NPR: Planet Money
Money makes the world go around, faster and faster every day. On NPR's Planet Money, you'll meet high rollers, brainy economists and regular folks -- all trying to make sense of our rapidly changing global economy.
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#598: The Very First Short
There have been short sellers throughout history. Today, the story ...
There have been short sellers throughout history. Today, the story of a man who was the very first short seller. The first person to bet that a stock will go down. It doesn't go well for him.
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#597: We're Short America
If you own a house, stock, bonds, or a retirement ...
If you own a house, stock, bonds, or a retirement account, you're betting that things are going to get better — that the lines on the chart will keep going up. Historically, this is a reasonable bet. But you can place a bet in the opposite direction. You can make a bet that things will go down: a short. For example, if you short Apple stock and the stock price drops, you make money. While all the normal shareholders are consoling themselves, you can celebrate. But for the most part, people don't do it. Experts warn us that we shouldn't either. Today on the show, we ignore the advice of some very smart people, and we put our own money down on a bet against something people love. We short America.
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#253: Gold Standard, R.I.P.
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in February ...
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in February 2011.Franklin Delano Roosevelt ignores the advice of America's big-name economists — and listens instead to a guy who helped take care of the trees on his estate.Montagu Norman, head of the Bank of England, gets a coded message at a critical moment — and completely misunderstands what it means.On today's Planet Money: The gold standard and the Great Depression.It's the latest in our series on gold and the meaning of money.
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#252: The Gold Standard
We visit the respected finance writer (and charming curmudgeon) James ...
We visit the respected finance writer (and charming curmudgeon) James Grant. He makes the case for going back on the gold standard. For more:n.pr/1IxK0L2
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#596: Johnny Mnemonic's Secret Door
Note: This episode contains explicit language.Every time there is a ...
Note: This episode contains explicit language.Every time there is a big new release of some software, an operating system or a new browser, hackers get to work. Each new release is the start of a race because there are all these giant players who desperately want to find the new flaw in the software.Today on the show, the story of one man who stumbled into a flaw in Apple's operating system, a way to hack the phone you might have in your hands right now – the iPhone 5s.It was a flaw that was worth a million dollars to the first person who could exploit it.
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#222: The Price Of Lettuce In Brooklyn
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in October ...
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in October 2010. On today's Planet Money, we go shopping with George Minichiello. George is one of hundreds of federal employees who goes to stores all over the country and record the prices of thousands of different things. A bag of romaine lettuce. A boy's size-14 collared shirt made of 97 percent cotton. A loaf of white bread. Their work drives the consumer price index, a key economic indicator known to its friends as CPI. The index measures inflation in the U.S., and it influences everything from Social Security checks to the price of school lunches to how big your raise will be next year. For more: http://n.pr/1AGluFd
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595: The Rest Of The Story, 2014 Edition
Sometimes all you can say at the end of a ...
Sometimes all you can say at the end of a story is "time will tell." Today on the show, time has told. We follow up on our favorite stories of 2014 to find out what happened after we turned off our recorders.We follow up on one of the boldest plans of the year: one man's plan to reform all of campaign finance. We see if the new website endings, or top level domains, like .ninja, .wed and .xyz have gained a foothold. Also, we learn the key to passing one of the hardest classes at community college.
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#594: Board Games
CEO pay comes up a lot in the news. The ...
CEO pay comes up a lot in the news. The stories often include someone complaining that it's too high. Then there's someone on the other side, defending CEO pay. But that's usually that's where the stories stop.On today's show: an actual story about CEO pay, with a beginning, middle, and an end. It's the story of two guys who tried to cut the pay of the CEO at a small pneumatic tool company on Long Island.
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#593: Who Had The First Job?
People have always worked. But the thing we think of ...
People have always worked. But the thing we think of today as a job — the thing you apply for instead of being born into, the thing you go to in the morning and leave at night — is actually a recent invention. The modern job can act as a buffer to protect workers from the daily ups and downs of businesses. But the job as we know it may be going away. On today's show, we go in search of the very first modern job. For more: http://n.pr/1x57BPj
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#592: Bell Wars
On today's show, a story on a Christmasy theme: Handbells! But ...
On today's show, a story on a Christmasy theme: Handbells! But also, a not-so-Christmasy theme: A decades-long feud between two big bell companies, located right down the road from each other. But then, a Christmasy ending: Peace! For more: http://n.pr/1wB07Uk
