What’s So Great About Marriage?
Since the 1970s, the General Social Survey has asked thousands of Americans the same question: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” In the past few decades, our well-being seemed to take a nosedive. According to researchers, the decline of marriage seems to be the single most important explanation. Why is marriage the best predictor of happiness in America? Does marriage turn unhappy people into happy people? Are happier people just more likely to get married? Or is something more complicated happening? We welcome back Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, the director and associate director of Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study of adult happiness ever conducted and the authors of the book 'The Good Life,' to discuss. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
19 Syys 202351min
Why Is It So Expensive to Build Stuff in America?
We're in the midst of a great affordability crisis. It's not just the inflation crisis. It's a greater cost crisis of the last few decades. Everything that matters most in life—health care, housing, education—is getting more and more expensive. Why? One way to investigate this question is to look at the cost and speed of building physical things in America. We build urban transit more slowly than we used to, we build highways more slowly than we used to, we build energy infrastructure more slowly than we used to, we build skyscrapers more slowly than we used to, and we build housing more slowly than we used to. Brian Potter, the author of the newsletter 'Construction Physics,' explains the forces behind the great slowdown, why it matters, and how to turn things around. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Brian Potter Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
12 Syys 202353min
Fatherhood and What Americans Get Wrong About Major Life Changes
Derek is back, and ... he's a new dad! After several weeks of parental leave, he talks about what's surprised him about new fatherhood. Brad Stulberg, the health and science writer, returns to the show to discuss the psychology of major life transitions, why westerners—and, in particular, Americans—are so bad at dealing with challenges to their identity, and his new book, 'Master of Change.' If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Brad Stulberg Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
6 Syys 202347min
Experts Predicted a Recession This Year. How Were They So Wrong?
Today’s show is about what I consider the biggest mystery of the U.S. economy. Last year, economic experts predicted a recession in 2023 with more confidence than they’ve predicted any recession in decades. We ended up with what some people are calling immaculate disinflation: an economy with low unemployment, falling inflation, rising real wages, and narrowing inequality. Harvard economist Jason Furman joins the show to talk about why so many economists were so wrong and what their wrongness teaches us about how the economy works. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jason Furman Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
8 Elo 202336min
Why Elite College Admissions Are Biased Toward the Superrich
Less than 1 percent of college students attend Ivy League colleges and equally selective schools, like Stanford and Duke. But these schools have an outsize influence on American life. Practically every Supreme Court justice of the last 40 years, 25 percent of the U.S. Senate, and one in eight Fortune 500 CEOs went to these schools. A new study on their admissions programs finds that they are heavily biased toward children from rich families. For applicants with the same SAT score, kids from families in the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in compared to the average student. A coauthor on that paper, Harvard economist David Deming, talks to Derek about what his landmark study tells us about college, fairness, and the American Dream. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: David Deming Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
1 Elo 202350min
Oppenheimer: The Genius, the Film, and the Project That Changed the World
Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb,' discusses the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, the history of nuclear weapons, and the new film on his life by Christopher Nolan. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Richard Rhodes Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
25 Heinä 202356min
How Hollywood Drove Its Business Model Off a Cliff
The trouble brewing in the media and entertainment industry has become one of the most interesting—and truly perplexing—business stories in the world. How does everything seem so bad at the same time? The domestic box office is still in a recession. Pay TV is a nightmare. Streaming is a money pit. And actors and writers are on strike. How did this happen? And could it get worse before it gets better? Today’s guest is Julia Alexander, director of strategy for Parrot Analytics and a writer with Puck News. We discuss a brief history of Hollywood, how we got to this point, how Disney’s plight in particular tells a story of how streaming has roiled this town, how the strikes fit into this picture, and what these companies should do now. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Julia Alexander Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
19 Heinä 20231h 1min
Americans Think the Economy Is Terrible. The Data Tell Another Story.
By many measures, this is one of the best times to find a job in decades. And by many measures, Americans are locked in a state of extreme glumness about the country. Jordan Weissmann, Washington editor at Semafor, rejoins the show to talk about why the economy is much better than many Americans—and many economic commentators—think, and whether "Bidenomics" can fix what ails us. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jordan Weissmann Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
11 Heinä 202357min
