Planet Money Plus

The U.S. Constitution famously outlaws “cruel and unusual punishments.” But there's another, far more obscure part of the Constitution called the Excessive Fines Clause, which basically says that the fine has to fit the crime. So far, the Supreme Court has been pretty mysterious about what that means. But for Ken Jouppi, the fate of his $95,000 plane hinges on it.Ken is a bush pilot. He used to run an air taxi service in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 2012, police caught one of Ken’s passengers with a six-pack of Budweiser in her luggage. Over that six-pack, Ken was convicted of bootlegging. As punishment, he was ordered to forfeit his $95,000 Cessna.The Supreme Court is now considering whether to take Ken’s case. And what’s at stake here is more than just a plane. Hanging in the balance is an increasingly popular — and controversial — business model for criminal justice.More on economics and the law: - Fine and punishment - The prisoner's solution - Paying for the crime - Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortunePre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Today’s episode was produced by James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Luis Gallo. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Ko Tagasugi Chernovin with help from Robert Rodriguez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When TikTok videos started to go viral on Instagram and Reddit, TikTok turned to professional sound designers to protect their content.More and more companies are paying to develop a “sonic identity” – a series of sounds, songs, and micro-jingles to help maintain a unified brand.In this episode, in conjunction with the sound design podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, we hear the backstory to possibly the most successful audio branding campaigns in history. It’s a tale of guerilla marketing and the power of sonic suggestion.Pre-order the Planet Money book, and get a free gift / Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This adapted episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Dallas Taylor. It was produced by Casey Emmerling and James Sneed. The episode was edited by Jess Jiang. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In today’s bonus episode, Kenny Malone, Jeff Guo, and Wailin Wong assemble once again and find out who won our first-ever Planet Money Pop Culture Draft! (Check out that bonus episode from last month if you missed it.) We asked you, our Planet Money+ supporters, to vote for the person who put together the pop culture team -- made up of a movie, a song, and a wild card from 1999 -- that best captured the Planet Money spirit. The response was incredible … so much so that we picked out a couple of our favorite emails to share. Then listen to hear us declare our winner! Thank you to everyone who voted! What year should we do next? Email us at planetmoney@npr.org and let us know!   ALSO, listen to this bonus episode to find out about a special NPR Shop discount we’re giving Planet Money+ supporters who pre-order our new book on or before November 10th! The book's called, “Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life.” More info here, planetmoneybook.com. You can find our newly relaunched NPR Shop here, shopnpr.org. Show your support for Planet Money and the reporting we do by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. You'll be able to unlock this episode and other great bonus content! Regular episodes remain free to listen! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he’s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, the tankers started getting weird. They were flying flags he’d never seen before. They were old, very old, though many had taken on new names. Something was off. He’d stumbled on a shadow fleet of hundreds of tankers ferrying sanctioned oil out of Russia … with near impunity. Today on the show, how those ships are transforming the global oil market and fueling the war in Ukraine. And why this all might be a financial and environmental disaster waiting to happen.Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Daniel Ackerman. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 1975, New York City ran out of money. For a decade it had managed to pay for its hundreds of thousands of city employees and robust social services by taking on billions of dollars in debt. But eventually investors were no longer willing to lend the city any more money. New York teetered on the edge of bankruptcy — the city shuttered more than a dozen firehouses, teachers went on strike and garbage piled up in the streets.Rescuing the city required the cooperation of the state of New York, the banks, the city workers unions, giant property owners and … the White House. But President Gerald Ford was adamantly opposed to bailing out NYC, prompting the famous New York Daily News headline — “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”On today’s show, the story of a group of private citizens who were deputized by the state of New York to try to save the city’s finances. Led by investment banker Felix Rohatyn, the group had to put together a grand bargain that everyone would be willing to agree to, and to come up with the billions of dollars the city needed to survive.Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift / Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Today’s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Keith Romer and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Julia Ritchey. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Debbie Daughtry and Cena Loffredo. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.Special Thanks: Denis Coleman, David Schleicher, Liall Clarke, Kevin Hennigan and everyone at Classical King FM in Seattle.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The U.S. government spends a ton of money, on everything from Medicare to roads to defense. In fact, it spends way more than it takes in. So…it borrows money, in the bond market. By selling U.S. Treasurys, basically IOUs with periodic interest payments. And for decades, people have loved to invest in Treasurys, for their safety and security. But lately, Treasurys have started to look riskier. In part because, in recent years, there’s a new buyer at the table: hedge funds, those loosely-regulated financial companies that invest on behalf of institutions and wealthy clients. They have started doing a special trade called the “Treasury basis trade.” And, depending on who you talk to, this trade could destabilize our entire financial system. Or help the U.S. government borrow more money. Or both. On the latest episode: how and why are hedge funds getting into Treasurys? We follow how a Treasury travels from the nest into the hands of hedge funds. And we speak to someone from one of those hedge funds, about what they’re doing and why.Pre-order the Planet Money book, and get a free gift / Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Pre-order the Planet Money book here for your free gift. Our sister show, The Indicator, is chronicling the evolving business of crime for its Vice Week series. Today, we bring to you two cases of crime in the age of AI. First, cybercriminals are using our own voices against us. Audio deepfake scams are picking up against individuals but also against businesses. We hear from a bank on how they’re adapting defenses, and find out how the new defenses are a game of AI vs AI. Then, we move over to the stock market to witness AI market manipulation. A new breed of trading bots behave differently. They could collude with each other, even without human involvement or instruction, so researchers are asking how to think about blame, and regulation in a world of more sophisticated trading bots. That’s assuming regulators could even keep up with the tech in the first place. Indicator Vice Series Head to The Indicator from Planet Money podcast feed for the latest on the Indicator Vice Series including an episode on data breaches . If you don’t already subscribe, check it out. Each episode explains one slice of the economy connected to the news recently, always in 10 minutes or less. Subscribe to Planet Money+ Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter. This episode is hosted by Darian Woods, Adrian Ma, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Cooper Katz McKim and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. They were fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator’s editor. Alex Goldmark is the Executive Producer. Music: NPR Source Audio - “Diamond High” Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The first two episodes of our “Planet Money Makes A Board Game” series are out! In this bonus episode, Erika Beras and Kenny Malone each share 3 favorite things -- ideas they learned about or moments that happened -- that didn’t make it into the series. They discuss the surprising history of Twister, what game mechanics they think are outdated, a revealing moment at Gen Con (the largest tabletop gaming convention in the country), and more… Erika and Kenny also share the board games they grew up with and like to play at home! You can download and play the Planet Money Game prototype here, PlanetMoneyGame.com. NOTE: Thanks to everyone who listened to our inaugural Planet Money Pop Culture Draft (1999) and emailed in with your vote. The response has been amazing. We’ll be announcing the winner soon in the bonus feed! Show your support for Planet Money and the reporting we do by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. You'll be able to unlock this episode and other great bonus content! Regular episodes remain free to listen! Email the show at planetmoney@npr.org.  Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It’s here! It’s free to download and playtest! It’s the Planet Money game! (Download here.)Download and playtest the game go here Sign up for the 11/1 virtual AMA event and get updates about the gameSubmit your feedback on the gameWatch the how-to video with Kenny and Elan for playtest instructionsIn this episode, the story of how we arrived here. Ride along as our game-making partners at Exploding Kittens help us turn our (sometimes wild) economics game ideas into the next blockbuster game. It’s a behind the scenes look at how to design a game from scratch — a game that is somehow filled with economics, impossible to put down, but does not feel like you’re cramming for school. Which is… harder than we thought.After months of trying to find the perfect balance of ideas and entertainment, the Planet Money game is ready for our next phase. And that’s where you come in, listeners! We need you to playtest the Planet Money game to help us perfect it.Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We want to make a board game. It must, of course, teach the world about economics. It must be fun. It’d be nice if it sold lots of copies! How hard could that be!? (Monopoly and Catan are hugely popular and basically little economy simulators, after all.)Well, turns out, it’s quite hard!We’re in a golden age of tabletop games. Thirty years ago there were around 800 new games each year. Now it is more like 5,000. Just a handful of those get to be hits. In the first episode of our new series, Planet Money sets forth on an epic quest to beat the odds. Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The next time you open your fridge, take a second to behold the miracles inside of it: Raspberries from California, butter from New Zealand, steak from Nebraska. None of that would have been remotely possible before the creation of the cold chain. The cold chain is the name for the end-to-end refrigeration of our food from farm to truck to warehouse to grocery store and ultimately to our fridges at home. And it’s one of the great achievements of the modern world. On today’s show, Nicola Twilley, food journalist and author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, tells us the story of how our world got cold, and what that’s meant for the economy.  We’ll hear about two pioneers of cold: The cheapskate meat baron Gustavus Swift, and the train-hopping chemist Polly Pennington. And we’ll take a look at whether all this refrigeration might have created some new problems. Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Today’s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Nick Fountain and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Keith Romer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On Wall Street, fortunes are often won and lost with the tiniest advantages. And for the past few years, one trading firm has stood out from the rest for both huge profits and careful secrecy — Jane Street Group.But last year, one of Jane Street’s biggest and most lucrative trading strategies was unexpectedly revealed in a Manhattan courtroom. The news ricocheted around the world. It drew the attention of competitors and regulatory agencies, destabilized billions of dollars worth of trades, and called into question some of the most fundamental strategies in global finance. Some Planet Money episodes about finance: - The rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management - How George Soros forced the UK to devalue the poundFurther reading:  - Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC, Douglas Schadewald, and Daniel Spottiswood - “Jane Street’s Indian Options Trade Was Too Good,” from Bloomberg - SEBI's report: "Interim Order in the matter of Index manipulation by Jane Street Group" - “Jane Street Defends India Trading Activity, Blasts Regulator,” from BloombergSubscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Mary Childs. It was produced by Eric Mennel, with production help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Cooper Katz-McKim. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Israel has been blocking the flow of physical money into Gaza since the start of the war. So whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war, that’s all that’s been circulating. It's falling apart from overuse. Two best friends, one in Gaza and one in Belgium, are now trying to get money in.But how do you get money into a bank account in Gaza? And how do you get that money out, in Gaza, when there are no functioning banks or ATMs? And almost no electricity. And spotty internet. And what is there to buy? How does money even work in Gaza right now? Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo, Robert Rodriguez, and James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.)It’s no secret that CEOs get paid a ton – and a ton more than the average worker. More than a hundred times than what their average employee makes. But it wasn’t always this way. So, how did this gap get so vast? And why? On today’s episode … we go back to a specific moment when the way CEOs were paid got changed. It involves Bill Clinton's campaign promises, and Silicon Valley workers taking to the streets to protest an accounting rule. And of course, Dodd Frank. Subscribe to Planet Money+Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Jacob Goldstein and Stacey Vanek Smith, and was originally produced by Nick Fountain. This update was reported and produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Alex Goldmark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In today's bonus episode, Kenny Malone, Jeff Guo, and Wailin Wong go head to head and each pick 3 pieces of pop culture -- a movie, a song, and a wild card -- from the year 1999 to form a Planet Money pop culture team! It could be a movie related to economics, a song about money, or maybe a fad that reflects a business trend. (As long as they came out in 1999!) Whatever it is, our players will be making the case to YOU why their pop culture picks best represent Planet Money. So listen through to the end of this episode. We’ll tell you how to vote, and, at a future date, reveal who drafted the ultimate Planet Money Pop Culture Team of 1999! p.s. Kenny, Jeff, and Wailin also share what they were up to in 1999. Who was watching Total Request Live? Who was excited to see Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace? Who was maybe learning fractions in school? Show your support for Planet Money and the reporting we do by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. You'll be able to unlock this episode and other great bonus content! Regular episodes remain free to listen! Email the show at planetmoney@npr.org.   Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy