Robby the chef has lots of endearing qualities. He can make over 5000 dishes, he?s a consistent cook, and he?s never late for work. But he?s not a human. It is a 750 lb. stainless steel robot. With a rotating wok at its center. It?s a wok-bot. 

Automation has changed many industries. But automation only started entering restaurant kitchens in the past couple decades. Which raises the question ? what will robots mean for the restaurant industry? How will automation change jobs and how will it change the very food we eat?

Today on the show, we talk with a Nobel prize-winning economist, Daron Acemoglu, about when automation is complementing or displacing workers. And we decide to put this wok-bot to the test. We pit a human chef against Robby the wok-bot in a head-to-metalhead smackdown. 

Further Listening/Reading:
How AI could help rebuild the middle class The Big Red Button Check out our AI series: Planet Money makes an episode using AIWhy Nations Fail, America Edition (newsletter)A New Way To Understand Automation (newsletter)Get your book tour tickets here. / Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift.

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This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Justin Kramon. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Cena Loffredo. Interpretation help from Huo Jingnan. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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If something is going wrong in your workplace, there's probably a law that explains why. Meetings always seem long, and never end early? There?s Parkinson?s Law, which says work expands to the time allotted, or, restated: meetings will always take up all the time blocked on Outlook calendars. Is your boss bad at managing? Check the Peter Principle, which says people are promoted to their level of incompetence. A good worker does not a good manager make. And yet ? here we are. Once you hear these laws, and a few others, you start to spot them everywhere. 

Today on the show, we picked a few of the most famous and powerful ?laws of the office? and tested them out on each other. 

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Sarah Gonzalez, and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. Bryant Urstadt edited this show. Planet Money?s executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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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__.

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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.

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Heated Rivalry, the steamy hockey romance show, was made for about $2 million per episode.  That is remarkably cheap for an hour-long drama.

Today on the show, a conversation with Heated Rivalry creators Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady about their television miracle on ice.

It?s not just that the show was made efficiently and cleverly. Heated Rivalry comes from a Canadian economic system of making TV and movies that is completely different from how we do things in the US.

In this episode of Planet Money, in partnership with the Pivot podcast co-hosted by Kara Swisher, we hear about a Canadian production model for making TV and movies and how it?s different from the U.S. model. And we learn what the experience of making Heated Rivalry teaches us about the current state of both industries.

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The original Pivot episode from New York Magazine and The Vox Media Podcast Network was hosted by Kara Swisher, produced by Lara Naman, Zoë Marcus and Taylor Griffin and engineered by Brandon McFarland. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's Executive Producer of podcasts. This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone, produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Lara Naman. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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The world of science has been stuck in an existential crisis over whether we actually know the things we thought we knew. Re-running an old study today doesn't always yield the same result. Same with re-enacting old experiments. Collectively, this is known as the ?replication crisis.? 

Economist Abel Brodeur has come up with one way to help fix this crisis: he?s invented an internationally crowdsourced surveillance system, designed to keep social scientists honest. He calls it the ?Replication Games.? 

Further Listening:

Fabricated data in research about honesty. You can't make this stuff up. Or, can you? The Experiment Experiment How Much Should We Trust Economics?
This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee, with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer. 

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ICE is scaling up, with rapid new hiring. So we ask, has training new officers changed? At what cost? 

Also, the Trump administration has plans to pour billions of dollars into warehouses for mass immigrant detention centers, which can totally change the economy of some areas. We hear from a rural town in Georgia that wants an ICE facility in its own backyard. 

These episodes were originally published on Planet Money?s sister daily podcast The Indicator.

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The episodes of The Indicator were produced by Julia Ritchey, with engineering by Jimmy Keeley. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is our show's editor.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Luis Gallo, with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Planet Money?s Executive Producer, Alex Goldmark.

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The Supreme Court has spoken. Those big, sweeping tariffs that President Trump imposed early last year? They?re illegal. 

On today?s show: Why were those tariffs struck down? Will anyone get refunds? And ?what about this new 10 percent tariff the President just announced today? 

Plus ? a growing market for tariff refunds.

Further Listening:

- Worst. Tariffs. Ever. 
- Tariffs: What are they good for? 
- What "Made in China" actually means
- The 145% tariff already did its damage 
- Are Trump's tariffs legal?
- Days of our Tariffs 
- Trump's backup options for tariffs 
- What would it mean to actually refund the tariffs? 

