Planet Money

  • So are we in an AI bubble? Here are clues to look for.

    Are we in an AI bubble? That’s the $35 trillion dollar question right now as the stock market soars higher and higher. The problem is that bubbles are famously hard to spot. But some economists…


  • How Black hair care grew Black power

    The Afro is one of the most iconic hairstyles of the last century. And one of its main ingredients was a hair product – Afro Sheen. But Afro Sheen did so much more than make…


  • Venezuela’s recent economic history (Update)

    We’ve been checking in on the economic conditions in Venezuela for about a decade now. In response to the U.S. strike and the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro this weekend, we’re re-surfacing this episode…


  • Indicators of the Year, Past and Future

    2025 is finally over. It was a wild year for the U.S. economy. Tariffs transformed global trading, consumer sentiment hit near-historic lows, and stocks hit dramatic new heights! So … which of these economic stories…


  • Why economists got free trade with China so wrong

    With the year coming to a close, we’re sharing our most popular Planet Money bonus episode of 2025!  As U.S. trade with China exploded in the early 2000’s, American manufacturing began to shrivel. Those workers…


  • The Rest of the Story, 2025

    Most stories keep going even after we set down our microphones and the music fades up. That’s why, at the end of each year, we look back and we take stock.  We call this tradition…


  • The summer I turned binge-y

    On the eve of Netflix shoveling a fourish-hour chunk of Stranger Things onto Christmas Day, we visit the past, present, and future of binge-dropped television shows.  The strategy of releasing an entire season at the…


  • What AI data centers are doing to your electric bill

    As a country, we are spending more to get data centers up and running than we spent to build the entire interstate highway system. (Yes, that’s inflation-adjusted.) With tech companies spending hundreds of billions of…


  • PM does a pop culture draft: 1999 edition

    Welcome to the inaugural Planet Money Pop Culture Draft! In today’s episode (a Planet Money+ episode we’re releasing into the main feed) we’re gonna go back to the year 1999. Three hosts, Kenny Malone, Wailin…


  • When Chicago pawned its parking meters

    In 2008, Chicago’s budget was in a bad place. The city needed money. One way to raise money was to increase property taxes, but what politician wants to do that? So instead, Mayor Richard M.…


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