Planet Money

Imagine if we built cars the same way we build houses. First, a typical buyer would meet with the car designer, and tell them what kind of...

This past January, researchers uncovered that Black taxpayers are three to five times as likely to be audited as everyone else. One likely...

Right now, the economy is running hot. Inflation is high, and central banks are pushing up interest rates to fight it. But before the...

Right now, the economy is all over the place. And when things get confusing, we look to basic economic indicators to help explain what's...

It's been a month since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank touched off the worst episode of banking turmoil since 2008. While the...

Puerto Rico's beaches are an integral part of life on the island, and by law, they're one of the few places that are truly public. In...

In the first half of March, three banks - Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Silvergate - all had relatively classic bank runs and...

Earlier this month, we saw the largest bank collapse since the 2008 financial crisis. For many of us, seeing Silicon Valley Bank's meltdown...

Richard J. Lonsinger is a member of the Ponca tribe of Oklahoma, who was adopted at a young age into a white family of three. He eventually...

Sometimes you hear these stories about an airplane that suddenly nosedives. Everyone onboard thinks this is it, and then the plane levels...

Since we started Planet Money Records and released the 47-year-old song "Inflation," the song has taken off. It recently hit 1 million...

Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in America, the bank of choice for tech startups and big-name venture capitalists. Then, in...

Over the past year, dozens of shows have been disappearing from streaming platforms like HBO Max and Showtime. Shows like Minx, Made for...

As a kid, Ryanne Jones' friend accidentally hit her in the mouth with a hammer, knocking out her two front teeth. Her parents never had...

The 90s sit-com Seinfeld is often called "a show about nothing." Lauded for its observational humor, this quick-witted show focussed on...

If you are a congressperson or a senator and you have an idea for a new piece of legislation, at some point someone will have to tell you...

More than 20 years ago, something unusual happened in the small town of Dixfield, Maine. A lady named Barbara Thorpe had left almost all of...

This episode originally ran in 2020.In 2005, Franklin Leonard was a junior executive at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company. A big part...

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...

A lot of the time, economic policy can seem pretty impersonal — cold, hard, data-driven. But at the heart of the Federal Reserve are...