The Indicator from Planet Money

The landmark supreme source case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates for massive corporate spending in elections. Today, can a Montana ballot initiative pave the way for getting corporate money out of American elections?  

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–Can a "moneyball" system work for campaign funding?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

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Does business school fix the world? Or does it just churn out consultants, bankers and tech workers? A professor and a dean debate the value of the modern-day MBA.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
––Are small town colleges going extinct?
––Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

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Meta’s new AI agent Muse is one of the fastest-growing apps ever. It’s a big bet from a company spending billions to win the AI race. But what is the real cost of using this powerful, free AI product? 

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–SNAP strains, youth baseball's class divide, and Meta's bug bounty
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
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There are now more bots than humans online. What does that mean for how we experience the internet? Can bots and humans peacefully coexist online?  

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–Can the internet survive AI summaries? 
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
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This week’s notable indicators: A distressing credit warning for CoreWeave, a Pokémon heist, and depleted maple syrup reserves in Canada.  

Fact checking by Cooper Katz McKim. 

Your Next Listen 
–Why Pokemon cards are growing faster than your retirement account
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
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–Find the Planet Money book
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Elections are more expensive than ever, but are campaign donations going to the races where they’ll make the most impact? Today, we talk to the startup co-founder of Oath who believes there’s a smarter way to allocate individual donations.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–How did political campaigns get so expensive?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
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–Find the Planet Money book
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Should money and class figure more prominently in how we identify ourselves? Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi thinks yes. Today on the show, a conversation with Mona, author of the forthcoming book Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez. 

Your Next Listen 
–Chasing the American Dream at Outback Steakhouse
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

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The United States national debt is running at more than $40 trillion dollars. It’s a potential crisis in the making, but President Donald Trump suggested it can all be solved just by inflating the debt away. Today, we dig into the nitty gritty on how and when inflating the national debt could work.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–Is the federal debt REALLY that bad?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
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–Find the Planet Money book
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Oracle, the multinational tech giant has taken on a lot of loans to build up its AI capacity. But Oracle’s investors are not happy with this piling debt load. We explain why Oracle is such a pivotal player — and potentially weak link — in the AI-fueled economy.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen 
–How the bond market is handling AI risk?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
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Is AI coming for our jobs? Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes AI could wipe out many white-collar jobs in the next few years. While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argues AI will reshape existing roles and create even more jobs than we have now. So which future are we really facing: a job-pocalypse or a jobs transformation?

For answers, join The Indicator's Adrian Ma for "Ask An Economist.” This is a virtual event and live Q&A featuring two economists who've studied this issue: Daron Acemoglu, a Nobel Prize-winning professor at MIT, and Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at Stanford and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. We’ll also invite you to ask questions and share your thoughts!

It's Wednesday, October 28th, at 3:00pm ET, noon PT. This is a Zoom event exclusively for NPR+ and other qualifying supporters. For registration and event details, you can listen to this audio message or check out npr.org/askaneconomist. 

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

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