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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#575: The Fondue Conspiracy
The popularity of fondue wasn't an accident. It was planned ...
The popularity of fondue wasn't an accident. It was planned by a cartel of Swiss cheese makers, which ruled the Swiss economy for 80 years. On today's show: Swiss cheese. A story about what happens when well-meaning folks decide that the rules of economics don't apply to them. And got the world to eat gobs of melted fat.
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#574: The Buffalo Talk-Off
Today's show is the story of a guy who tried ...
Today's show is the story of a guy who tried to make something of himself by getting into a rough business: debt collection. It's also the story of the low-level, semi-legal debt-collection economy that sprung up in Buffalo, New York. And, in a small way, it's the story of the last 20 or so years in global finance, a time when the world went wild for debt. For more: http://n.pr/1ndvYHL
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# 573: Why Textbook Prices Keep Climbing
Prices of new textbooks have been going up like crazy. ...
Prices of new textbooks have been going up like crazy. Faster than clothing, food, cars, and even healthcare. Listeners have been asking for years why textbooks are getting so expensive. On today's show, we actually find an answer.
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#572: Jewelers, Futurists And Whistleblowers
Today on the show: Stories about the secrets of jewelry ...
Today on the show: Stories about the secrets of jewelry stores, the problem with World's Fairs and a law signed by Abraham Lincoln that's being used today to go after the largest banks in the world. For more: n.pr/1prjqYP
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#571: Why Raising Money For Ebola Is Hard
Charities raised $1.4 billion to help rebuild Haiti after the ...
Charities raised $1.4 billion to help rebuild Haiti after the earthquake. After the tsunami in Asia in 2004, organizations raised $1.6 billion. But when something like Ebola happens, so far, people look the other way. On today's show: What does it take to get people to notice something half a world away, and what does it take to get people to pull out their wallets and donate money.
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#477: Waiting For Robot Nannies
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in August ...
Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in August 2013. More than half of all Japanese women quit their jobs after giving birth to their first child. That's more than double the rate in the U.S., and it's a problem for Japan's economy. If more women returned to the workforce, it would go a huge way toward boosting growth in the country and solving a big demographic problem — not enough working people to support the nation's retirees. But finding childcare in Japan is even harder than finding childcare in the U.S. The long-term solution is robot nannies. (Really.) On today's show: How Japanese working moms can survive until the robots arrive. For more: n.pr/1B8omqW
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#570: The Fine Print
On today's show, we read our homeowners insurance policy. The ...
On today's show, we read our homeowners insurance policy. The details are amazing. Lava! Vermin! Falling objects! And, hiding in all the fine print, the story of how insurance works — and what makes it break.
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#569: How To Divide An Imaginary Pie
Alex Blumberg is starting a business, a podcasting business. And ...
Alex Blumberg is starting a business, a podcasting business. And he's recording himself as he starts the company — he's making a podcast about starting his podcasting company. Meta, right? But starting a business can be lonely. Alex wants a partner to share in the stress and the risk, and potential investors say they'd prefer to bet on a team, too. Today on the show, Alex searches for a business partner. There have been Hewlett and Packard, Procter and Gamble, and Ben and Jerry. Now, there is Blumberg and.... Listen to the other episodes in Alex's podcast miniseries about starting a company at HearStartUp.com Note: There's a curse word in today's episode. At about 1:25.
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Episode 568: Snoops, Hackers And Tin Foil Hats
An amazing amount of stuff on the internet is free ...
An amazing amount of stuff on the internet is free — Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. Of course, it's not exactly free. We pay, with our data. And right now, we're kind of stuck trading our data, for all this free software. Today on the show: two people who want to give you other options. These two people are trying to create services online that collect next to nothing — virtually no information, no data. A couple years ago, these people might have been dismissed as kooks. But one of them just raised $30 million.
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#567: Getting Unstuck
For years now, the economy has been kind of stuck. ...
For years now, the economy has been kind of stuck. The unemployment rate is getting better, but slowly. Household incomes have actually been falling. It's easy to feel stuck. Today on the show, stories of two people trying to get unstuck.
