We all know the government uses taxes to pay for things. But what about using taxes to control behavior? This week on Summer School, Professor Darrick Hamilton of The New School, helps us explore the true power of the tax code. Can taxes help lift people out of poverty? What about saving the planet?
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Made in America
What people might picture when they think of “Made in America” … might not look like the “Made in America” we have today. The U.S. does have a domestic manufacturing industry, including a garment manufacturing…
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Summer School 2: How taxes change behavior and the economy
We all know the government uses taxes to pay for things. But what about using taxes to control behavior? This week on Summer School, Professor Darrick Hamilton of The New School, helps us explore the…
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Summer School 1: A government’s role in the economy is to make us all richer
Government. The Big G. We like to imagine the free market and the invisible hand as being independent from political influence. But Nobel laureate, Simon Johnson, says that influence has been there since the birth…
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The simple math of the big bill
If we think about the economic effects of President Donald Trumps big taxing and spending and domestic policy bill, we can roughly sum it up in one line. It goes something like this: We will…
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A thought experiment on how to fix the national debt problem
There’s an economic fantasy you sometimes hear in D.C. It often gets trotted out when politicians are trying to add billions or trillions to the national debt. They claim that all the new spending will…
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When Trump met crypto
In 2019, President Trump tweeted: “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies.” Today, the Trumps are all over crypto. There are memecoins for Trump and the first lady. They own a stablecoin,…
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Econ Battle Zone: Budget Showdown
Econ Battle Zone is back! On today’s episode Mary Childs and Kenny Malone enter Econ Battle Stadium to throw down against reigning champion Erika Beras. Can Mary explain what effect extending the 2017 tax cuts…
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The U.S. is the world’s bribery cop. Is that about to change?
The U.S. has been policing bribery all over the world for nearly half a century using a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But now, President Trump has said that this anti-corruption law is…
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Jay & Shai’s debt ceiling adventure (Update)
Note: A version of this episode first ran in 2023. 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…
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Why I joined DOGE
What was it like to work inside Elon Musk’s DOGE? The cost-cutting initiative promised transparency, but most of its actions have been shrouded in secrecy. For months, there were reports of software engineers and Trump…