Planet Money
Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world. Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney
Episodes
May 1, 2026 • 46 mins
In the world of commercial publishing, there are few crowning achievements more coveted than a place on the New York Times Best Seller List. But how does a book actually end up there? There is, of course, a playbook that publishers and authors use to try to gin up enough sales at the beginning of a new book’s life to launch it onto the list. But there is also a world of more shadowy techniques – a whole history of hacking shenaniga...
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April 29, 2026 • 25 mins
It’s way more than fuel costs that pushed Spirit Airlines to the brink of liquidation and led President Trump to muse about “buying” them. Many low cost airlines are struggling due to a canny and calculated set of strategies from bigger airlines that we can think of as ‘revenge of the legacy carriers.’
Today on the show, we go back in time to when Spirit was riding high and pressuring the whole industry to cut costs. We t...
Today on the show, we go back in time to when Spirit was riding high and pressuring the whole industry to cut costs. We t...
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April 24, 2026 • 34 mins
At one point in history, one U.S. company monopolized the rare earths industry. Then China took over the industry. Can the U.S. bring it back?
Rare earths are critical to making, like, everything. From smart phones to electric vehicles to microwaves. They’ve also become a powerful political weapon for China, which controls the majority of mining and processing of rare earths.
Today, we have the story of the rise ...
Rare earths are critical to making, like, everything. From smart phones to electric vehicles to microwaves. They’ve also become a powerful political weapon for China, which controls the majority of mining and processing of rare earths.
Today, we have the story of the rise ...
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April 22, 2026 • 29 mins
We talk with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and Chief Economist at Redfin Daryl Fairweather about two of the biggest issues of our time: AI and housing.
We have been crisscrossing America doing live shows to help promote the new Planet Money book. In each city, we’ve been doing interviews with special guests. And since we won’t be able to make it to every city in America (or most cities) we wanted to bring the tour to yo...
We have been crisscrossing America doing live shows to help promote the new Planet Money book. In each city, we’ve been doing interviews with special guests. And since we won’t be able to make it to every city in America (or most cities) we wanted to bring the tour to yo...
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April 17, 2026 • 32 mins
Have you noticed a lot of young people getting into antenna-maxxing as alpha? Or, maybe searching for any bit of copium after they fat-fingered and got rinsed? Or maybe they farmed during a yes-fest on Mention Markets resulting in some serious printing?
If none of that made sense to you, then we have the perfect episode for you.
Prediction markets have taken off in the past few years, using the same legal loopho...
If none of that made sense to you, then we have the perfect episode for you.
Prediction markets have taken off in the past few years, using the same legal loopho...
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April 14, 2026 • 18 mins
The United States has been at war with Iran since February 28th. And for a month and a half, Iran’s main leverage over the U.S. has been their control over the Strait of Hormuz — a key global shipping route. Iran has attacked ships that try to pass without approval. And recently they’ve insinuated that one part of the Strait — the part near Oman — is not safe. Which means that captains had to go right by Iran’s shores to get throug...
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April 10, 2026 • 40 mins
How do bookstores choose the books they stock, and how does that affect what customers read? It may not seem like it, but every shelf in a bookstore is a highly valuable and contested piece of commercial real estate. And for every new book that a bookstore decides to stock, there are thousands of others that did not make the cut. So how do bookstores make those decisions? And how will the Planet Money book fare under the discerning...
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April 8, 2026 • 25 mins
Live event info and tickets here.
If your company got bought by a private equity firm, how would you feel? Maybe a little nervous? You might find yourself wondering if there will be layoffs.
And you’d be right to worry about that. Research shows that while private equity ownership can boost a company’s productivity, it does generally result in job cuts.
But one private equity executive is trying to do t...
If your company got bought by a private equity firm, how would you feel? Maybe a little nervous? You might find yourself wondering if there will be layoffs.
And you’d be right to worry about that. Research shows that while private equity ownership can boost a company’s productivity, it does generally result in job cuts.
But one private equity executive is trying to do t...
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April 3, 2026 • 33 mins
Live event info and tickets here.
When ingredient costs skyrocket, companies have three basic options: They can raise their prices (a sort of product-specific inflation), shrink the size of the products (often called “shrinkflation”), or, sometimes, find more creative ways to reduce costs by degrading the quality of their products - which our very own Greg Rosalsky has dubbed as “skimpflation.” The latest alleged culprit...
When ingredient costs skyrocket, companies have three basic options: They can raise their prices (a sort of product-specific inflation), shrink the size of the products (often called “shrinkflation”), or, sometimes, find more creative ways to reduce costs by degrading the quality of their products - which our very own Greg Rosalsky has dubbed as “skimpflation.” The latest alleged culprit...
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April 1, 2026 • 27 mins
Live event info and tickets here.
For more than 60 years, Cuba has survived on two seemingly contradictory economic strategies: leaning on friendly communist and socialist countries, and flirting with capitalism. And right now it seems the US is making both strategies impossible.
Since January, the U.S. has been preventing almost all oil from reaching the island. Doctors can’t get to the hospitals where they work...
For more than 60 years, Cuba has survived on two seemingly contradictory economic strategies: leaning on friendly communist and socialist countries, and flirting with capitalism. And right now it seems the US is making both strategies impossible.
Since January, the U.S. has been preventing almost all oil from reaching the island. Doctors can’t get to the hospitals where they work...
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March 27, 2026 • 22 mins
LIVE SHOW TOUR INFO HERE. New stories, live tapings, special guests, book signings and more.
What would you build on a piece of land when all the normal rules go out the window?
On today’s show, how the Squamish Nation reclaimed a sliver of prime urban real estate and were liberated from zoning restrictions, to the consternation of their wealthy NIMBY neighbors.
We trace the 100 year saga of what might b...
What would you build on a piece of land when all the normal rules go out the window?
On today’s show, how the Squamish Nation reclaimed a sliver of prime urban real estate and were liberated from zoning restrictions, to the consternation of their wealthy NIMBY neighbors.
We trace the 100 year saga of what might b...
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March 25, 2026 • 46 mins
When you come across a book at a yard sale or a bookstore, you might pay more attention to the words between the covers than the physical form of the book itself. But content and the form are both crucial to a book’s success. Each book you pull off the shelf, is the product of thousands of decisions, big and small, tying together vast supply chains and armies of workers from around the world.
On today’s episode, the secon...
On today’s episode, the secon...
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March 20, 2026 • 43 mins
In the age of TikTok and Polymarket, it can be easy to overlook the humble book. But books are one of the most influential technologies ever invented. From “The Wealth of Nations” to “Das Kapital,” books have the power to shape whole economic systems… and everything else in our world. The market for books can determine which ideas make it to the masses.
So when Planet Money was approached to make its own book, not only di...
So when Planet Money was approached to make its own book, not only di...
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March 18, 2026 • 33 mins
The cardinal tetra is one of the most popular pet fish in the world. They look like little red and blue sequins. You've almost certainly seen them at the pet store or the fish tank at your dentist's office. They're everywhere.
Not so long ago, most of the world's supply of cardinals came from just one place. It's a little town deep in the rainforests of Brazil, where locals still catch these fish by hand. But the business...
Not so long ago, most of the world's supply of cardinals came from just one place. It's a little town deep in the rainforests of Brazil, where locals still catch these fish by hand. But the business...
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March 13, 2026 • 25 mins
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 th...
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 th...
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March 11, 2026 • 29 mins
Live event info and tickets here.
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 l...
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 l...
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March 6, 2026 • 30 mins
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, ...
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March 4, 2026 • 27 mins
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 th...
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 th...
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February 27, 2026 • 36 mins
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,...
Economist Abel Brodeur has come up with one way to help fix this crisis: he’s invented an internationally crowdsourced surveillance system,...
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February 25, 2026 • 18 mins
Live event info and tickets here.
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 epi...
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 epi...
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