the ...
Media Gossip Hour: Spotify's Joe Rogan Problem, Facebook's TikTok Crisis, and Crypto's Anonymity Conundrum
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Roose of The New York Times returns to our pod, which is owned by Spotify, to talk about Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is exclusively license...
This Guy Predicted the 2021 Economy. I Asked Him What's Next.
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Furman is a Harvard professor who served as a top economist for the Obama administration. More than just about anybody Derek spoke to last year,...
One Big Question For: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, and Meta
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
They’re the six largest tech companies in the world. What’s the most interesting thing about each of them? Shira Ovide, author of the On Tech news...
Should We Cancel Student Debt?
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Americans owe $1.7 trillion in student loans, and some Democrats think the time has come to cancel this burden. Derek shares 10 big student-loan facts...
Crypto Crashing, Pandemic Stocks Plunging: The Story Behind January’s Crazy Stock Market
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan Housel, the bestselling author of ‘The Psychology of Money’ and a partner at Collaborative Fund, is back to talk Bitcoin, Peloton, tech sto...
2022 Is Off to a Terrible Start for Democrats
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Legendary journalist James Fallows joins to discuss the filibuster wars, Democrats’ Voting Rights Act, the political outlook for Joe Biden and the D...
The Biggest Losers of the Streaming Wars: ESPN, Movie Theaters, Peacock, and More
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Do movie theaters have a future? What should Disney do with ESPN? And is anybody watching Peacock? Derek’s favorite entertainment-media analyst Rich...
Everybody Was Wrong About Inflation
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Okay, almost everybody. The Biden administration was wrong. Many critics of the Biden administration were also wrong. The Federal Reserve was wrong. ...
Omicron: Feelings vs. Facts
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Derek talks about the rise of the "Vaxxed and Done" movement before reviewing the latest omicron data with John Burn-Murdoch, data superstar at the Fi...
The Biggest Inventions of the 2020s: Cancer Vaccines, Flying Cars, Space Travel, and More
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s kick off the new year with a bit of techno-optimism! After a miserable start to this decade, we can still have a Roaring Twenties. In this epi...
The Four Ways That America Is Polarizing
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
David Frum joins Derek to talk about rising and falling polarization by race, gender, education, and place—and what it tells us about America's stra...
The Four Biggest Myths of the U.S. Economy. Plus, Omicron in 100 Seconds.
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan Housel, Collaborative Fund partner and author of the bestseller 'The Psychology of Money,' joins the pod to debate what we're getting wrong ab...
Elon Musk Is the Person of the Year. Who Is the Person of the Century?
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose is back to talk about the Age of Elon, why tech’s most famous founders are acting so weird, and why I’m...
The Elizabeth Holmes Trial With Rebecca Jarvis of 'The Dropout' Podcast
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Derek is obsessed with the trial of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes—and he hopes you are too. Days away from the trial's end, Derek and ...
Media Report Card! Biden Blues, Omicron Fears, Chris Cuomo, and a Celebrity Profile for the Ages
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bryan Curtis from The Ringer’s ‘The Press Box’ podcast joins Derek to hand out grades to the news media for its coverage of Biden, the pandemic,...
Work in America Is Broken—Can Remote Work Save Us?
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Derek talks to Anne Helen Petersen, the coauthor of 'Out of Work: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home,' about Americans' relatio...
BONUS POD: The Future of Democracy, the Media, and the Economy With Andrew Yang
04 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In our first weekend special, Andrew interviews Derek about the state of the economy, and Derek interviews Andrew about the various plagues of U.S. po...
The Bad Guys Are Winning
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Derek talks to The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum on the decline of democracy and the rise of a new form of authoritarianism in Russia, China, Europe, and...
The Omicron Variant: So, How Bad Is It?
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Peter Hotez talks to Derek about what we know about the new COVID-19 variant (a little), what we don't know (a lot), and when we'll know more. Hos...
Buy or Sell Pandemic Trends: Peloton, Movie Theaters, Masks, and More!
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Atlantic's Amanda Mull joins the podcast to debate Derek about which COVID-19–related cultural trends will thrive or fade in the 2020s. Host: De...
We Have to Talk About Inflation
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our first Economic Roundtable discusses rising prices, the Great Resignation, labor shortages, the supply chain mess, Joe Biden’s puking approval nu...
The Future Is Going to Be Weird As Hell
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In our first episode, The New York Times’s Kevin Roose joins the show to walk Derek through the metaverse, crypto, NFTs, and the maybe-BS or maybe-b...
Introducing Plain English with Derek Thompson
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Longtime Atlantic writer Derek Thompson breaks down your weekly headlines in his new podcast, ‘Plain English.’ From tech to politics to culture, D...