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This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo, Mary Childs, and Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer. 

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Greenland has said it is not for sale. Denmark has said it can?t even legally sell Greenland. And at a security conference in Munich over the weekend, U.S. lawmakers spent a lot of time trying to walk back some of President Trump?s recent threats to try to buy, or even take over, the territory. 

But whether Trump can or will or should try to control or purchase a territory that doesn?t want to be sold is not the interesting question. What is interesting is how we got to this moment. And, how we might gracefully get out of it. 

Greenland is valuable for its minerals and because of its physical location in the world. (It?s easy to keep an eye on other countries from Greenland).

Our latest: How the U.S. dropped the ball on the rare earths race. And one way the U.S. gets strategic locations without threatening to buy or take over an entire territory.


Further listening: 

- Is Greenland really an untapped land of riches?

- Add to cart: Greenland


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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune. Fact-checking help from Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Kwesi Lee and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: Universal Music Production - "The Attraction,? ?Carnivore,? and ?Walls Come Out.?

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An iconic cartoon character liberated from copyright, journalism from the world of competitive spreadsheeting, a controversial piece of US currency. Each year the Planet Money team dedicates an episode to the things we simply love and think you, our audience, will also love.

In this year?s Valentine?s Day episode:

The Public Domain Day list from Jennifer Jenkins? of Duke?s Center for the Study of the Public Domain and her colleagues. Jesse Dougherty?s article ?Between the sheets at the college Excel Championship? which is behind a paywall. Here is Jesse?s substack. 404 Media?s excellent journalism on the tech that ICE is usingAn ode to the language of the penny, including songs like Pennies from Heaven. The only self-check out that doesn?t waste your time. And we made public domain Valentine?s cards. 
Download THE OFFICIAL Planet Money valentine here.

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This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, engineered by Cena Loffredo & Kwesi Lee, and edited by our executive producer Alex Goldmark.

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Today, the story of three inventions. The first, the sewing machine, was created by a selfish and ambitious inventor who wanted all the credit and was willing to fight a war for it. 

The second, a more modern invention, was made by an Italian inventor who wanted only to connect the world through video, so ?evvvvverybody can talk with evvvvverybody else.?

And, a third invention that tied them both together across more than a century. The patent pool.

How do people get motivated to invent, and how do they get rewarded for their ideas? Usually through a patent. And, when the thicket of patents becomes too thick, how do we simplify, and make it so inventors can work together? The answer will involve bitter rivals, a sewing machine war, the nine no-no?s of anti-trust, and something called a gob-feeder. 

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This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was produced by Luis Gallo and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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The recent protests in Iran are about so many things. Human rights, corruption, freedom. But this time ? they are also motivated by economic hardship. Hardship caused, in part, by US sanctions. 


The US has been sanctioning Iran in one way or another for 47 years. But sanctions, as a tool, only work some of the time, and US sanctions on Iran have not always conformed to what experts consider best practices.


On today?s episode: What did US sanctions do to Iran's economy? How did they feed into the latest protests and crackdown in Iran? Sanctions are supposed to avert war, but how different from war are they?


To learn more about the protests in Iran and the country?s history, check out our great friends at Throughline:

Iran Protests Explained

Iran and the U.S., Part One: Four Days In August

Iran and the U.S., Part Two: Rules of Engagement

Iran and the U.S., Part Three: Soleimani?s Iran

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This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Jimmy Keeley. Planet Money?s executive producer is Alex Goldmark. 

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A record number of Americans with poor or just okay credit are behind on their car payments. And once last year?s numbers are tallied, an estimated 3 million cars will have been repossessed in 2025. That would be on par with how bad it got during the Great Recession. What?s going on? And why now? 

Today on the show, we focus on the micro part of the story to answer the macro question. First, we hear a favorite story of ours from 2019. We follow the lifecycle of a delinquent car loan from three different perspectives: the salesman, the driver, and the repo man. Then we?ll hear an update from them in 2026 as we try to find out why so many Americans are behind on their car payments. 

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This episode is hosted by Kenny Malone and Preeti Varathan. It was originally produced by Darian Woods and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Our update was reported by Vito Emanuel and produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and edited by Planet Money?s executive producer, Alex Goldmark.

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Housing is too expensive. Everyone knows this. Democrats know that talking about it plays well with voters. And now ? in a midterm election year ? President Donald Trump seems to be focused on it, too. 

His administration has recently started talking more about affordability. And they?re taking action with two new initiatives that aim to make buying a house easier. 

Today on the show, we?re gonna take a close look at these two moves. And ask: Will they work?

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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with production help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: NPR Source Audio - "No Problem,?  ?Fruit Salad,? ?Checking In? and ?Day Dreamer.?

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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.

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Just as every market has its first movers, every religion has its martyrs ? the people willing to risk everything for what they believe. Pastor Dave Hodges just might be a little bit of both. He?s the spiritual leader of the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, in Oakland, California which places psilocybin mushrooms at the center of their religious practice.

Today on the show, like its 130,000+ members, we?re going to take a trip through the psychedelic mushroom megachurch. We?ll meet one of the lawyers trying to keep psychedelic religious leaders like Pastor Dave from running afoul of the law, and get a peek into how the government decides whether a belief system counts as sincere religion.

This episode was reported with support from The Ferriss ? UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. 

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This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Eric Mennel. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer. 

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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 previous episodes in the board game series, here and here.

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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.

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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. 


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This episode of Planet Money was 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.


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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.


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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.

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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


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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?

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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


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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.

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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. 


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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. 

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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? 


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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. 

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With the year coming to a close, we're sharing our most popular Planet Money bonus episode of 2025! 

As U.S. trade with China exploded in the early 2000's, American manufacturing began to shrivel. Those workers struggled to adapt and find new jobs. It ran counter to how mainstream economics at the time viewed free trade ... that it would be a clear win for the U.S. Greg Rosalsky talks with David Autor about why economists got free trade with China so wrong. 
 
Autor, an MIT economics professor, and his colleagues published a series of eye-opening studies over the last 15 years or so that brought to light the costs of U.S. trade with China. We also hear Autor's thoughts on the role of tariffs and get an update on his research. With better, more precise data, Autor says we have a more nuanced and "bleaker" picture of what happened to these manufacturing workers. 

You can read about Autor's research and sign up for The Planet Money Newsletter here. 

To hear more bonus content like this and support NPR and public media, sign up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Regular episodes remain free to listen!

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Most stories keep going even after we set down our microphones and the music fades up. That's why, at the end of each year, we look back and we take stock. 

We call this tradition "The Rest of the Story." And we bring you updates on the stories we've reported, and from the people we've met along the way.

Today, we check in on an engineer and patent attorney who made a safer saw; we get an update on the Planet Money game; an update on money in Gaza; and we have updates on a diamond that may or may not have had a second life. 

Listen to the original stories:

The Subscription Trap 

Planet Money buys a mystery diamond 

In Gaza, money is falling apart 

BOARD GAMES 1: We're making a game  

How to save 10,000 fingers 


This episode of Planet Money was produced by Luis Gallo, edited by Alex Goldmark, fact-checked by Vito Emanuel, and engineered by Debbie Daughtry.

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Play the new version of our game here. Version 4.

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On the eve of Netflix shoveling a fourish-hour chunk of Stranger Things onto Christmas Day, we visit the past, present, and future of binge-dropped television shows. 


The strategy of releasing an entire season at the same time has been key to taking Netflix from a little startup that used to lend us DVDs in the mail ? to a company so big and powerful, it is maybe going to buy Warner Brothers and own Bugs Bunny and Tony Soprano and the Harry Potter movies.


But even Netflix may be flirting with some slightly less binge-y models of content release. Are we entering ? the end of the binge drop?


On our latest: what data tells us about binge watching. Was it the greatest business decision, and who does binge watching really benefit? 


Here?s some of the research. 


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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Meg Cramer. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman and engineered by Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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As a country, we are spending more to get data centers up and running than we spent to build the entire interstate highway system. (Yes, that?s inflation-adjusted.) With tech companies spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI, data centers have kind of become the thing in the US economy. 

But along with that growth have come a lot of questions. Like where is all the electricity to run these data centers supposed to come from? And how much are residential customers? electric bills increasing as a result?

On today?s episode, we go to Ohio to trace one electric bill back to its source, to see what exactly is causing the big price increases people are seeing. We take a tour of a data center hot spot, and get to the bottom of how prices are set from inside the power company.

