Eddie Oygur is an Australian businessman who's sold sheepskin ugg boots for years. But one day, he was hit with a lawsuit for breaking American trademark law. On today's show — what's in the name ugg?

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A lot of restaurants took a hit during the pandemic. And when they struggled to find workers, some found surprising solutions. On today's show, what happens when you offshore cashiers.

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Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister of the UK, was determined to change the British economy. Instead, her government's mini-budget helped kick off a mini-financial crisis.

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On today's show, we're answering listener questions from the Planet Money inbox. Like, who really benefits from retail coupons? And why are goldfish so cheap?

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How do you mend a broken bill? On this classic episode, we visit the Mutilated Currency Division.

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We try to start a real record label. Just to put one song out there. It's a song about inflation, recorded in 1975... and never released. Until now.

This is part one of the Planet Money Records series. Here's part two and part three.

Update: We now have merch! We released a line of Inflation song gear — including a limited edition vinyl record; a colorful, neon hoodie; and 70s-inspired stickers. You can find it here: n.pr/shopplanetmoney.

Listen to "Inflation" on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Amazon Music & Pandora.

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We got our hands on the long-lost "Inflation" song, and now it's time to put it out into the world. So, we started a record label, and we're diving into the music business to try and make a hit.

This is part two of the Planet Money Records series. Here's part one and part three.

Update: We now have merch! We released a line of Inflation song gear — including a limited edition vinyl record; a colorful, neon hoodie; and 70s-inspired stickers. You can find it here: n.pr/shopplanetmoney.

Listen to "Inflation" on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Amazon Music & Pandora.

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Xi Jinping recently secured his third term as China's president – so we're looking at two shocks to the world's second-largest economy. First: How China's housing boom turned into a real estate crisis. Second: How the recent U.S. ban on selling advanced semiconductor chips to China could affect China's technology industry.

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Polling is facing an existential crisis. Few people are answering the phone, and fewer people want to answer surveys. On today's show, we pick up the phones ourselves to find out how polling got to this place, and what the future of the poll looks like.

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Sam Bankman-Fried built a reputation as the one reliable crypto bro. But within the span of days, his empire came crashing down. What the rise and fall of crypto's 30-year-old elder statesman says about the story of crypto so far.

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There's a big difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. But sometimes even avoiding taxes (legally) can feel like you're getting away with something. Today, we share some of our — and your! — favorite loopholes in the U.S. tax code.

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Telemarketing calls are not only annoying; in some cases, they are illegal. Congress even gives you the right to sue scofflaw telemarketers for $500 a call. Today, the story of one man who collected a surprising amount of money bringing telemarketers to justice.

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It's that time of year again! Our annual year-end tradition of checking in on previous stories to hear what happened after the microphones stopped running.

We'll hear from a CEO who was trying to get her company out of Russia amidst the war in Ukraine, check in with an organizer who was trying to turn his community into a city, follow-up on our experiment in polling, and get the latest from our record label — Planet Money Records. Plus, we learn of a romance sparked by a podcast episode!

Check out the original stories:

Eagles vs. Chickens
Escape from Russia
A tale of two cityhoods
Planet Money tries election polling
The $100 million deli
Planet Money Records Vol. 1: Earnest Jackson
Planet Money Records Vol. 2: The Negotiation

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Welcome to the Planet Money Movie Club, a regular series from Planet Money+ in which we watch an economics-related movie and discuss! On today's episode, Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Willa Rubin talk about Frank Capra's 1946 classic 'It's A Wonderful Life.' They discuss CPI adjustments, how a copyright lapse helped make the film more popular, and what exactly a 'Building and Loan' is.

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Monopoly is one of the best-selling board games in history.

The game's staying power may in part be because of strong American lore — the idea that anyone, with just a little bit of cash, can rise from rags to riches. Mary Pilon, author of The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game.
But there's another origin story – a very different one that promotes a very different image of capitalism. (And with two sets of starkly different rules.) That story shows how a critique of capitalism grew from a seed of an idea in a rebellious young woman's mind into a game legendary for its celebration of wealth at all costs.

