Planet Money
Episodes
When Chicago pawned its parking meters
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2008, Chicago’s budget was in a bad place. The city needed money. One way to raise money was to increase property taxes, but what politician want...
Strange threadfellows: How the U.S. military shaped what we all wear
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From nuclear fission to GPS to the internet, it’s common knowledge that many of the most resource intensive technologies of the last century got the...
How hurricanes became a hot investment
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, the Jamaican government started making an unusual financial bet. It went to investors around the world asking if they'd like to wager...
Is AI slopifying the job market? (Two Indicators)
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vote for us in NPR’s People’s Choice Awards: npr.org/peopleschoice AI is already reshaping how people find work. Fewer entry-level jobs, robot re...
Capitalism (Taylor's Version) (25-minute Podcast Version)
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift reaches new heights with her latest album, which is both divisive and record-breaking. And it’s fueled by an elaborate series of busine...
Saving lives with fewer dollars
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Givewell is a nonprofit organization that gives money to “save or improve the most lives per dollar.” Part of their whole thing is a rigorous rese...
The Consumer Sentiment vs. Consumer Spending Puzzle
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wherever consumer sentiment goes, consumer spending usually goes too. They’re like buddies that do everything together. Consumer sentiment wants a h...
Days of our Tariffs
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tariffs. They’ve been announced, unannounced, re-announced, raised and lowered. It’s an on-going saga with billions at stake!On today’s episode,...
The obscure pool of money the US used to bail out Argentina
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the United States had offered to f...
Buy now, pay dearly? (update)
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2022.)Every time you shop online and make it to the checkout screen, you see those colorful pastel ...
A new experiment in remote work … from the inside
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When people in Maine prisons started getting laptops to use in their cells for online classes and homework, it sparked this new idea. Could they have ...
Everything’s more expensive!! Pet Care!! Concert Tickets!! (Two Indicators)
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
People in the U.S. are feeling the financial squeeze, in part because of rising inflation, higher consumer prices and slowing job growth. The Indicato...
After the shutdown, SNAP will still be in trouble
01 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s SNAP crisis is just a preview. Tucked inside the giant tax-cut and spending bill signed by President Donald Trump this summer are enormo...
The remittance mystery
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the U.S. has been the single biggest source of remittances worldwide. A remittance is a transfer of money, typically from an immigrant to...
Should the fine have to fit the crime?
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. Constitution famously outlaws “cruel and unusual punishments.” But there's another, far more obscure part of the Constitution called the ...
TikTok’s Trojan Horse Strategy
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When TikTok videos started to go viral on Instagram and Reddit, TikTok turned to professional sound designers to protect their content.More and more c...
How Russia’s shadow fleet is sailing around oil sanctions
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he’s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the ...
The year NYC went broke
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1975, New York City ran out of money. For a decade it had managed to pay for its hundreds of thousands of city employees and robust social services...
How the government got hedge funded
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. government spends a ton of money, on everything from Medicare to roads to defense. In fact, it spends way more than it takes in. So…it borr...
Two ways AI is changing the business of crime (Two Indicators)
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pre-order the Planet Money book here for your free gift. Our sister show, The Indicator, is chronicling the evolving business of crime for its Vice W...
The Planet Money Game: Test our prototype
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s here! It’s free to download and playtest! It’s the Planet Money game! (Download here.)Download and playtest the game go here Sign up for t...
We make a board game
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We want to make a board game. It must, of course, teach the world about economics. It must be fun. It’d be nice if it sold lots of copies! How hard ...
How refrigeration took over the world
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The next time you open your fridge, take a second to behold the miracles inside of it: Raspberries from California, butter from New Zealand, steak fro...
How Jane Street’s secret billion-dollar trade unraveled
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Wall Street, fortunes are often won and lost with the tiniest advantages. And for the past few years, one trading firm has stood out from the rest ...
In Gaza, money is falling apart
20 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Israel has been blocking the flow of physical money into Gaza since the start of the war. So whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war, that’s ...
When CEO pay exploded (update)
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.)It’s no secret that CEOs get paid a ton – and a ton more than the average worker. More th...
The U.S. now owns a big chunk of Intel. That’s a huge deal.
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, President Donald Trump announced an unusual deal. Intel, the biggest microchip maker in America, had agreed to give the United States a 10...
Asking for a friend … which jobs are safe from AI?
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There’s one question we seem to be hearing everywhere: “Is my job safe from AI?” Dozens of you, our listeners, have written to us about this. Sa...
What happens to central banks under pressure?
06 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve from a few angles. So we wanted to look at other examples of political pressure on cent...
The million dollar mystery behind Milk.com
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we stumbled upon Milk.com, we were mystified. It appears to be someone’s personal website. But memorable domain names can be worth a million do...
Lisa Cook and the fight for the Fed
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve has been under intense pressure from President Donald Trump as he pushes for more control over the historically independent agency...
Summer School 8: Graduation LIVE!
