Planet Money

The loan at the heart of a new foreclosure crisis

There is a new type of loan that is sweeping through the country right now. It’s advertised as a super quick and super easy way to get a mortgage to buy a home. In recent

Cost-cutting, quiet guilt and the inflation generation

In this economy it is boom times and doom times all at once. The statistics aren’t really capturing it. K-shaped only goes so far as a metaphor. So … we asked you to help

Trump drinks Venezuela’s milkshake

One week ago, President Trump announced a deal that would give the “U.S. control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the Am

Love in the time of Palantir

To a lot of people, Palantir is a mystery — what does the company know, what data do they have, and (if they have it) what do they do with it all? We dig into that myster

Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” the true story behind the anthem (bonus)

The brilliance of "9 to 5" is that it is catchy even though it’s also kinda depressing. You will be dancing along. You're enjoying it. And, then when you really listen to

Branded fruit: How produce got “Honeycrisp-ified"

The produce aisle is changing. You’ve noticed this, I’m sure. It is now full of superstar fruits and vegetables: The Honeycrisp apple, The Cotton Candy grape, The Cuties

The continent nobody owns & everyone benefits from (Summer School)

This episode is packed with your best economic ideas from around the world and a penguin interview. It all comes together in this final session of Summer School 2026. Pa

Who decides what big box sells? Our GAME got us answers

There’s a room where the fates of retail products are decided. Will they make it onto the shelves of the big box stores? Usually the rest of us can’t get inside the room

Getting entrepreneurial in Korea (Summer School)

This week’s stop on our world tour - Korea. A country divided into two very different power structures since the end of WWII. Today South Korea is the maker of some of th

You bet your life insurance

Some of the biggest firms on Wall Street are, at this very moment, waiting for thousands of strangers to die to reap their returns. Because there’s a market for life insu

Currency Chaos in Argentina (Summer School)

Just about everyone in Argentina is an expert in inflation and whether they like it or not, economic flexibility. Can we learn from them?  Over the years, we at Planet M

Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?

When workers past retirement age can’t afford to retire — that’s one thing. When they can, and just don’t want to — that’s trickier. It used to be legal to force people

Sand heists and property rights in the Caribbean (Summer School)

Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent,

What makes a toy go viral

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made. To

How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School)

Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their e

Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)

Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest questions facing humanity. In Kenya and Nigeria, econ

Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine

The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean.  So on today’s show

New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast

In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's kil

Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?

As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major League Soccer – the top men’s professional soccer league

Building things and breaking things in China (Summer School World Tour)

China’s turbocharged growth may have made it rich, but now it has to deal with rich country problems.  High-speed trains that connect every town. Gleaming new bridges an