This episode was made in collaboration with NPR's Throughline. For more about the origin story of Monopoly, listen to their original episode Do Not Pass Go.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee, mastered by Natasha Branch, and edited by Jess Jiang.

The Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Julie Caine, Victor Yvellez, Anya Steinberg, Yolanda Sangweni, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, and Amiri Tulloch. It was fact-checked by Kevin Volkl and mixed by Josh Newell.

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It's Groundhog Day, and once again, the eyes of the nation have turned to a small town in Western Pennsylvania. Every February 2nd, the only story anyone can talk about is whether or not Punxsutawney Phil will see his own shadow. If he does: six more weeks of winter. If he doesn't: spring is on its way.

This year, in a cruel twist of fate reminiscent of the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, two Planet Money hosts have found themselves facing a curse. They'll be trapped in this never-ending groundhog news cycle until they can find a new February 2nd story to tell...something that has nothing to do with one furry prognosticator... something that changed the economy forever.

So rise and shine campers, and don't forget your booties as we journey through a series of Groundhog Days past to try to find a historical scoop.

This show was produced by Dave Blanchard and edited by Sally Helm. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Gilly Moon and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Planet Money's acting executive producer is Jess Jiang.

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Anyone who has tried shopping for day care knows that it is tough out there.

For one, it is hard even to get your hands on information about costs, either online or over the phone – day cares will often only share their prices after you have taken a tour of their facilities. Even once you find a place you like, many day cares have waitlists stretching 6 months, 9 months, a year.

Waitlists are a classic economic sign that something isn't right, that prices are too low. But ask any parent and they will tell you that prices for day cares are actually too high. According to a recent report from the U.S. Treasury, more than 60% of families can't afford the full cost of high quality day care. Meanwhile, day care owners can barely afford to stay open. No one is happy.

On today's show, we get into the very weird, very broken market for day care. We will try to understand how this market can simultaneously strain parents' budgets and underpay its workers. And we will look at a few possible solutions.

This show was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. Emma Peaslee helped book the show. It was mastered by Gilly Moon. Keith Romer edited this episode. Jess Jiang is our acting Executive Producer.

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Take a look in any supermarket ice cream freezer section and you may see a mystery. There are big containers of the typical ice cream brands: Breyers, Turkey Hill, and Edy's. And there are specialty brands that make gelato, low-fat and vegan ice creams. And then there are the fancy pints: which is mostly Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs.

Häagen-Dazs has flavors like vanilla, chocolate, pistachio—the sort of flavors that run smooth. And then Ben & Jerry's specializes in chunky flavors: Cherry Garcia, The Tonight Dough, Chunky Monkey, etc. The two hardly ever cross into the other's turf. Why?

It's possible they are experiencing something common to natural competition—they are specializing in what works best for them. But, as Christopher Sullivan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison suspects, the two companies may be engaging in what is known as "tacit collusion," where two parties silently agree to... stick to their own territory.

We try to get to the creamy core of what makes up a conspiracy, and how the consumer eventually loses out in this cold, cold war.

Today's episode was produced by Willa Rubin and Alyssa Jeong Perry. It was engineered by Josh Newell and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was edited by Jess Jiang.

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Every year, the U.S. government spends more money than it takes in. In order to fund all that spending, the country takes on debt. Congress has the power to limit how much debt the U.S. takes on. Right now, the debt limit is $31.4 trillion dollars. Once we reach that limit, Congress has a few options so that the government keeps paying its bills: Raise the debt limit, suspend it, or eliminate it entirely.
That debate and negotiations are back this season. One thing that is in short supply, but very important for these negotiations, is good information. Shai Akabas, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, knows this well. Right now, he and his team are working on figuring out when exactly the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its obligations — what they've dubbed: the "X Date."
Shai is determined to help prevent the U.S. government from blowing past the X Date without a solution. But this year's debt-ceiling negotiations are not going very well. Which is daunting, because if lawmakers don't figure something out, the ramifications for the global economy could be huge.
So, how did Shai become the go-to expert at the go-to think tank for debt ceiling information? It started in 2011, back when he and current Chair of the Federal Reserve Jay Powell, armed with a powerpoint and the pressure of a deadline, helped stave off economic disaster.
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This episode originally ran in 2020.

