Planet Money

By NPR

Business

What's Planet Money about?

The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.

4.5

22,579 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Small America Vs. Big Internet

05.30.2020

Small-town internet is often terrible... though not for lack of trying. Today on the show, one small city starts their own service provider only to get trolled by Big Internet.

Planet Money episodes:

05.30.2020 Small America Vs. Big Internet Small-town internet is often terrible... though not for lack of trying. Today on the show, one small city starts their own service provider only to get trolled by Big Internet.
05.27.2020 Three Big Ideas Spend billions on vaccine factories we'll never use. Set up autopay to send checks to almost everybody. Build a giant bubble for an entire sports league.
05.23.2020 J. Screwed This month, J.Crew went bankrupt. But not before inventing a whole new way of thinking about promises to lenders.
05.20.2020 How To Get Trillions To Millions In March, Congress passed the CARES act. But the stroke of a pen only does so much. This episode — two stories from the Indicator about how $2.2 trillion gets from Congress to you.
05.16.2020 Episode 1,000 We did it! Planet Money is officially 1,000. And to thank all of our listeners for joining us on this heck of a ride — we're gonna let you in on our secrets...
05.13.2020 #999: The Restaurant From The Future The restaurant industry has gotten walloped in this pandemic — 5.5 million unemployed or furloughed. Yet, one guy wants to expand.
05.08.2020 #998: Journey To The Center Of The Fed The Federal Reserve's response to coronavirus has made it maybe the most important institution in the world right now. This episode, we go down to the Fed to talk about why.
05.07.2020 #997: Georgia's Open Question Georgia is one of the first states to reopen non-essential businesses. This episode, business owners answer the question: Can you safely reopen a business right now? Should you?
05.01.2020 #996: About That Hazard Pay Many essential workers right now are low paid. And they're being asked to risk more. Titles got fancier but their job got worse. So... why aren't these workers getting paid more?
04.30.2020 #995: Buybacks And Bailouts In a viral video about billionaires, buybacks, and bailouts, a deep question that's been simmering since the last financial crisis has reemerged: Who deserves to fail?
04.24.2020 #994: Making It Work Lockdown has changed how people spend money. Some companies are doing unexpectedly well. This episode: Farm animals, a crafty comeback, Clint Eastwood, and a story with a twist.
04.23.2020 #993: Negative Oil On Monday the price of a barrel of oil in the United States fell below zero. Specifically, it fell to a negative $37 a barrel. Today on the show — what just happened?
04.17.2020 #992: The Mask Mover During this pandemic, getting PPE has turned into a free-for-all — states competing against states. To even have a chance... well, you kind of have to know a guy.
04.15.2020 #991: Lives Vs. The Economy The economy will start back up again. When it does, it'll be because someone decided that it was worth the lives risked, and lost. Today on the show: How that decision is made.
04.11.2020 #990: The Big Small Business Rescue This past week, millions of small business owners have been trying to take advantage of a $349 billion rescue program.
04.09.2020 #989: What If No One Pays Rent? We follow the distress from a laid-off worker, to her landlord, to the multi-trillion-dollar global mortgage market.
04.04.2020 #988: The Economics Of Hospital Beds Bellevue is the oldest public hospital in the nation. It's seen everything, and survived everything. But even they might not have enough beds for the COVID peak. Here's why.
03.31.2020 #987: The Race To Make Ventilators At maximum output, Seattle-area-based Ventec can produce about 1,000 ventilators a month. That's not going to be nearly enough. So, they called in help.
03.28.2020 #986: America Unemployed There are 3,283,000 new claims for unemployment – but the unemployment system wasn't designed for that kind of record number. Now 3 million people are asking, "What's next?"
03.26.2020 #985: Where Do We Get $2,000,000,000,000? The government's economic rescue package will cost so much it's worth writing out the full number: $2,000,000,000,000. Where will that money come from? And what will happen next?
03.25.2020 #984: Food And Farmworkers In this episode, to understand how the coronavirus might impact our food, we talk to an economist, a farmer, and, of course, the people who really make farms go — the farmworkers.
03.24.2020 #983: You Asked About The Virus Economy We're here with you! And wow do you have questions. From stock market shutdowns to Coronavirus checks, to "What's the deal with toilet paper?" This episode, we try to answer a few.
03.20.2020 #982: How To Save The Economy Now The Federal Reserve usually has one main job: Setting interest rates. But in emergencies, another Fed job becomes more important: Trying to prevent a financial crisis.
03.19.2020 #981: How To Test A Country To try to understand the coronavirus tests we've all been hearing so much about — we take you inside the pandemic testing system.
03.16.2020 #980: The Fed Fights The Virus The Federal Reserve usually has one main job: setting interest rates. But in emergencies, another Fed job becomes more important: trying to prevent a financial crisis.
03.14.2020 #979: Medicine For The Economy COVID-19 is hammering our economy. We called up three super smart economists and asked what we should do about it.
03.11.2020 #978: Coronavirus, Oil, and Kansas How the coronavirus outbreak in China led to a fight over oil in Vienna, and changed lives in America.
03.07.2020 #977: Where's The Vaccine? A vaccine would be great right now. Of course, people would buy it. But the market for emergency vaccines isn't like regular markets — that's why the government steps in.
03.05.2020 #976: Terms Of Service Every day, we accept another set of terms and conditions without reading the fine print. But what if there's something hiding in there, waiting to blow up our lives?
02.28.2020 #975: Reparations In New Zealand We follow Mavis Mullins, Māori sheep-shearing magnate, through New Zealand's reparations system — from the fact-finding Waitangi Tribunal to a public apology.
02.26.2020 #826: Vodka Proof By definition, vodka is colorless, odorless and tasteless. So, could there really be any difference between vodkas? Or is the difference all in the marketing?
02.21.2020 #974: Michael Milken Michael Milken created the market for "junk bonds" and built an empire in the process. Then he went to prison. And then, he got pardoned.
02.19.2020 #973: Indicate This Two stories from The Indicator podcast: The symbiotic relationship between refugees and one Pennsylvania town, and Amazon's weird flex in the gig economy.
02.15.2020 #972: The CryptoQueen Jamie Bartlett and BBC producer Georgia Catt bring us the story of OneCoin, which promised to revolutionize money, but instead led to one of the world's biggest scams.
02.12.2020 #971: Our Valentines 2020 It's our Valentine's Day episode, full of love, bananas, and financial analysis.
02.07.2020 #970: Raw Milk Deal A farmer in California built an empire dealing raw milk. And then the Feds showed up.
02.05.2020 #772: Small Change How fast is the world really changing? The answer has implications for everything from how the next generation will live to whether robots really will take all our jobs.
02.01.2020 #969: The Island No One Owns In Barbuda, land isn't a thing you buy and sell. It's something you just... have. For free. No paperwork. For real. But the Prime Minister thinks there's been a misunderstanding.
01.30.2020 #968: The Trouble With Table 101 When you go out to eat, you're paying for food, but you're also paying rent for the table. In this episode, one restaurateur tries to turn his worst real estate into his best.
01.24.2020 #967: Escheat Show We visit a little-known "lost and found" to find out how your money gets in there, and how you can get it back.
01.23.2020 #966: The Rise Of Putin President Vladimir Putin recently proposed changes to the Russian Constitution in an attempt to consolidate power. Throughline asks, "How did he come to power in the first place?"
01.17.2020 #965: Das Green Old Deal On today's show, we head to Germany to meet the person who kickstarted the green energy market and learn about the wonky policy tool that helped him do it.
01.16.2020 #964: BILLBOARDS You can see billboards, and, increasingly, they can see you. We explore the power of billboards, and we put up our own in Times Square.
01.10.2020 #963: 13,000 Economists. 1 Question. We asked a bunch of economists at the American Economic Association's annual conference one question: What is the most useful idea in economics?
01.08.2020 #386: The Cost Of Free Doughnuts Free is a powerful concept. Everybody likes free things, but free can backfire. On today's show: What happens when you take something that is free, and give it a price?
01.04.2020 #962: Advanced Fairness At The Marathon With limited slots and high demand, the NYC Marathon has had to create a clever system to allocate a scarce resource as fairly as possible. Four lessons in fair allocation.
01.01.2020 #216: How Four Drinking Buddies Saved Brazil In the 1990s, inflation in Brazil was so high that, for a very long time, prices had been increasing every day. Until four drinking buddies from grad school found a way to fix it.
12.27.2019 #961: The Rest Of The Story, 2019 We check in on the Universal Postal Union, what happened to the plane that got stuck in Iran, how much Mattress Mack lost betting on baseball, and more.
12.25.2019 #960: The Writers Revolt In an era of peak television, screenwriters and their talent agents are fighting over the money. In April, 7,000 screenwriters fired all their agents on the same day.
12.21.2019 #959: Things We Learned in 2019 Tom Whitwell made an amazing list of 52 things he learned this year. We dig into our favorite items.

Older episodes

Planet Money

What's Planet Money about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Planet Money episodes:

Small America Vs. Big Internet

Three Big Ideas

J. Screwed

How To Get Trillions To Millions

Episode 1,000

#999: The Restaurant From The Future

#998: Journey To The Center Of The Fed

#997: Georgia's Open Question

#996: About That Hazard Pay

#995: Buybacks And Bailouts

#994: Making It Work

#993: Negative Oil

#992: The Mask Mover

#991: Lives Vs. The Economy

#990: The Big Small Business Rescue

#989: What If No One Pays Rent?

#988: The Economics Of Hospital Beds

#987: The Race To Make Ventilators

#986: America Unemployed

#985: Where Do We Get $2,000,000,000,000?

#984: Food And Farmworkers

#983: You Asked About The Virus Economy

#982: How To Save The Economy Now

#981: How To Test A Country

#980: The Fed Fights The Virus

#979: Medicine For The Economy

#978: Coronavirus, Oil, and Kansas

#977: Where's The Vaccine?

#976: Terms Of Service

#975: Reparations In New Zealand

#826: Vodka Proof

#974: Michael Milken

#973: Indicate This

#972: The CryptoQueen

#971: Our Valentines 2020

#970: Raw Milk Deal

#772: Small Change

#969: The Island No One Owns

#968: The Trouble With Table 101

#967: Escheat Show

#966: The Rise Of Putin

#965: Das Green Old Deal

#964: BILLBOARDS

#963: 13,000 Economists. 1 Question.

#386: The Cost Of Free Doughnuts

#962: Advanced Fairness At The Marathon

#216: How Four Drinking Buddies Saved Brazil

#961: The Rest Of The Story, 2019

#960: The Writers Revolt

#959: Things We Learned in 2019

Other shows like Planet Money: