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How do you measure human progress? Light is the answer.
For thousands of years, getting light was a huge hassle. You had to make candles from scratch. This is not as romantic as it sounds. You had to get a cow, raise the cow, feed the cow, kill the cow, get the fat out of the cow, cook the fat, dip wicks into the fat. All that — for not very much light. Now, if we want to light a whole room, we just flip a switch.
Nobel-winning economist Bill Nordhaus passed away last week. He was known for his work on the economics of climate change, but he also came up with this idea that the history of light explains reveals why the world today is the way it is. It explains why we aren't all subsistence farmers, and why we can afford to have artists and massage therapists and plumbers. (And, yes, people who make podcasts about the history of light.) The history of light is the history of economic growth — of things getting faster, cheaper, and more efficient. It shows us the pie can get bigger, sometimes, there can be a type of progress where everyone is better off.
On today's show, one of our all time favorites: How we got from dim little candles made out of cow fat, to as much light as we want at the flick of a switch, and how that is a measure of what economic progress means.
(Note: This episode originally ran in 2014.)
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In recent months, there have been serious whispers about an outrageous possibility: that one day soon, France — the seventh largest economy in the world — might not be able to pay back its debts. Right now, protesters in France are complaining about crumbling schools, the lack of teachers, and the overall high cost of living. But the government is struggling to find the money to address all the country’s problems.
France is in a lot of debt. It has been borrowing record amounts of money. So have many other countries including the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Canada. For more than a decade, there has been an international borrowing spree going on. Now, as interest rates climb, that borrowing spree might have to come to an end. And the consequences could get ugly.
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Connecticut’s property tax system has been broken for decades and the politicians have failed to fix the problem. So now, they’re trying something new: a citizens assembly. (Citizens assemblies are also old. They go back to Ancient Greece, when lawmakers were chosen not through elections, but through random lotteries.)
Today on the show, Connecticut’s citizens assembly. It's like jury duty, but for taxes. About hundred random people from all around Connecticut come together to try to solve the state’s property tax problem. They wrestle with whether they should raise taxes, cut spending, find efficiencies, or a mix of everything. Will this alternative attempt to solve the unsolvable succeed, or will it be politics as usual?
It’s a modern case study of what happens when politicians step aside to let citizens decide what’s best. Come along as we talk to the professor who helped put this assembly together, learn from the citizens involved how this experiment changed them, and meet the politician who agreed to take their proposals to the state legislature.
Planet Money will be at Kilkenomics Festival 2026. Tickets here.
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This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed with reporting help from Áine Pennello. It was edited by Jess Jiang, Sierra Juarez is our fact-checker, and Jimmy Keeley & Travis Hagen engineered the show. Alex Goldmark is the executive producer of Planet Money..
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For years, police have spent billions of tax dollars on watching us, tracking us, and recording us. In the largest police department in the country, these surveillance systems were paid for and adopted without the kind of public oversight cities usually require.
In the wake of 9/11, the New York Police Department built one of the most sophisticated and omnipresent surveillance systems in the country.
And while decisions were being made about what tech to adopt and how much to pay for it, few outside the NYPD were consulted. Not the City Council nor the public. For over a decade, the only paper trail of these purchases were offline, stored in filing cabinets, inaccessible to the public.
Today on the show, how the country’s largest police department built its surveillance system, and the fight to get police everywhere to tell us how they’re watching us.
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Polling is facing an existential crisis. People aren't picking up the phone. Nobody wants to talk to pollsters. Trust is on the line. We pluck a solution from the economics canon and convince a polling firm to let us test it.
Today on the show, we head to Marist College — home of the Marist Poll — to learn how to be pollsters ourselves. We learn the great moments in polling history, the latest science of polling, and find out all the tricks that pollsters use to get people to finish their surveys. Then we get on the phone and give it a try ourselves. And offer some of our own solutions.
This episode was originally published before the 2022 midterm elections.
We have an update on our idea to save polling, which Marist is still testing, and we find out what it might be able to tell us about the 2026 midterms.
Music: "Partyline, "The Danzig Connection, and "Saku"
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This update was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was mastered by Gilly Moon with help from Cena Loffredo. The original episode was edited by Jess Jiang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
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Before an independent movie makes it to a streaming platform or a theater near you, it first needs to survive an artistic and economic gauntlet. And even for those movies that make it into elite film festivals like Sundance – it can take everything from performance stunts to corporate spycraft to seal the deal. Today on the show, we follow the ‘King of Sundance’ as he and his team try to sell their slate of movies to distributors like Netflix and Sony and Apple. We hear the behind the scenes stories about how films like Little Miss Sunshine, Napoleon Dynamite and Precious got sold. And we learn the strategies that might make the difference in whether or not a film makes it onto screens around the world.
For more episodes about the entertainment industry:
"Based on a true story"
On the Oscars campaign trail
Why platforms like HBO Max are removing streaming TV shows
The summer I turned binge-y
The Writers Revolt (UPDATE)
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This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
Music: NPR Source Audio - "Lone Star Desert Surfer," "The Westerners," and "Tucson Arizona"
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Fifty years ago, scientists pioneering a terrifying gene-splicing technology figured out a way to collectively hit pause. Can we do it again with AI?
We ask because some top AI industry leaders are saying the technology they’re pushing forward is moving too quickly … and might kill us all. They’re effectively saying, ‘Please, please regulate us! Slow us down! Tie our hands!’
But, by and large, they’re not slowing down, because they don’t want to be left behind. In other words, it’s a classic collective action problem. A type of problem that’s scary, but solvable. We’ve been here before.
In 1975, a group of scientists holed up for four days on California's foggy Central Coast to stop the runaway technology of their generation: a new DNA splicing technology that they feared could cause mass death. On today’s show, how they set aside ambition and competition to stop a runaway technology.
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Companies are getting billions of dollars back. How about us?
It seems simple, right? We paid higher prices for imported goods because of tariffs. Then the tariffs were ruled illegal. Courts said the money paid to the U.S. government had to be refunded. Companies are getting that money now.
It would seem like we, the customers, should get paid back, too. But … it’s not so simple.
Once again, we’re dipping back into the drama of import tax law. We’re engrossed in the ups, downs, betrayal, and romance of … the Days of our Tariffs.
In this edition: “Refunds and Regrets.”
How and why some companies and people are getting their IEEPA tariff refunds and other people are out of luck.
Live Show:
- Planet Money Live at Kilkenomics. Kilkenny, Ireland Nov. 6th - 7th
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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and James Sneed. It was edited by our executive producer Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Cena Loffredo. Special thanks this week to everyone who wrote in with a tale of tariff drama.
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Charles Ponzi was down on his luck. In 1919, the Italian immigrant had spent a decade and a half in the U.S. He was looking for a way to get rich and tried his hand at everything — including bookkeeping, sign painting, grocery clerk, dishwasher, and librarian.
He caught a lucky break in August, when he received a letter from Europe. In the envelope was an International Reply Coupon, a clever way to prepay for international postage. Ponzi realized he might be able to use these coupons to make his fortune. All he needed was investors.
What happened next made him a household name. This is the story of the man behind the eponymous Ponzi scheme — a tale of financial fraud that lives up to its linguistic legacy.
(Note: The original version of this episode ran in 2023.)
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This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez, mastered by Natasha Branch, and edited by Jess Jiang. It's based on the book Ponzi's Scheme, by Mitchell Zuckoff.
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It's getting pretty wild in the beverage aisle these days — from the rainbow wall of seltzers, to the increasingly strange flavors of Pepsi, to the new "functional" sodas with added fiber or supplements that supposedly offer health benefits. Where are all these new drinks coming from? And why does it seem like the options are multiplying faster than ever?
Today on the show, we go behind the scenes at one of the nation’s top-secret beverage laboratories. The food scientists in this lab have quietly helped companies design many of the new drinks on the shelves these days. We taste things we have never tasted before, including a sports hydration … broth? We learn what a strawberry has in common with a block of cheese. And we discover why the business of beverages will never be the same again.
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This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and edited by Jess Jiang. Vito Emanuel is our fact-checker, and Kwesi Lee engineered the show. Alex Goldmark is the executive producer of Planet Money.
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