In 2005, Franklin Leonard was a junior executive at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company. A big part of his job was to find great scripts. The only thing — most of the 50,000-some scripts registered with the Writers Guild of America every year aren't that great. Franklin was drowning in bad scripts ... So to help find the handful that will become the movies that change our lives, he needed a better way forward.

Today on the show — how a math-loving movie nerd used a spreadsheet and an anonymous Hotmail address to solve one of Hollywood's most fundamental problems: picking winners from a sea of garbage. And, along the way, he may just have reinvented Hollywood's power structure.

This episode was produced by James Sneed and Darian Woods, and edited by Bryant Urstadt, Karen Duffin and Robert Smith.

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More than 20 years ago, something unusual happened in the small town of Dixfield, Maine. A lady named Barbara Thorpe had left almost all of her money—$200,000—to benefit the cats of her hometown. When Barbara died in 2002, those cats suddenly got very, very rich. And that is when all the trouble began.

Barbara's gift set off a sprawling legal battle that drew in a crew of crusading cat ladies, and eventually, the town of Dixfield itself. It made national news. But after all these years, no one seemed to know where that money had ended up. Did the Dixfield cat fortune just...vanish?

In this episode, host Jeff Guo travels to Maine to track down the money. To figure out how Barbara's plans went awry. And to understand something about this strange form of economic immortality called a charitable trust.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Dave Blanchard. It was engineered by Josh Newell. Sally Helm edited the show and Sierra Juarez checked the facts. Jess Jiang is Planet Money's acting Executive Producer.

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If you are a congressperson or a senator and you have an idea for a new piece of legislation, at some point someone will have to tell you how much it costs. But, how do you put a price on something that doesn't exist yet?

Since 1974, that has been the job of the Congressional Budget Office, or the CBO. The agency plays a critical role in the legislative process: bills can live and die by the cost estimates the CBO produces.

The economists and budget experts at the CBO, though, are far more than just a bunch of number crunchers. Sometimes, when the job is really at its most fun, they are basically tasked with predicting the future. The CBO has to estimate the cost of unreleased products and imagine markets that don't yet exist — and someone always hates the number they come up with.

On today's episode, we go inside the CBO to tell the twisting tale behind the pricing of a single piece of massive legislation — when the U.S. decided to finally cover prescription drug insurance for seniors. At the time, some of the drugs the CBO was trying to price didn't even exist yet. But the CBO still had to tell Congress how much the bill would cost — even though the agency knew better than anyone that its math would almost definitely be wrong.

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Over the past year, dozens of shows have been disappearing from streaming platforms like HBO Max and Showtime. Shows like Minx, Made for Love, FBoy Island, and even big budget hits like Westworld have been removed entirely.

So why did these platforms, after investing millions of dollars in creating original content, decide not just to cancel those shows, but to make them unavailable altogether?

We dive into the economics of the television industry looking for answers to a streaming mystery that has affected both fans and creatives. And we find out what happens when the stream runs dry.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Keith Romer. Engineering by Josh Newell. Sierra Juarez checked the facts. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in America, the bank of choice for tech startups and big-name venture capitalists. Then, in the span of just a few days, it collapsed. Whispers that SVB might be in trouble spread like wildfire through group texts and Twitter posts. Depositors raced to empty their accounts, withdrawing $42 billion in a single day. Last Friday, after regulators declared that SVB had failed, the FDIC seized the bank.

As the dust settles on the biggest bank failure — and bank rescue — in recent memory, we're still figuring out what happened. But poor investment choices, weak regulation, and customer panic all played their parts. We'll look into the bank's collapse to understand what it can teach us about the business of banking itself.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin, with help from Dave Blanchard. It was edited by Keith Romer, and engineered by Brian Jarboe. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Our acting executive producer is Jess Jiang.

Music: "I Don't Do Gossip," "Groovy Little Penguins" and "Vision."

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Since we started Planet Money Records and released the 47-year-old song "Inflation," the song has taken off. It recently hit 1 million streams on Spotify. And we now have a full line of merch — including a limited edition vinyl record; a colorful, neon hoodie; and 70s-inspired stickers — n.pr/shopplanetmoney.

After starting a label and negotiating our first record deal, we're taking the Inflation song out into the world to figure out the hidden economics of the music business. Things get complicated when we try to turn the song into a viral hit. Just sounding good isn't enough and turning a profit in the music business means being creative, patient and knowing the right people.

This is part three of the Planet Money Records series. Here's part one and part two.

Listen to "Inflation" on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, Amazon Music & Pandora.

Listen to our remix, "Inflation [136bpm]," on Spotify, YouTube Music & Amazon Music.

"Inflation" is on TikTok. (And — if you're inspired — add your own!)

This episode was reported by Erika Beras and Sarah Gonzalez, produced by Emma Peaslee and James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang and Sally Helm, engineered by Brian Jarboe, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez.
Music: "Inflation," "Superfly Fever," "Nola Strut" and "Inflation [136bpm]."

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In the first half of March, three banks - Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Silvergate - all had relatively classic bank runs and collapsed. Which sparked some major banking stress. As a result, the Federal Reserve got a lot of requests to use one of its oldest and most important tools for soothing such troubles: the discount window.

The discount window is like a safety net for banks. And recently, a lot of banks have needed it. So, what is the discount window, where did it come from, and how does it work? And, amidst all the recent banking turmoil, has it been working the way it should? In this episode, we crack open the discount window.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Katherine Silva. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Sally Helm. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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It's been a month since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank touched off the worst episode of banking turmoil since 2008. While the financial system appears to have stabilized, we're still reckoning with what happened. Regulators are getting dragged before Congress. The Federal Reserve and the FDIC have promised reports on what went wrong with bank oversight. And judging by our inbox, you, our listeners, have a lot of lingering questions.

Questions like: Was it a bailout? Where were the regulators? Is it over yet? And what about those other banks that were teetering on the edge?

Today on the show, some answers for you.

This episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Willa Rubin. It was engineered by Brian Jarboe. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Molly Messick. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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Imagine if we built cars the same way we build houses. First, a typical buyer would meet with the car designer, and tell them what kind of car they want. Then the designer would draw up plans for the car.

The buyer would call different car builders in their town and show them the blueprints. And the builders might say, "Yeah, I can build you that car based on this blueprint. It will cost $1 million and it will be ready in a year and a half."

There are lots of reasons why homes are so expensive in the U.S., zoning and land prices among them. But also, the way we build houses is very slow and very inefficient. So, why don't we build homes the way we build so many other things, by mass producing them in a factory?

In this episode, the century-old dream of the factory-built house, and the possibility of a prefab future.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee. Molly Messick edited the show, and it was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Brian Jarboe mastered the episode. Jess Jiang is our acting Executive Producer.

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Note: This episode originally aired in September, 2014.

Zoos follow a fundamental principle: You can't sell or buy the animals. It's unethical and illegal to put a price tag on an elephant's head. But money is really useful — it lets you know who wants something and how much they want it. It lets you get rid of things you don't need and acquire things that you do need. It helps allocate assets where they are most valued. In this case, those assets are alive, and they need a safe home in the right climate.

So zoos and aquariums are left asking: What do you do in a world where you can't use money?

This episode was originally produced by Jess Jiang.

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When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? An astronaut, a doctor or maybe a famous athlete? Today one of the most popular responses to that question is influencer – content creators who grow their following on Tik Tok, Instagram and YouTube and monetize that content to make it their full-time job.

In a lot of ways influencing can seem like the dream job - the filters, the followers, the free stuff. But on the internet, rarely is anything as it appears. From hate comments and sneaky contracts to prejudice and discrimination, influencers face a number of hurdles in their chosen careers.

This week we're bringing you two stories from our daily show The Indicator on the promise and perils of the multi-billion dollar influencer industry.

This episode was produced by Corey Bridges and Janet Lee. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Katherine Silva. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and Dylan Sloan. Emily Kinslow was the podcast coordinator for this series. Viet Le is The Indicator's senior producer. Kate Concannon edits the show. Our acting executive producer is Jess Jiang.

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(Note: this episode originally ran in 2019.)

In the 1800s, catching your train on time was no easy feat. Every town had its own "local time," based on the position of the sun in the sky. There were 23 local times in Indiana. 38 in Michigan. Sometimes the time changed every few minutes.

This created tons of confusion, and a few train crashes. But eventually, a high school principal, a scientist, and a railroad bureaucrat did something about it. They introduced time zones in the United States. It took some doing--they had to convince all the major cities to go along with it, get over some objections that the railroads were stepping on "God's time," and figure out how to tell everyone what time it was. But they made it happen, beginning on one day in 1883, and it stuck. It's a story about how railroads created, in all kinds of ways, the world we live in today.

This episode was originally produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and edited by Jacob Goldstein. Jess Jiang is Planet Money's Acting Executive Producer.

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Lyle Jack wants to build a wind farm on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. But to make the project work, he has to connect that wind farm to the electric grid. Which is easier said than done. On today's show - how the green energy revolution may live, or die, by bureaucrats trying to untangle a mess of wires.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Sally Helm, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Katherine Silva. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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People come from all over the world to work in U.S. tech. And during the tech boom years, the industry relied heavily on foreign workers. This is how we built Silicon Valley – with great minds coming from everywhere to work in the U.S.

But when the industry started to shrink, all of these people who moved here for work are finding that linking their jobs to their residency is really complicated. That was the case for Aashka and Nilanjan. Aashka was a product engineer at Amazon, and Nilanjan worked in digital advertising for Google. They both lost their jobs in the layoffs each company announced earlier this year.

When Aashka and Nilanjan got the news, a clock started ticking. Because they are both H-1B recipients, they only have 60 days to find new jobs before they risk being sent home. And they can't get just any job – they need new employers in their field willing to sponsor their visa.

On today's show, we followed two tech workers as they tried to find jobs before their visas expired, and what they went through as H-1B recipients trying to stay in the country.

This episode was hosted by Alyssa Jeong Perry and Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, engineered by James Willetts, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick and Jess Jiang.

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The shocks of the pandemic economy gave us a bunch of enormous natural experiments, which helped to prove or disprove conventional economic thinking.

Take, for example, the bullwhip effect, the idea that the further away from the customer you are in the supply chain, the more volatile your orders are likely to be. This theory played out at an enormous scale, in the pandemic. Consumers and companies overreacted to the risk of shortages by ordering more products and hoarding them, causing massive shifts in the supply chain – just like the theory says.

And the pandemic gave us a lot of natural experiments like this. So, on this special live edition of Planet Money, we looked for other big economic lessons from the past three years, and we took this information and turned it into... a gameshow! It's Two Truths and a Lie: Econ Edition. We get into questions about the workforce and labor market during the pandemic, and how it affected how economists view the world.

This episode was hosted by Mary Childs. It was produced by Dave Blanchard, and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Josh Newell with help from Robert Rodriguez. Original music by Jesse Perlstein.

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Back in the 90s, Ivan Lozano Ortega was in charge of Bogota's wildlife rescue center. And he kept getting calls from the airport to come deal with... frogs. Hundreds of brightly colored, poisonous frogs.

Ivan had stumbled upon the poisonous frog black market. Tens of thousands of frogs were being poached out of the Colombian rainforest and sold to collectors all around the world by smugglers. And it put these endangered frogs at risk of going extinct.

Today on the show, how Ivan tried to put an end to the poison frog black market, by breeding and selling frogs legally. And he learns that it's not so easy to get a frog out of hot water.

This episode was hosted by Stan Alcorn and Sarah Gonzalez, and co-reported and written with Charlotte de Beauvoir. It was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Josh Newell. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Two stories today.

First, as we start to understand post-affirmative action America, we look to a natural experiment 25 years ago, when California ended the practice in public universities. It reshaped the makeup of the universities almost instantly. We find out what happened in the decades that followed.

Then, we ask, why does it cost so much for America to build big things, like subways. Compared to other wealthy nations, the costs of infrastructure projects in the U.S. are astronomical. We take a trip to one of the most expensive subway stations in the world to get to the bottom of why American transit is so expensive to build.

This episode was hosted by Adrian Ma and Darian Woods. It was produced by Corey Bridges, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Katherine Silva. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Viet Le is the Indicator's senior producer. And Kate Concannon edits the show. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Find all episodes of Planet Money Summer School here.

Planet Money Summer School is back! It's the free economics class you can take from anywhere... for everyone! For Season 4 of Summer School, we are taking you to business school. It's time to get your MBA, the easy way!

In this first class: Everyone has a million dollar business idea (e.g., "Shazam but for movies"), but not everyone has what it takes to be an entrepreneur. We have two stories about founders who learned the hard way what goes into starting a small business, and getting it up and running.

First, a story about Frederick Hutson, who learned about pain points and unique value propositions when he founded a company to help inmates and their families share photos. Then, we take a trip to Columbia, Maryland with chefs RaeShawn and LaShone Middleton. Their steamed crab delivery service taught them the challenges of "bootstrapping" to grow their business. And throughout the episode, Columbia Business School professor Angela Lee explains why entrepreneurship can be really difficult, but also incredibly rewarding, if you have the stomach for it.

(And, we should say, we are open to investors for "Shazam but for movies." Just sayin'.)

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When you make an account online or install an app, you are probably entering into a legally enforceable contract. Even if you never signed anything. These days, we enter into these contracts so often, it can feel like no big deal.

But then there are the horror stories like Greg Selden's. He tried to sue AirBnB for racial discrimination while using their site. But he had basically signed away his ability to sue AirBnB when he made an account. That agreement was tucked away in a little red link, something most people might not even bother to click through.

But, it wasn't always like this. On today's show, we go back in time to understand how the law of contracts got rewritten. And why today, you can accept a contract without even noticing it.

This episode was hosted by Emma Peaslee and Jeff Guo, and was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR One or anywhere you get podcasts.

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We here at Planet Money love economics papers. And that is also the case for so many of the economists we speak with. For them, new research can explain something they have always wondered about, or make them see something they have never noticed before. And it inspires their own work.

So, to bring that same sense of discovery to you, the listener, today we are dedicating our show to a special experiment. A new way to share some of the most fascinating, clever and surprising economics papers in a segment we're calling: The Econ Paper Club.

On today's show, we read the econ papers so you don't have to. We take a joyous romp through some of the most fascinating ideas floating around economics right now. And we find that some of those fascinating ideas are about some of the biggest things in life: the careers we choose, the expectations that come with parenting and what one eminent economist calls 'greedy jobs.'

This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and James Sneed. It was edited by Molly Messick. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino are two of the biggest stars in behavioral science. Both have conducted blockbuster research into how to make people more honest, research we've highlighted on Planet Money. The two worked together on a paper about how to "nudge" people to be more honest on things like forms or tax returns. Their trick: move the location where people attest that they have filled in a form honestly from the bottom of the form to the top.

But recently, questions have arisen about whether the data Ariely and Gino relied on in their famous paper about honesty were fabricated — whether their research into honesty was itself built on lies. The blog Data Colada went looking for clues in the cells of the studies' Excel spreadsheets, the shapes of their data distributions, and even the fonts that were used.

The Hartford, an insurance company that collaborated with Ariely on one implicated study, told NPR this week in a statement that it could confirm that the data it had provided for that study had been altered had been altered after they gave it to Ariely, but prior to the research's publication: "It is clear the data was manipulated inappropriately and supplemented by synthesized or fabricated data."

Ariely denies that he was responsible for the falsified data. "Getting the data file was the extent of my involvement with the data," he told NPR.

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There's an estimated $195 billion of medical debt in America. But just because a medical bill comes in the mail doesn't mean you have to pay that exact price. In this special episode from our friends at Life Kit, you'll learn how to eliminate, reduce or negotiate a medical bill.