Related episodes:
- Asking for a friend ? which jobs are safe from AI? 
- No AI data centers in my backyard! 
- What $10 billion in data centers actually gets you 
- Is AI overrated or underrated? 
- Green energy gridlock

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Today's show was hosted by Keith Romer and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact checked by Sierra Juarez and Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer. 

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Welcome to the inaugural Planet Money Pop Culture Draft! In today's episode (a Planet Money+ episode we?re releasing into the main feed) we're gonna go back to the year 1999. Three hosts, Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Jeff Guo, go head to head and each drafts a ?team? of economic pop culture. So a movie, a song, and a wild card pick that best represents the Planet Money spirit!

It could be a movie related to business or maybe a song about money ? as long as it came out in 1999! Listen to hear each of them make the case for why their team should be crowned the winner!

If you want more bonus episodes like this one and to support our work, sign up for Planet Money+.

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Viet Le and edited by Planet Money?s executive producer Alex Goldmark.

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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 wants to do that? So instead, Mayor Richard M. Daley?s administration looked around at the resources the city had, and thought, ?Any of this worth anything?? They opted to lease out the city?s metered parking system ? to privatize all 36,000 of its parking meters. 

The plan: have private companies bid on operating the meters, modernizing the system, and keeping the profits for a certain number of years. In exchange, they would give Chicago a big lump sum payment. The winning bid was $1.16 billion dollars for a 75-year lease. 

Today?s episode is the story of how that bid got put together, and how it came to be hated. There are kidnapped parking meters, foot chases through City Hall, and trash bags filled with secret documents. 

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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Luis Gallo and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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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 their start as military R&D projects in government-funded labs. But as Avery Trufelman explains in her fashion history podcast, Articles of Interest, the influence of the US military is, in many ways, even more intimate than that, shaping much of the clothing we all wear everyday. 

On today?s show, a tale of Army surplus economics. How military designs trickled down from the soldiers on the front lines to the hippies on the war protest line to the yuppies in line at Banana Republic. And why some of your favorite outdoor brands may just be moonlighting as U.S. military suppliers, while keeping it as under the radar as they can.

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This episode of Planet Money was produced by Luis Gallo, edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

Articles of Interest is produced by Avery Trufelman, edited by Alison Beringer, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Jocelyn Gonzalez.

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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 on the chances a major hurricane would hit the island in the next couple of years. 

In finance terms, these kinds of wagers are called "catastrophe bonds." They're a way to get investors to share the risk of a major disaster, whether that's a Japanese earthquake, a California wildfire, or a Jamaican hurricane. 

This market for catastrophe has gotten really hot lately. And it?s changing the way that insurance works for all of us. 

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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Kwesi Lee. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez and Vito Emanuel. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: Universal Music Production - ?Lagos to London,? ?Sleazy Does It,? ?The Sundown Set.?

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AI is already reshaping how people find work. Fewer entry-level jobs, robot recruiters, and ever-changing new skill requirements all add up to a new, daunting landscape for humans trying to find dignified work.

Today on the show: two stories from the edges of a changing labor market. First we?ll assess claims that AI is causing a white collar job apocalypse. What does the data actually say? We meet an economist who has found one small but fascinating way to measure the impact of AI on workers. 

Then, we go face-to-face, or at least voice-to-voice, with AI. We meet a robot recruiter for a job interview and find cause to ask, ?When might that actually be preferable to a human recruiter??

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The original Indicator episodes were hosted by Wailin Wong, Darian Woods, and Adrian Ma. They were produced by Cooper Katz McKim and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Debbie Daughtry. They were fact checked by Sierra Juarez. They were edited by Paddy Hirsch and Kate Concannon. 

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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 business choices that propel profits but also chart numbers. Today?s episode comes from our friends at Today Explained, Vox?s lively, smart daily news podcast. 

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This episode was hosted by Noel King. It was produced by Ariana Aspuru, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and engineered by Adriene Lilly.

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Givewell is a nonprofit organization that gives money to ?save or improve the most lives per dollar.? Part of their whole thing is a rigorous research process with copious and specific datapoints. So, in the chaotic wake of USAID?s gutting, they scrambled to figure out if they could fund the kind of projects USAID used to.

Today on the show: GiveWell let us in on their decision-making process, as they try to reconcile the urgency of the moment with their normal diligence. We get to watch as they decide if they can back one project, to support health facilities in Cameroon.

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This episode was hosted by Mary Childs. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Vito Emanuel, and engineered by Jimmy Keeley with help from Robert Rodriguez. Planet Money?s executive producer is Alex Goldmark. 

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

But lately, these friends are drifting apart.

While consumer sentiment about the economy is down ? spending remains strong. 

And not just that? Interest rates are still high, inflation is growing, tariffs have made the prices of goods go up. And yet, consumer spending looks good. What gives?

Today - a consumer spending mystery. Is the economy actually healthy? Or is something distorting our view of the economy?

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This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Meg Cramer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Debbie Daughtry and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Tariffs. They?ve been announced, unannounced, re-announced, raised and lowered. It?s an on-going saga with billions at stake!


On today?s episode, we run full-on at the twisty, turny drama of life with broad-based tariffs and tackle perhaps our most asked question: Are we, regular U.S. shoppers, feeling the tariffs yet? When we?re at the grocery store or the coffee shop, are we paying more for things because of the tariffs?


We now have the data to get a very clear answer to that question. Plus, we hear a cautionary tale from our dear colleague James Sneed, who ordered a collectible doll and wound up with a surprise tariff bill at his door.


Related episodes:

Are Trump's tariffs legal? What is Temu?What "Made in China" actually means
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This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez with research help from Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.


Music: NPR Source Audio - ?Mirror,? ?Remorse,? ?Endless,? ?Secrets,? ?Schmaltzy,? ?Water Mirror.?

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Last month, during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the United States had offered to functionally loan Argentina $20 billion. Despite the sums involved, this bailout required no authorization from Congress, because of the loan?s source: an obscure pool of money called the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The ESF is essentially the Treasury Department?s private slush fund. 


Its history goes all the way back to the Great Depression. But, in the 90 years since its creation, it has only been used one time at this scale to bailout an emerging economy: Mexico, in 1995. That case study contains some helpful lessons that can be used to make sense of Bessent?s recent move. Will this new credit line to Argentina work out as well as it did the last time we tried it? Or will Argentina?s economic troubles hamstring the Exchange Stabilization Fund forever?


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This episode was hosted by Keith Romer and Erika Beras. It was produced by Luis Gallo. It was edited by Eric Mennel and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2022.)

Every time you shop online and make it to the checkout screen, you see those colorful pastel buttons at the bottom. Affirm. Klarna. Afterpay. Asking: Do you want to split your payment into interest-free installments? No credit check needed. Get what you want, right now. 

That temptation got shoppers like Amelia Schmarzo into some money trouble. Back in 2022, she maxed out her credit card after a month of buying now and paying later. She?s not alone. Buy now, pay later is everywhere now. And you can finance almost anything with it. Your clothes, your furniture ? even your lips. 

But if these companies don?t charge interest, how do they make money? In short, people buy more stuff using these services and so sellers are willing to pay up. Which makes buy now, pay later, something of a threat to credit card companies. Cue the tussle for your impulse-buying clicks. 

Today on the show, we find out how the companies work, who?s most likely to use these services and who?s getting a good deal. And a warning: those little loans will soon be on your credit report. 

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This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee, engineered by Josh Newell and edited by Molly Messick. Our update was reported by Vito Emanuel, produced by Willa Rubin, engineered by Gilly Moon and edited by our executive producer, Alex Goldmark.

Music: Universal Music Production - "Retro Funk," "Comin' Back For More," "Reactive Emotion," and "EAT."


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


Today on the show, we have reporting from Maine Public Radio?s Susan Sharon about a new experiment in prisons: remote jobs ? paying fair market wages, for people who are incarcerated. 


Listen to Susan?s original reporting here: 


- In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs and other states are taking notice 

- Cracking the code: How technology and education are changing life in Maine prisons 


Related episodes:

- Fine and Punishment  

- Getting Out Of Prison Sooner 

- The Prisoner's Solution 

- Paying for the Crime 


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This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez with reporting from Susan Sharon. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with reporting help from Vito Emanuel. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez, with help from Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer. 

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

First, what?s making ticket prices go up? We look at the economics behind the ticket market and how ?reseller bots? are wreaking all sorts of havoc. The industry is not a fan, and yet they do serve an economic function. 

And? why pet care costs have surged. It comes down to unique skills, people?s love for their pets and something called the ?Baumol effect.? 

Related episodes:
- The Vet Clinic Chow Down
- What Do Private Equity Firms Actually Do? 
- Kid Rock vs. The Scalpers
- Ticket scalpers: The real ticket masters 

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This episode is hosted by Darian Woods, Adrian Ma, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Angel Carreras. Cooper Katz McKim produced this episode. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator?s editor. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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

For the entire history of the food stamp program, the federal government has paid for all the benefits that go out. States pay part of the cost of administering it, but the food stamp money has come entirely from federal taxpayers. This bill shifts part of the costs to states.

How much will states have to pay? It depends. The law ties the amount to a statistic called the Payment Error Rate -- the official measure of accuracy -- whether states are giving recipients either too much, or too little, in food stamp money.

On today?s show, we go to Oregon to meet the bureaucrats on the front lines of getting that error rate down -- and ask Governor Tina Kotek what?s going to happen if they can?t.

Looking for hunger-relief resources? Try here.

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This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed and Willa Rubin, edited by Marianne McCune and Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Debbie Daughtry and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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For decades, the U.S. has been the single biggest source of remittances worldwide. A remittance is a transfer of money, typically from an immigrant to their family in their country of origin. But we are in the middle of a big, loud and very public immigration crackdown on those who are here without legal status. And that crackdown is disrupting the global remittance market. 

People who have come to the U.S. from a handful of countries ? especially some Central American countries ? have been sending more money back to their countries of origin. And it?s a bit of a puzzle because ? you might think the opposite would be the case.

As immigration plummets, we try to figure out why remittances are surging in some countries, and not others. And we learn why a surge in money sent home inspires joy ? but also fear.

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This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Greg Rosalsky. It was produced by Luis Gallo with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune with fact-checking help from Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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The U.S. Constitution famously outlaws ?cruel and unusual punishments.? But there's another, far more obscure part of the Constitution called the Excessive Fines Clause, which basically says that the fine has to fit the crime. So far, the Supreme Court has been pretty mysterious about what that means. But for Ken Jouppi, the fate of his $95,000 plane hinges on it.

Ken is a bush pilot. He used to run an air taxi service in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 2012, police caught one of Ken?s passengers with a six-pack of Budweiser in her luggage. Over that six-pack, Ken was convicted of bootlegging. As punishment, he was ordered to forfeit his $95,000 Cessna.

The Supreme Court is now considering whether to take Ken?s case. And what?s at stake here is more than just a plane. Hanging in the balance is an increasingly popular ? and controversial ? business model for criminal justice.

More on economics and the law:
- Fine and punishment
- The prisoner's solution
- Paying for the crime
- Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortune

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Today?s episode was produced by James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Luis Gallo. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Ko Tagasugi Chernovin with help from Robert Rodriguez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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When TikTok videos started to go viral on Instagram and Reddit, TikTok turned to professional sound designers to protect their content.

More and more companies are paying to develop a ?sonic identity? ? a series of sounds, songs, and micro-jingles to help maintain a unified brand.

In this episode, in conjunction with the sound design podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, we hear the backstory to possibly the most successful audio branding campaigns in history. It?s a tale of guerilla marketing and the power of sonic suggestion.

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This adapted episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Dallas Taylor. It was produced by Casey Emmerling and James Sneed. The episode was edited by Jess Jiang. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

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Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he?s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, the tankers started getting weird. They were flying flags he?d never seen before. They were old, very old, though many had taken on new names. Something was off. 


He?d stumbled on a shadow fleet of hundreds of tankers ferrying sanctioned oil out of Russia ? with near impunity. 

Today on the show, how those ships are transforming the global oil market and fueling the war in Ukraine. And why this all might be a financial and environmental disaster waiting to happen.


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This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Daniel Ackerman. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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In 1975, New York City ran out of money. For a decade it had managed to pay for its hundreds of thousands of city employees and robust social services by taking on billions of dollars in debt. But eventually investors were no longer willing to lend the city any more money. New York teetered on the edge of bankruptcy ? the city shuttered more than a dozen firehouses, teachers went on strike and garbage piled up in the streets.

Rescuing the city required the cooperation of the state of New York, the banks, the city workers unions, giant property owners and ? the White House. But President Gerald Ford was adamantly opposed to bailing out NYC, prompting the famous New York Daily News headline ? ?Ford to City: Drop Dead.?

On today?s show, the story of a group of private citizens who were deputized by the state of New York to try to save the city?s finances. Led by investment banker Felix Rohatyn, the group had to put together a grand bargain that everyone would be willing to agree to, and to come up with the billions of dollars the city needed to survive.

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Today?s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Keith Romer and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Julia Ritchey. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Debbie Daughtry and Cena Loffredo. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

Special Thanks: Denis Coleman, David Schleicher, Liall Clarke, Kevin Hennigan and everyone at Classical King FM in Seattle.

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The U.S. government spends a ton of money, on everything from Medicare to roads to defense. In fact, it spends way more than it takes in. So?it borrows money, in the bond market. By selling U.S. Treasurys, basically IOUs with periodic interest payments. And for decades, people have loved to invest in Treasurys, for their safety and security. 

But lately, Treasurys have started to look riskier. 

In part because, in recent years, there?s a new buyer at the table: hedge funds, those loosely-regulated financial companies that invest on behalf of institutions and wealthy clients. They have started doing a special trade called the ?Treasury basis trade.? And, depending on who you talk to, this trade could destabilize our entire financial system. Or help the U.S. government borrow more money. Or both. 

On the latest episode: how and why are hedge funds getting into Treasurys? We follow how a Treasury travels from the nest into the hands of hedge funds. And we speak to someone from one of those hedge funds, about what they?re doing and why.

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This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer. 

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Our sister show, The Indicator, is chronicling the evolving business of crime for its Vice Week series. Today, we bring to you two cases of crime in the age of AI. 

First, cybercriminals are using our own voices against us. Audio deepfake scams are picking up against individuals but also against businesses. We hear from a bank on how they?re adapting defenses, and find out how the new defenses are a game of AI vs AI. 

Then, we move over to the stock market to witness AI market manipulation. A new breed of trading bots behave differently. They could collude with each other, even without human involvement or instruction, so researchers are asking how to think about blame, and regulation in a world of more sophisticated trading bots. That?s assuming regulators could even keep up with the tech in the first place. 

Indicator Vice Series 
Head to The Indicator from Planet Money podcast feed for the latest on the Indicator Vice Series including an episode on data breaches . If you don?t already subscribe, check it out. Each episode explains one slice of the economy connected to the news recently, always in 10 minutes or less. 

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This episode is hosted by Darian Woods, Adrian Ma, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Cooper Katz McKim and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator?s editor. Alex Goldmark is the Executive Producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - ?Diamond High? 

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It?s here! It?s free to download and playtest! It?s the Planet Money game! (Download here.)
Download and playtest the game go here Sign up for the 11/1 virtual AMA event and get updates about the gameSubmit your feedback on the gameWatch the how-to video with Kenny and Elan for playtest instructionsIn this episode, the story of how we arrived here. Ride along as our game-making partners at Exploding Kittens help us turn our (sometimes wild) economics game ideas into the next blockbuster game. It?s a behind the scenes look at how to design a game from scratch ? a game that is somehow filled with economics, impossible to put down, but does not feel like you?re cramming for school. Which is? harder than we thought.

After months of trying to find the perfect balance of ideas and entertainment, the Planet Money game is ready for our next phase. And that?s where you come in, listeners! We need you to playtest the Planet Money game to help us perfect it.

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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

Well, turns out, it?s quite hard!

We?re in a golden age of tabletop games. Thirty years ago there were around 800 new games each year. Now it is more like 5,000. Just a handful of those get to be hits. 

In the first episode of our new series, Planet Money sets forth on an epic quest to beat the odds. 

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money?s executive producer.

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

The cold chain is the name for the end-to-end refrigeration of our food from farm to truck to warehouse to grocery store and ultimately to our fridges at home. And it?s one of the great achievements of the modern world. 

On today?s show, Nicola Twilley, food journalist and author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, tells us the story of how our world got cold, and what that?s meant for the economy.  

We?ll hear about two pioneers of cold: The cheapskate meat baron Gustavus Swift, and the train-hopping chemist Polly Pennington. And we?ll take a look at whether all this refrigeration might have created some new problems. 

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Today?s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Nick Fountain and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Keith Romer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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