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. Thos...
30 Dec 202525min
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 Rest of the Stor...
26 Dec 202528min
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 entir...
24 Dec 202530min
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 hundre...
20 Dec 202532min
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...
17 Dec 202554min
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. Daley’s a...
12 Dec 202530min
Strange threadfellows: How the U.S. military shaped what we all wear
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-fund...
10 Dec 202536min
How hurricanes became a hot investment
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 is...
5 Dec 202530min