If you liked this episode, you can check out more Life Kit here. They have episodes on how to choose a bank, and how to save money at the grocery store.

This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglis. Their visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and their digital editor is Danielle Nett. Meghan Keane is their supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is their executive producer.

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Predicting the future of the economy is always a dicey proposition. That is especially true after more than three years of pandemic-related economic weirdness. No one quite knows what will happen next.

Will the Fed be able to pull off a soft landing and bring down inflation without causing either a recession or a big jump in unemployment? Or will we end up with a hard landing, in which inflation comes down, but at the price of the country's economic health? Or, a third possibility, will the Fed not successfully bring inflation down at all?

On today's show, three economic experts explain what they look for when trying to make predictions about what might come next for the U.S. economy. And how those indicators lead them to very different conclusions. We will also consult a tarot card reader...to see if her reading of the future can help us know which outcome is the most likely.

This episode was hosted by Keith Romer, Sarah Gonzalez, and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Maggie Luthar and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

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This summer, the Supreme Court struck down Biden's plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of borrowers. Except, on the same day Biden first announced that plan, he also unveiled another, the SAVE plan. And though SAVE sounded less significant than Biden's big forgiveness pledge, it's still alive and could erase even more student debt.

SAVE is officially a loan repayment plan. But through a few seemingly minor yet powerful provisions, many more low-income borrowers will end up paying little or nothing until, eventually, their loans will be forgiven. Even many higher-income borrowers will see some of their debts erased.

In this episode, we explain the history of income-driven repayment. And how borrowers could end up paying less than they might expect once payments resume in October. You can read more from NPR's Cory Turner's here.

This episode was hosted by Cory Turner and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Emma Peaslee, and edited by Molly Messick. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR One or anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

Music: Universal Production Music - "Nola Strut," "Funky Ride," and "The Down Low Disco King"

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Do you work more for more money? Or work less for more time? For some, this is the ultimate economic choice.

Every single worker in the European Union is guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation. No matter how long they've been at a company. No matter how low paying the job is. Vacation is a right.

In fact, all but one of the richest countries in the world guarantees paid vacation, except: the U.S.

According to a 2019 study, people in Japan get 10 paid vacation days and 15 paid holidays; in Australia it's 20 paid vacation days and 8 paid holidays; and in Spain it's 25 paid vacation days and 14 paid holidays.

And it's not just a rich country thing: Mexico, Afghanistan, Thailand, Tanzania - they all guarantee paid vacation from work, at least in the formal job sector.

In the U.S: Zero paid vacation days and zero paid holidays. So, why is the United States the outlier? We go to several labor economists and historians, to find out what makes Americans different from Europeans. It's a winding journey, so maybe put in a request for some paid time off and take a listen!

This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez, produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, engineered by Maggie Luthar, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Across Hollywood right now, writers and actors are picketing in front of studio lots. They're walking back and forth, holding up signs demanding concessions on things like pay, how many writers work on projects, and the use of AI in TV and movies.

But, on some of these lots, there are these strange alternate entrances where there are no picketers. Here drivers can come and go as they please without ever encountering any sign of a strike.

Behold the neutral gate. An entrance intended for people who work at these lots but don't work for production companies that are involved with these particular strikes. (Usually that means things like game shows or TV commercials.)

But, as one group of picketers recently experienced, it's hard to know if these entrances are, in fact, only being used by neutral parties or if the entrances might be being abused.

On today's episode, the question of whether one Hollywood production was taking advantage of the neutral gate, and what the fight over a driveway can teach us about the broader labor battles in Hollywood and across the country.

This episode was hosted by Dave Blanchard and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, with reporting from Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed and engineered by James Willetts. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Keith Romer. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Congratulations to the Planet Money Summer School Class of 2023!

Today, you become masters of business administration... spelled with lower-case letters for legal purposes. Your diploma is waiting for you just across the stage.

But first, there's one final skill to impart: the pitch. We wouldn't be doing our job as a half-baked parody of a business school if we didn't leave you with the confidence and opportunity to stand in front of an investor and ask for money. We understand what you ambitious business school graduates really want is the chance to launch something and get rich.

