Should we all be getting tariff refunds right now?Companies are getting billions of dollars back. How about us?  It seems simple, right? We paid higher prices for […]

Charles Ponzi’s scheme (plus a new scam)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 […]

Where all those weird new drinks are coming fromIt’s getting pretty wild in the beverage aisle these days — from the rainbow wall of seltzers, to the inc […]

Who’s gonna pay for your Social Security?Very soon, Social Security may not have enough money to make full payments to retirees. Very soon. Like by 2032, just six […]

Middlegarchs are the new OligarchsWanna know who is really in the top 1%? And how they use their influence? It may not be who you think. Look beyond Silicon […]

Is our national debt finally too much? (update)(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2024.) $40,000,000,000,000. Four commas. Thirteen zeroes. It’s an e […]

The Domino’s Pizza Tracker Theory of EverythingDid a pizza restaurant’s humble status page change how we wait forever?  When you order a Lyft or Uber, you get te […]

How investing is getting riskier (Two Indicators)Margin borrowing and sports gambling “investments” are both on the rise! Today on the show, two stories from Pla […]

The loan at the heart of a new foreclosure crisisThere is a new type of loan that is sweeping through the country right now. It’s advertised as a super quick a […]

The continent nobody owns & everyone benefits from (Summer School)This episode is packed with your best economic ideas from around the world and a penguin interview. […]

Who decides what big box sells? Our GAME got us answersThere’s a room where the fates of retail products are decided. Will they make it onto the shelves of the b […]

Getting entrepreneurial in Korea (Summer School)This week’s stop on our world tour – Korea. A country divided into two very different power structures since the end […]

You bet your life insuranceSome of the biggest firms on Wall Street are, at this very moment, waiting for thousands of strangers to die to reap their returns. […]

Currency Chaos in Argentina (Summer School)Just about everyone in Argentina is an expert in inflation and whether they like it or not, economic flexibility. Can we […]

Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?When workers past retirement age can’t afford to retire — that’s one thing. When they can, and just don’t […]

Sand heists and property rights in the Caribbean (Summer School)Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick […]

What makes a toy go viralSquishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are […]

How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School)Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other c […]

Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists ans […]

Big Lettuce meets Small IntestineThe cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the c […]