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Get your own personalized summer school diploma here.Today on our final episode of Summer School 2025, we will test your knowledge. We will salute ...
Buy discount Ozempic here now click this link
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the past couple years, demand has gone wild for drugs like Ozempic – and its cousins, Zepbound, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. For people who had never be...
Summer School 7: Trade blocks and blockages
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tariffs are the favorite tool of our current president, but there are lots of other ways that governments insert themselves into the free exchange of ...
When our inflation infeelings don’t match the CPI
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For most Americans, we just lived through the highest period of inflation in our lives. And we are reminded of this every time we go grocery shopping....
Summer School 6: When the markets need a designer
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In economics, a market is a place (even virtual) where buyers and sellers meet to exchange goods or services. Economists love markets. It's like all o...
What happens when governments cook the books
09 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economists and statisticians across the board were horrified. Because the firi...
Summer School 5: The many ways governments influence industry
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here. Traditional economics says the market is guided by the forces of supply and demand. Customers decide...
Would you trust an economist with your economy?
02 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Trust in experts is down. In all kinds of institutions and professions - in government, in media, in medical science... and lately, economists are fee...
Summer School 4: Who are all these regulations protecting?
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here. There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things; maybe che...
The President's Golden Share in U.S. Steel
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
LIVE SHOW ALERT: August 18th, NYC. Get your tickets here. When news broke that a Japanese company, Nippon Steel, was buying the storied American steel...
Summer School 3: How government decides what to spend our money on
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Why are we so obsessed with manufacturing?
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It seems like politicians cannot agree on a lot. But many seem to agree on... manufacturing. Leaders of both political parties have been working to tr...
Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Act now to ensure public media remains free and accessible to all. Your donation will help this essential American service survive and thrive. Visit d...
Summer School 2: How taxes change behavior and the economy
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Made in America
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What people might picture when they think of "Made in America" ... might not look like the "Made in America" we have today.The U.S. does have a domest...
Summer School 1: A government's role in the economy is to make us all richer
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Government. The Big G. We like to imagine the free market and the invisible hand as being independent from political influence. But Nobel laureate, Si...
The simple math of the big bill
04 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 li...
A thought experiment on how to fix the national debt problem
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There's an economic fantasy you sometimes hear in D.C. It often gets trotted out when politicians are trying to add billions or trillions to the natio...
When Trump met crypto
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 2019, President Trump tweeted: "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies." Today, the Trumps are all over crypto.There are memecoins fo...
Econ Battle Zone: Budget Showdown
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Econ Battle Zone is back! On today's episode Mary Childs and Kenny Malone enter Econ Battle Stadium to throw down against reigning champion Erika Bera...
The U.S. is the world's bribery cop. Is that about to change?
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. has been policing bribery all over the world for nearly half a century using a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But now, Preside...
Jay & Shai's debt ceiling adventure (Update)
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Note: A version of this episode first ran in 2023.Every year, the U.S. government spends more money than it takes in. In order to fund all that spendi...
Why I joined DOGE
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What was it like to work inside Elon Musk's DOGE? The cost-cutting initiative promised transparency, but most of its actions have been shrouded in sec...
Are Trump's tariffs legal?
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When President Trump announced his sweeping new tariffs this year, many trade law experts were startled. Typically, presidents don't have the authorit...
When Chinese manufacturing met Small Town, USA
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past decade, politicians from both parties have courted American voters with an enticing economic prospect – the dream of bringing manufact...
Trump's crypto interests (Two Indicators)
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today on the show – our crypto president. Just before President Donald Trump began his second administration in January, he and his business partner...
The U.S.-China trade war, according to game theory
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Why does the government fund research at universities?
28 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
American universities are where people go to learn and teach. They're also where research and development happens. Over the past eight decades, univer...
The secret world behind those scammy text messages
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You might have seen these texts before. The scam starts innocently enough. Maybe it's a "Long time no see" or "Hello" or "How are you." For investigat...
How economists (and TikTok) know if a recession is coming
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lately we've noticed that something we think about all the time here at Planet Money is having a viral moment: recession indicators!From the more prac...
The 145% tariff already did its damage
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Even though the 145% tariff on Chinese imports only lasted a month, it already inflicted its scars on the economy. Global trade is just not something ...
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war
14 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products each year — things like soybeans, corn and pork. And over the last month, these ...
Is the reign of the dollar over?
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, dollars have been the world's common financial language. Central banks everywhere hold dollars as a way to safely store their wealth. Cou...
What "Made in China" actually means
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Virtually every product brought into the United States must have a so-called "country of origin." Think of it as the official place it comes from. And...
Why it's so hard to find a public toilet
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it so hard to find a bathroom when you need one? In the U.S., we used to have lots of publicly accessible toilets. But many had locks on the do...
Planet Money complains. To learn.
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On today's show: we're ... venting.We at Planet Money are an ensemble show – each with different curiosities and styles. But we recently realized ma...
How 23andMe's bankruptcy led to a run on the gene bank
26 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reporter Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi's Aunt Vovi signed up for 23andMe back in 2017, hoping to learn more about the genetic makeup of her ancestors. Vovi was...
A primer on the Federal Reserve's independence
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
President Donald Trump has been loudly critical of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for years now. Since January, the President has accused him of ...
How much for that egg
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Recently, one of our NPR colleagues wrote a message to all of NPR saying he had extra eggs to sell for cheap, but needed a fair way to distribute them...
OIRA: The tiny office that's about to remake the federal government
16 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
OIRA — the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — is an obscure, but powerful federal office around the corner from the White House. Presi...
Trade war dispatch from Canada
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you run a business when a trade war is brewing? As President Trump's tariffs kick in - or are paused or are restarted - businesses around the w...
Do trade deficits matter?
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the heart of President Trump's tariffs is this idea that we should not be buying more from other countries than they are buying from us. Basically,...
How the War on Drugs got us... blueberries
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 lo...
Tariffs: What are they good for?
02 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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'v...
PM x Radiolab: Can the economy grow forever?
28 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Planet Money buys a mystery diamond
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The deal seemed too good to be true. There's a website that's been selling top quality diamonds at bizarrely low prices. Prices we couldn't find at an...
Can we just change how we measure GDP?
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There's one statistic that rules them all when it comes to keeping track of the economy: gross domestic product (GDP). It's the sum of all final trans...
Escheat show (Update)
19 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Note: This original episode ran in 2020.Walter Schramm did everything right as an investor — at least according to the philosophy of Warren Buffett....
How Tupperware took over our homes, with Decoder Ring
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tupperware is the stealthy star of our modern homes. These plastic storage containers are ubiquitous in our fridges, pantries, and closets. But the or...
The last time we shrank the federal workforce
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you cut every single federal job President Donald Trump wants to cut, how much money would that save? A president has tried to massively shrink the...
How to start a bank
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In some ways, starting a bank is a lot like starting any other business. Who will you hire? Where will you be located? What color will the couches be?...
The Parable of Peanut the Memecoin
05 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Memecoins are having a moment. Everyone from Hawk Tuah to President Donald Trump to animal influencers like Moo Deng the pygmy hippo have been turned ...
The Memecoin Casino
28 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do Moo Deng the pygmy hippo, social media sensation Hawk Tuah, and the President of the United States all have in common? They've all inspired hi...
The controversy over Tyson Foods' hiring of asylum seekers
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, Tyson Foods shuttered a meat processing plant in Perry, Iowa. The company said it made the decision because the plant was old and inefficie...
The rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management
22 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There's this cautionary tale, in the finance world, that nearly any trader can tell you. It's about placing too much confidence in math and models. It...
Can the president override Congress on spending?
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So the president can't spend more money than Congress has agreed and voted to spend. But can the president spend less money than Congress wants?It all...
The Big Government Money Pipe Freeze
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There has been chaotic uncertainty around billions of dollars allocated by Congress. The Trump administration ordered a pause on — and review of —...
The 'Crypto Wizard' vs. Nigeria
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The trip that changed Tigran Gambaryan's life forever was supposed to be short — just a few days. When he flew to Nigeria in February of 2024, he di...
The fight for a legendary shipwreck's treasure
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The San Jose was a marvel of 17th century technology. The Spanish galleon weighed more than a thousand tons, was made of wood reinforced with iron, an...
How the scratch off lottery changed America
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Americans spend more on scratch lottery tickets per year than on pizza. More than all Coca-Cola products. Yet the scratch ticket as a consumer item ha...
How DeepSeek changed the market's mind
01 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Monday, the stock market went into a tizzy over a new AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek. It seemed to be just as powerful as many of its Ameri...
Re-imagining the energy grid ... through batteries (Two Indicators)
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to solar and wind power, renewable energy has always had a caveat: it can only run when the wind blows or the sun shines.The idea of a b...
The "chilling effect" of deportations
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
After being sworn into office, President Trump signed a whole host of executive actions and orders that affirm his campaign promise to crack down on i...
After the fires
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The fires in Los Angeles are almost out. Residents are starting to trickle back into their burned-out neighborhoods. When they get to their houses, th...
Tariffs, grocery prices and other listener questions
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump is just about to begin his second presidency. And it may be safe to say that every single person in America has at least one question abo...
The Land of the Duty Free (classic)
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(Note: This episode originally ran in 2018.)Is it really cheaper to shop at an airport Duty Free store? And why are so many of them alike?In the 1940s...
The case for Fed Independence in the Nixon Tapes
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You know Watergate, but do you know Fedgate? The more subtle scandal with more monetary policy and, arguably, much higher stakes.In today's episode, w...
ZIP Codes!
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The ZIP code is less like a cold, clinical, ordered list of numbers, and more like a weird overgrown number garden. It started as a way to organize ma...
The potato-shaped loophole in free trade
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 c...