So we're combining graduation with a little test of ideas, a showdown of startups, a competition of companies. We are going to put our own spin on a pitch competition like you see on Shark Tank. We hear from five listeners with real ideas for startups.

Can they make a successful pitch? What will investors be looking for in their presentation? Can they come prepared with persuasive total addressable market analyses? Who will have the sharpest customer pain points to solve? We shall see.

Our business expert will give us a rare glimpse into the mind of investors and what they're looking for. Only one graduate will be crowned the winner as this year's valedictorian.

If you want to get your diploma right now, take the 2023 Planet Money Summer School Quiz to earn your diploma!

If you share it on social media, tag us so we can celebrate with you.

Find all episodes of Planet Money Summer School here.

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In China, data on the economy is sometimes difficult to come by. The Chinese government has put a pause on releasing some of its official economic data. But many of the stories emerging from the country paint a clear picture: the second largest economy in the world is struggling.

Today, our friends at The Indicator share some of their recent reporting on China. First up, it's a special edition of the Beigie Awards focused entirely on China. What can the approach of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book - i.e. looking at anecdotes that tell us something about where the economy is headed - show us about China's economy?

Then, we take a deep dive into one of the most alarming indicators in China: the skyrocketing urban youth unemployment rate.

This episode was hosted by Darian Woods, Wailin Wong, and Robert Smith. The original Indicator episodes were produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Robert Rodriguez. They were fact-checked by Cooper Katz McKim and Sierra Juarez. They were edited by Paddy Hirsch and Kate Concannon.

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When a group of amateur investors rallied around the stock for GameStop back in 2021, the story blew up the internet. News outlets around the world, including us here at Planet Money, rushed in to explain why the stock for this retail video game company was suddenly skyrocketing, at times by as much as 1700% in value, and what that meant for the rest of us.

When movie producer Aaron Ryder saw the GameStop story — an army of scrappy underdogs, banding together to strike back against a financial system they felt was rigged against them — he knew it had the makings for a great movie. The only problem: so did a bunch of other movie producers and Hollywood studios. So Aaron found himself in the middle of a fast and furious race to make the first Game Stop movie.

On today's show, one producer's quest to claim the hottest ticket in Tinseltown and the whole hidden machinery dedicated to turning a news story into box office gold. You'll never read the word 'based on a true story' the same way again.

Today's episode was reported and hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Jess Jiang, engineered by James Willetts, and fact-checked by Cooper Katz McKim and James Sneed. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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The Nobel-prize winning economist Simon Kuznets once analyzed the world's economies this way — he said there are four kinds of countries: developed, underdeveloped, Japan... and Argentina.

If you want to understand what happens when inflation really goes off the rails, go to Argentina. Annual inflation there, over the past year, was 124 percent. Argentina's currency, the peso, is collapsing, its poverty rate is above 40 percent, and the country may be on the verge of electing a far right Libertarian president who promises to replace the peso with the dollar. Even in a country that is already deeply familiar with economic chaos, this is dramatic.

In this episode, we travel to Argentina to try to understand: what is it like to live in an economy that's on the edge? With the help of our tango dancer guide, we meet all kinds of people who are living through record inflation and political upheaval. Because even as Argentina's economy tanks, its annual Mundial de Tango – the biggest tango competition in the world – that show is still on.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from James Sneed. It was engineered by Maggie Luthar, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Ba-dee-yah! Say do you remember? Ba-dee-yah! Questions in September!

That's right - it's time for Listener Questions!

Every so often, we like to hear from listeners about what's on their minds, and we try to get to the bottom of their economic mysteries. On today's show, we have questions like:

Why is September historically the worst month for the stock market?
How did the Bass Pro Shops hat get so popular in Ecuador?
Are casinos banks?
What is the Federal Reserve's new plan to make bank transfers faster?

Today's show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and produced by James Sneed. The audio engineer for this episode was Josephine Nyounai. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and edited by Dave Blanchard. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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