Planet Money

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 Wong, and Jeff Guo, go head to head and each drafts a “team” of economic pop culture. So a movie, a song, and a wild card pick that best represents the Planet Money spirit!It could be a movie related to business or maybe a song about money … as long as it came out in 1999! Listen to hear each of them make the case for why their team should be crowned the winner!If you want more bonus episodes like this one and to support our work, sign up for 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, Wailin Wong, and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Viet Le and edited by Planet Money’s executive producer Alex Goldmark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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. Daley’s administration looked around at the resources the city had, and thought, ‘Any of this worth anything?’ They opted to lease out the city’s metered parking system — to privatize all 36,000 of its parking meters. The plan: have private companies bid on operating the meters, modernizing the system, and keeping the profits for a certain number of years. In exchange, they would give Chicago a big lump sum payment. The winning bid was $1.16 billion dollars for a 75-year lease. Today’s episode is the story of how that bid got put together, and how it came to be hated. There are kidnapped parking meters, foot chases through City Hall, and trash bags filled with secret documents. 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 produced by Willa Rubin with help from Luis Gallo and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From nuclear fission to GPS to the internet, it’s common knowledge that many of the most resource intensive technologies of the last century got their start as military R&D projects in government-funded labs. But as Avery Trufelman explains in her fashion history podcast, Articles of Interest, the influence of the US military is, in many ways, even more intimate than that, shaping much of the clothing we all wear everyday. On today’s show, a tale of Army surplus economics. How military designs trickled down from the soldiers on the front lines to the hippies on the war protest line to the yuppies in line at Banana Republic. And why some of your favorite outdoor brands may just be moonlighting as U.S. military suppliers, while keeping it as under the radar as they can.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 of Planet Money was produced by Luis Gallo, edited by Jess Jiang, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.Articles of Interest is produced by Avery Trufelman, edited by Alison Beringer, fact checked by Yasmine Alsayyad, and engineered by Jocelyn Gonzalez.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A few years ago, the Jamaican government started making an unusual financial bet. It went to investors around the world asking if they'd like to wager on the chances a major hurricane would hit the island in the next couple of years. In finance terms, these kinds of wagers are called "catastrophe bonds." They're a way to get investors to share the risk of a major disaster, whether that's a Japanese earthquake, a California wildfire, or a Jamaican hurricane. This market for catastrophe has gotten really hot lately. And it’s changing the way that insurance works for all of us. 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 produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and Kwesi Lee. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez and Vito Emanuel. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.Music: Universal Music Production - “Lagos to London,” “Sleazy Does It,” “The Sundown Set.”Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Vote for us in NPR’s People’s Choice Awards: npr.org/peopleschoice AI is already reshaping how people find work. Fewer entry-level jobs, robot recruiters, and ever-changing new skill requirements all add up to a new, daunting landscape for humans trying to find dignified work.Today on the show: two stories from the edges of a changing labor market. First we’ll assess claims that AI is causing a white collar job apocalypse. What does the data actually say? We meet an economist who has found one small but fascinating way to measure the impact of AI on workers. Then, we go face-to-face, or at least voice-to-voice, with AI. We meet a robot recruiter for a job interview and find cause to ask, ‘When might that actually be preferable to a human recruiter?’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.The original Indicator episodes were hosted by Wailin Wong, Darian Woods, and Adrian Ma. They were produced by Cooper Katz McKim and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Debbie Daughtry. They were fact checked by Sierra Juarez. They were edited by Paddy Hirsch and Kate Concannon. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy