Podcast Atlas
entity Updated 2026-08-24 Topics: Economics, Culture

Planet Money

Getting entrepreneurial in Korea (Summer School) adds a Summer School development-economics episode on South Korea, Bangladesh, and North Korea. Oliver Kim uses Export Discipline, the Industrial Ladder, and Flying Geese Model to explain South Korea’s rise and Bangladesh’s garment transfer, then contrasts that with donju entrepreneurship under weak property rights in North Korea.

You bet your life insurance adds an insurance and financialization episode about life settlements. The episode connects Frank, Scott Page, Greg, Coventry, Jonah Conn, and Evergreen Settlements to Viatical Settlement, Life Insurance Secondary Market, Mortality Risk Pricing, Death-Benefit Portfolio, Life Settlement Pricing Opacity, and Insurable Interest Boundary, showing how a family death-benefit policy can become present liquidity and eventually a portfolio asset.

Currency Chaos in Argentina (Summer School) adds a Summer School macroeconomics episode on Argentina’s currency instability. The episode connects Robert Smith, Jasmine Garsd, Sebastian Galiani, Amanda Aronczyk, and Erika Beras to Monetary Volatility, Capital Controls, Multiple Exchange Rate Regime, Menu Costs, Austerity, and Exchange-Rate Flexibility, using household dollars, blue-dollar markets, a special concert exchange rate, repeated wage raises, and tango-shoe repricing to show how unstable money consumes everyday attention.

Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to? adds a labor and retirement-policy case about older workers remaining in senior roles. The episode connects Ryan Hendrickson, BJ Swami, Samuel Moyn, Olivia S. Mitchell, and Edward Lazear to Career Mobility Bottleneck, Mandatory Retirement Policy, Lump of Labor Fallacy, Retirement Security Tradeoff, Implicit Contract Retirement Theory, and Phased Retirement Succession, narrowing the debate from total job scarcity to scarce senior-role turnover and retirement security.

Sand heists and property rights in the Caribbean (Summer School) adds a Summer School episode on the Caribbean as a small-economy laboratory. The episode connects Damian King, Caribbean Policy Research Institute, Barbuda, Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, Gaston Browne, John Mussington, Natalia John, Michael Hilton, and Pascal Peduzzi to Small Open Economy Vulnerability, Communal Land Tenure, Property Rights As Investment Incentive, Path Dependence, Sand Scarcity, Illegal Sand Mining, Sand Theft Externality, and Tourism Resource Protection Funding.

What makes a toy go viral adds a consumer-products and toy-retail case through Squishy Dumplings. The episode connects RMS, Zach Barber, Kristin McLean, Five Below, Yiwu, and TikTok to Mystery Toy Packaging, Collectible Drop Scarcity, Intermittent Reinforcement, Small-I Innovation, and Viral Toy Supply Chain, showing how a small company can convert social-video attention into sales while limiting inventory risk.

How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School) adds a Summer School episode on Norway as both a resource-governance and export-market-creation case. The episode connects Hilde Bjornland, Farouk Al Qassem, the Ekofisk Oil Field, and the Norwegian Oil Fund to Resource Curse Governance, Slow Extraction Strategy, Sovereign Oil Fund Governance, Dutch Disease, and Social Trust As State Capacity, then uses Bjorn Adek Olsen, Japan, and Nishire to explain Salmon Sushi Market Creation, Export Market Coordination, Free Rider Problem, and National Export Branding.

Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School) adds a Summer School development-economics episode through Nigeria’s YouWin Program and Kenya’s Busia research ecosystem. The episode connects Lariat Alhassan, Larklux Paint, Tavneet Suri, Michael Kremer, Carol Nkesa, and David McKenzie to Direct Entrepreneur Grants, Small Business Financing Gap, Missing Middle, Randomized Controlled Trials, Human Capital Development, and Development Research Ethics.

Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine adds a fresh-produce safety and food-system case. The episode uses Taylor Farms, Taco Bell, Cyclospora, Bagged Salad Industrialization, Produce Contamination Amplification, and the Food Safety Modernization Act to show how year-round lettuce convenience depends on large processors, farm rules, import oversight, and unresolved Foodborne Pathogen Uncertainty.

New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast adds a short cross-promotional trailer rather than a standard economics case. Kenny Malone introduces NPR Embedded’s We Keep Us Safe investigation into CHOP and Antonio Mays Jr., linking the feed to The Seattle Times, KUOW, Police-Free Protest Space, Armed Protest-Zone Security, and Safety Ideal Fatal Contradiction.

A pro-worker experiment in private equity adds a private-equity labor case through Pete Stavros, KKR, Capital Safety, Cindy Cordes, GSI, and Mike Pavelko. The episode contrasts a poorly communicated worker-equity grant that became a surprise 3M sale payout with a better-communicated GSI ownership program tied to engagement, retention, and a large worker payout. Its contribution to the show’s economics branch is Private Equity Worker Ownership: shared upside can matter for ordinary workers, but only if communication and leadership make the stake credible before exit.

We almost had a smartphone in the 90s. Why did it fail? adds a Silicon Valley product-failure case through General Magic, the Sony Magic Link, and Tony Fadell. The episode uses David Epstein’s constraints frame to connect early smartphone ambition with Clear Customer Definition, Feature Creep, Premature Ecosystem Build, Build vs. Borrow Product Strategy, and Constraint-Driven Product Discipline, then contrasts the failed Magic Link with Apple’s constrained iPod and later iPhone path.

Reese’s heir vs. chocolate skimpflation adds a consumer-products and food-labeling case through Reese’s and Hershey. The episode uses Brad Reese, H.B. Reese, Judy Gaines, Chocolate Compound, Chocolate Label Standards, Cocoa Supply Shock, Skimpflation, and Ingredient Reformulation Strategy to show how inflation pressure can appear as formula change rather than only a visible price increase.

The Invention Invention adds a patents-and-standards history case. The episode links MPEG / Moving Pictures Experts Group and the MPEG Patent Pool back to Isaac Merritt Singer, Elias Howe Jr., and the Sewing Machine Combination, using Patent Pool, Patent Thicket, Complementary Patents, Essential Patents, FRAND Licensing, and Collaboration vs. Collusion to show how modern invention can require lawful coordination among rivals.

The real horror of ‘Alien’ and how it explains why we’re not paid enough adds a labor-economics-by-pop-culture case. Greg Rosalsky and Kenny Malone watch Alien with Arin Dube and use Weyland-Yutani to explain Labor Monopsony, Negative Job Amenities, Compensating Differentials, Shrouded Job Attributes, Labor Search Frictions, Non-Compete Agreements, and Labor Market Counterforces, then connect Alien: Romulus to Company Town Labor Control through Fede Alvarez / Fede Álvarez.

The skyscrapers that NIMBYs and zoning couldn’t stop adds a Vancouver-area housing and zoning case through the Squamish Nation’s high-rise rental project at Sinak. The episode connects Sovereign Housing Development, Local Veto Housing Politics, Permitting Delay Cost, and Indigenous Development Visibility to the show’s broader branch on housing affordability and rules that constrain supply.

Our BOOK vs. the global supply chain adds the manufacturing chapter of the show’s own book project. Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi follows the Planet Money Book through W. W. Norton production choices, Physical Book Design Tradeoff, Printing Signature Constraint, Book Printer Selection Risk, European Deforestation Regulation Supply Chain, and domestic printing at Lakeside Book Company, extending the show’s book arc from acquisition and retail strategy into factory-floor economics.

How we got free agents in baseball adds a baseball labor-history case adapted from Business History. Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith use Curt Flood’s challenge to Major League Baseball’s reserve clause to explain Labor Monopsony, Baseball Antitrust Exemption, Public Opinion Litigation Strategy, and the bargaining and arbitration path toward Baseball Free Agency.

How to make a BOOK into a bestseller extends the show’s own book branch into bestseller-list mechanics. The episode follows the Planet Money Book through Pre-Order Launch Concentration, live-event book bundles, publicity, a poster-fulfillment problem, and number-three placement on the New York Times bestseller list, while using Laura McGrath, Patrick Healy, Gene Shepard, Jacqueline Susann, and William Peter Blatty to explain why ranking systems create economic incentives and gaming pressure.

Spirit Airlines and the future of cheap flights adds a U.S. airline pricing and competition case through Spirit Airlines. The episode connects Ben Baldanza’s unbundled low-fare strategy to Ultra-Low-Cost Carrier Model, Airline Unbundling, and Stated-Revealed Preference Gap, then uses Greg Rosalsky, Severin Borenstein, and Henry Harteveldt to explain how legacy-carrier imitation, loyalty programs, and post-pandemic costs put the model under pressure.

Battlefield rare earths: How the U.S. lost to China adds a rare-earth industrial-policy case. The episode follows Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine, Molycorp, Mark Smith, Project Phoenix, MP Materials, and NioCorp to explain why rare-earth security turns on processing capacity, export leverage, price discipline, and state-backed rebuilding rather than geology alone.

Live: Anthropic co-founder on AI and jobs adds a live book-tour format rather than a single reported field story. The episode uses Jack Clark of Anthropic and Daryl Fairweather of Redfin to connect Planet Money Book promotion with frontier AI economics, AI Automation Redistribution, AI Cyber-Defense Utility, Dynamic Pricing Fairness, and Future Resident Housing Voice.

Do prediction market bettors make anything better? adds a current prediction-market regulation and gambling-boundary case. The episode follows Bobby Allen through Kalshi trader culture, Mary Childs’s word-betting experiment, Tarek Mansour’s defense of event contracts, and Amanda Fisher’s critique, connecting Prediction Market Legal Boundary, Prediction Market Public-Good Claim, Prediction Market Trader Alpha, and Event Contract Manipulation Risk to the show’s earlier Iowa Electronic Markets history branch.

How to get through the Strait of Hormuz adds a maritime chokepoint and logistics case. The episode follows Christian St. Clair and Fantagraphics Books through an apparent One Majesty shipment scare, then uses Hamid Hosseini’s source-attributed account of Sepah Navy permission and an alleged crypto-paid oil toll to connect the Strait of Hormuz to Maritime Chokepoint Tolling, Sanctions Evasion Crypto Payments, General Average, and Freedom of Navigation Trade Order.

A trip to the magic mushroom megachurch adds a law-and-religion gray-market case through Zydor Church. The episode uses Dave Hodges, John Rapp, Psychedelic Churches, the Controlled Substances Act, Religious Controlled-Substance Exemption, the DEA Exemption Process, and Sacrament Donation Model to ask when sacramental access looks like religion, harm reduction, business, or all three at once.

BOOKstore Economics continues the show’s own publishing branch after Inside a BOOK auction. Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi follows Fisher Nash at Carmichael’s Bookstore and Stephen Pace at W. W. Norton to show how the Planet Money Book moves through Bookstore Buying, Retail Shelf Placement, Book Returnability, and Book Print-Run Strategy before readers can decide its fate.

Inside a BOOK auction adds an internal publishing-economics case: Planet Money becomes the object being sold rather than only the reporter explaining a market. The episode follows Alex Goldmark, Alex Maiassi, Laura Nolan, Jane von Mehren, Tom Mayer, and W. W. Norton to connect Book Publishing Economics, Literary Agent Market Making, Book Proposal As Sales Document, Author Platform Risk Reduction, Publishing Auction Design, Advance Against Royalties, Publishing Portfolio Risk, Winner’s Curse, and Educational Distribution Strategy.

The little pet fish that saved a town in the Amazon adds an Amazon conservation-economics case through Barcelos, Cardinal Tetra, and Project Piaba. The episode connects the Piabero Economy, Sustainable Wild Harvesting, Local Product Advantage Erosion, Origin Traceability Moat, and Heritage Tourism Pivot by showing how a wild aquarium-fish trade can be ecologically defensible yet commercially weakened once farms reproduce the fish elsewhere.

Chef vs. Robot adds a restaurant-automation case through Kenny Poon, Instafoods, Robby Wokbot, Phuong Hoang Chiang, Ting Wong, Shola Olunloyo, and Daron Acemoglu. The episode connects Restaurant Automation, Robot Chef Cost-Quality Tradeoff, Wok Hei, Automation Displacement Effect, and Automation Reinstatement Effect by staging a taste test and asking whether cost, speed, consistency, and staffing ease can outweigh human wok skill.

The laws of the office revisited adds an office-incentives case built around informal workplace laws. The episode connects Goodhart’s Law, Parkinson’s Law, the Peter Principle, and Truthful Social Proof to Workplace Incentive Design, showing how metrics, deadlines, promotions, and visible norms can change workplace behavior.

The Business of Heated Rivalry adds a media-business case through the Canadian series Heated Rivalry. The episode connects Canadian Television Financing, Producer-Owned IP Upside, Constraint-Driven Media Production, Attentive Streaming Storytelling, and Underserved Romance Audience to the economics of a lower-budget streaming hit whose creators retained rights and sold merchandise.

Don’t hate the replicator, hate the game adds a research-methods and professional-incentives case. The episode follows Abel Brodeur, the Institute For Replication, and Replication Games to connect Replication Crisis, P-Hacking, Publication Bias, replication packages, and Robustness Checks to the broader problem of whether economics can make its own evidence base more trustworthy.

The ICE hiring boom adds an immigration-enforcement political-economy case. The episode connects ICE Workforce Expansion, disputed Federal Law Enforcement Training, Field Training Officer Effects, and Law Enforcement Culture Accountability to Immigration Detention Expansion, Private Immigration Detention, and Detention As Local Economic Development through the Folkston, Georgia case.

The Supreme Court struck down a bunch of Trump’s tariffs. Now what? adds a follow-on tariff-law and small-business case. The episode moves the show’s tariff branch from Effective Tariff Rate Shock as a pending legal-authority question into IEPA Tariff Authority Limit, Tariff Refund Uncertainty, Tariff Refund Claims Market, Section 122 Tariff Authority, and Tariff Policy Planning Risk.

Betty Boop, Excel Olympics, Penny-isms: Our 2026 Valentines adds a lighter curiosity-driven Planet Money format that still routes ordinary systems into economics. The episode connects Public Domain Reuse, Competitive Spreadsheeting, RFID Checkout, Coin Retirement Economics, and Procurement Records Journalism through Valentines to Betty Boop, Microsoft Excel, Uniqlo, the U.S. penny, and 404 Media.

BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name? adds a product-development and retail-packaging case. The episode follows Planet Money and Exploding Kittens converting The Market for Lemons and Asymmetric Information into Sell Me a Sasquatch, making Game Mechanic To Retail Product, Product Naming As Positioning, Retail Shelf Appeal, and Cross-Market Naming Friction part of the show’s economics-by-doing branch.

Who decides what big box sells? Our GAME got us answers continues the same economics-by-doing branch into big-box retail approval and manufacturing. The episode follows Erika Beras’s Retail Line Review pitch, Matt Adelman’s buyer explanation, a reported 100,000-unit first order, Retail Price-Point Product Scoping, Licensed Product Risk Allocation, and Mass Retail Production Deadline before the game reaches Target and Walmart.

Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty adds a long-run oil political-economy case through Chevron and Venezuela. The episode connects Lake Maracaibo, Dutch Disease, OPEC, Oil Nationalization, PDVSA, U.S. sanctions, and Terry Karl’s Political Resource Curse frame to show how oil wealth becomes institutional risk rather than a simple blessing or curse.

Planet Money is the NPR economics podcast feed context for Congress has voted to eliminate government funding for public media and It’s my tree. Why can’t I cut it down?. The earlier source uses the feed for a short public-media funding appeal rather than a standard reported economics episode.

The placement matters because it shows Public Media Funding and Listener-Supported Media being routed through NPR’s existing podcast audience. The message also hands off to a promo for 1A and If You Can Keep It, linking public-media funding to public-affairs podcasting.

Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work? adds a consumer-health regulation case. The episode uses a proposed Planet Money-branded supplement to explain Recurring Supplement Commerce, Dietary Supplement Regulation, Supplement Structure Function Claims, Supplement Label Accuracy, GRAS Self-Certification, and Supplement Placebo Effect through Frank Cantone, Marion Nestle, Melanie Benish, and the Prevagen case.

The sneaky way companies get new chemicals into our food extends that consumer-health regulation branch from supplements into food additives. The episode uses Carol Reedy, Daily Harvest, Tara Flour, Secret GRAS, and Bill Marler to explain how Food Additive Regulation can become Post-Harm Food Regulation when companies self-certify ingredients before meaningful public scrutiny.

It’s my tree. Why can’t I cut it down? adds a standard reported Planet Money case about Tree Protection Ordinances, Regulatory Takings, and Permit Proportionality. The episode uses Sarah Bond’s Portland dispute and Canton, Michigan’s litigation to turn private tree removal into an economics-and-law question about Urban Canopy Externalities and who should pay to preserve public environmental benefits.

Iran, protests, and sanctions adds an international-political-economy case. The episode uses Iran Sanctions, Dollar Financial Sanctions, Sanctions Overcompliance, and Economic Sanctions As Violence to ask when sanctions can produce diplomatic leverage and when they become civilian economic harm.

Venezuela’s recent economic history (Update) adds a second international monetary-crisis case. The episode uses Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Alejandro Velasco, and Alex Rosenberg to explain how Oil Revenue Dependence, fixed exchange rates, import approvals, and later dollar use produced a sequence from boom-era fragility to Currency Control Trap, shortages, hyperinflation, and unequal Dollarized Stabilization.

Can computer hackers get inside your mind? adds a cybersecurity and intelligence-history case. The episode follows JAGS and Vitaly Kamluk as they investigate Fast 16, connecting Stuxnet, Cyber Sabotage, Calculation Integrity Attack, and Epistemological Warfare to possible Nuclear Weapons Modeling sabotage.

Before Kalshi and Polymarket there was the Iowa Electronic Markets adds a prediction-market history case using a Throughline segment. It connects Iowa Electronic Markets, older Election Betting Markets, and modern Kalshi and Polymarket platforms to the long-running problem of when market forecasts are informative, gambling-adjacent, media-legible, or regulatorily acceptable.

How much money President Trump and his family have made adds a political-economy and ethics case. The episode uses David Kirkpatrick’s accounting of Donald Trump family gains and Fred Wertheimer’s historical comparison to connect private wealth, family business, crypto policy, and presidential power.

Riding with the repo man (update) adds a consumer-credit and household-stress case. The episode uses Larry Baker, Stephanie Waldrop, Rick Reichert, and Jared Reichert to connect Subprime Auto Lending, Auto Repossession, Car Affordability Stress, and GPS-Enabled Repossession while distinguishing smaller systemic auto-loan risk from the major personal crisis created when a borrower loses a car.

There’s no business like dough business adds a retail-location and franchising case. The episode uses Wetzel’s Pretzels, John Fisher, and Ricky Alam to explain how Impulse Retail Clustering, Retail Site Selection, Retail Incrementality, and Shared-Kitchen Satellite Retail can make three nearby pretzel locations economically plausible inside one transit and mall complex.

Two indicators for lowering the rent adds a housing-affordability case split between Institutional Single-Family Rental and Single-Room Occupancy Housing. The episode uses Amanda Cantrell, Stephen Billings, Lori Goodman, Adrienne Toddman, Vera Hill, and Rebecca Baird-Remba to argue that corporate landlords are too small nationally to be the main housing-cost driver, while SRO disappearance shows how rules and redevelopment can remove very cheap housing supply.

Can Trump make buying a home more affordable? adds a direct follow-on to the housing-affordability branch. The episode uses James Lawrence, Caitlin Gorback, and Susan Wachter to test Trump-era investor restrictions and mortgage-backed-security purchases, concluding that Demand-Side Housing Affordability Policy may help at the margin or in concentrated neighborhoods but cannot substitute for starter-home supply.

Can transforming neighborhoods help kids escape poverty? adds a second housing-and-mobility case through HOPE VI, Richard Allen Homes, Weissina Williams, and Raj Chetty. The episode shifts the housing branch from rent levels and cheap-room supply toward Neighborhood Opportunity Revitalization, arguing that children benefited when public-housing redevelopment created Cross-Class Social Capital, while Public Housing Displacement keeps the policy lesson qualified.

Building things and breaking things in China (Summer School World Tour) adds a Summer School political-economy case on China. The episode uses Dan Wang and Breakneck to connect Engineering State, Infrastructure Malinvestment, China Real Estate Debt Cycle, China Youth Unemployment, China Low-Redistribution State, and Build, Build, Regulate into a lesson about building capacity with feedback and guardrails.

Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour) adds the opening Summer School World Tour frame through Australia and New Zealand / 新西兰. Robert Smith and Justin Wolfers use Water Market Design, Water Rights Trading, Market Speculation, Inflation Targeting, and Multiple Equilibria to show how institutional rules allocate scarce resources and coordinate expectations.

The giant factory town that might be a giant mistake adds a development-economics case on Brazil, Manaus, and the Zona Franca de Manaus. The episode uses Homi Kharas and Mayara Felix to connect Middle-Income Trap, Subsidized Assembly Industrialization, Industrial Subsidy Dependence, Protected Domestic-Market Industrialization, Premature Deindustrialization, Advanced Agriculture Innovation, and Localized Innovation Advantage.

Why are we so obsessed with manufacturing? adds a U.S. manufacturing labor-market case. The episode uses Harry Moser, Gordon Hanson, Oren Cass, Carolyn Lee, and Enrico Moretti to separate strategic domestic-production arguments from Manufacturing Pay Premium, Manufacturing Job Quality, Manufacturing Workforce Pipeline, Tradable Sector Local Growth, and Good Jobs For Non-College Workers.

Why economists got free trade with China so wrong adds a trade-and-labor case through Greg Rosalsky’s interview with David Autor. The episode connects China Shock, Free Trade Distributional Cost, Regional Labor Market Scarring, People Versus Places Recovery, Trade Adjustment Assistance, Blanket Tariff Limit, and Strategic Industrial Policy, extending the show from manufacturing as good-jobs symbolism into the harder question of who bears trade-adjustment costs.

Diary of a WNBA negotiator adds a sports-labor economics case. The episode follows Alicia Clark, Brianna Turner, and the WNBA Players Association as they use Claudia Goldin’s comparison work, spreadsheets, and strike preparation to win Sports Labor Revenue Sharing from the Women’s National Basketball Association.

Planet Money vs. the NBA’s tanking problem adds the sports rule-design version of the same economics habit. The episode treats NBA tanking as Sports Draft Incentive Design, comparing the NBA lottery with the Draft Wheel, Gold Plan, and no-draft player market to show how each fix moves costs among teams, fans, and players.

Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.? adds another sports-business case, this time around Major League Soccer and the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The episode uses the Seattle Sounders, New England Revolution, Chicago Fire, and Camilo Durana’s league-level campaign to ask whether global tournament attention can become durable local club demand.

How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory) adds a sports-strategy and economics case. The episode uses Lionel Messi, Stefan Szymanski, Ignacio Palacio Huerta, and the 2008 Chelsea FC versus Manchester United shootout to explain Game Theory, Mixed Strategy, Strategic Unpredictability, and Data-Driven Penalty Preparation.

The secret meeting that launched OPEC adds an oil-market history and current-risk case. The episode uses listener-question framing to explain OPEC, the Seven Sisters, Wanda Jablonski, the 1973 oil shock, Oil Producer Supply Coordination, Production Quota Discipline, Saudi Arabia’s Swing Producer Role, and the source’s account of the UAE leaving OPEC under Green Paradox and Strait of Hormuz pressure.

How to get what Greenland has, with permission adds an Arctic critical-minerals and military-access case. The episode uses Greenland, Graceland Baskaran, Saha Ullsvig, and Daniel Immerwahr to argue that the United States can pursue rare-earth security and Greenland Strategic Access through processing capacity, infrastructure, trade, and defense agreements rather than territorial acquisition.

Jerome Powell and the Test of Fed Independence adds a central-bank governance case. The episode uses Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard, William McChesney Martin, Arthur Burns, and Donald Trump to explain why Central Bank Independence, Inflation Bias, and For-Cause Removal Standard matter beyond ordinary rate-cycle reporting.

Why the U.S. Has No Guaranteed Paid Vacation adds a labor-policy case. The episode uses Adewale Maie’s Spain observation, Gary Cross’s historical context, Daniel Hamermesh’s rejection of simple culture and tax explanations, and Tom Cohen’s MIT account to explain why the United States lacks a federal paid-vacation guarantee.

The leaked tapes that show how the rich avoid taxes adds a tax-enforcement and wealth-policy case. The episode uses Carolyn Schenck, Lauren Loricchio, Tax Notes, Andrew Gradman, and Kenneth Keyes to explain the Malta Tax Loophole, Tax Treaty Arbitrage, Economic Substance Doctrine, and why Tax Shelter Disclosure Regulation and agency staffing matter for Tax Enforcement Capacity.

Dark times for Cuba’s economic experiment adds a Cuba political-economy case. The episode uses Yaser Gonzalez Cabrera’s City Cleta bike-tour collapse to explain Cuba’s Cuban Dual Economic Strategy, External Patron Dependence, Constrained Market Reform, Tourism-Dependent Small Economy, and Oil Dependency Blackout Risk under U.S. pressure and shrinking allied support.

Can the Trump administration make college cheaper? adds a higher-education finance case. The episode uses Corey Turner’s reporting and evidence from Jeff Denning, Robert Kelchen, Preston Cooper, and Dominique Baker to ask whether Federal Student Loan Caps can lower graduate tuition or mainly create Loan Cap Access Risk for borrowers.

Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal adds a consumer-market trust and law case. The episode uses Chanel and The RealReal to explain Luxury Resale Authentication, Asymmetric Information, Trademark Resale Boundary, and First Sale Doctrine, showing how secondhand luxury depends on authentication while luxury brands try to protect trademarks and direct brand control.

Would you trust an economist with your economy? adds a profession-level trust case. The episode turns Ben Castleman’s economics-politics reporting, Bureau of Labor Statistics political pressure, Diane (KPMG Chief Economist)’s forecasting humility, Nick Bloom’s work-from-home evidence, and Ben Ho’s costly-signal repair model into Economist Trust Crisis, Official Statistics Credibility, Aggregate Indicators Lived Experience Gap, and Expert Trust Repair.

Indicators of 2025 and What to Watch in 2026 adds a year-end The Indicator crossover. The episode uses Kenny Malone, Greg Rosalsky, Darian Woods, Waylon Wong, Stephen Passaha, and Cooper Katz-McKim to turn 2025’s economy into competing signals and 2026’s economy into a watchlist across household mood, tariffs, valuation, rates, electricity bills, and top-heavy spending.

How Black hair care grew Black power adds a consumer-products and Black business case through Johnson Products, George E. Johnson, Joan Johnson, Ultra Wave, Afro Sheen, Independence Bank, and Soul Train. The episode connects Hair As Political Identity, Consumer Brand Moat, Black Hair-Care Market Ownership, and Public Listing Control Tradeoff by showing how a company can turn cultural insight into product demand, community infrastructure, public-market legitimacy, and eventual competitive exposure.

So are we in an AI bubble? Here are clues to look for. adds an AI-market and macro-policy case. The episode uses Robin Greenwood, Eugene Fama, Gadi Barlevy, and Nvidia to explain Statistical Bubble Indicators, Market Efficiency, Lean Versus Clean Bubble Policy, and Productive Bubble Spillovers.

Connections