Archives

In Gaza, money is falling apart

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. 

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Approaches to life: Improvise, pivot or plan

Big life decisions are never easy. Should you follow a plan? Make a hard pivot? Improvise as you go? This hour, TED speakers who’ve made extreme life choices and their advice for getting unstuck. Guests include comedian and musician Reggie Watts, biomedical researcher Sonia Vallabh and conservationist Kristine McDivitt Tompkins.

Original broadcast date: October 18, 2024

TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at: plus.npr.org/ted

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

When CEO pay exploded (update)

(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.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The U.S. now owns a big chunk of Intel. That’s a huge deal.

Last month, President Donald Trump announced an unusual deal. Intel, the biggest microchip maker in America, had agreed to give the United States a 10 percent stake in its business. That means the U.S. government is now Intel’s largest shareholder — and a major American company is now a partially state-owned enterprise. 

This deal has raised a lot of eyebrows. The U.S. government almost never gets tangled up with businesses like this. Some have accused the president of taking a step toward, well, socialism.

But the Intel deal didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s actually the latest chapter in one of the most aggressive economic experiments the United States has ever attempted. An experiment that Trump is now taking in a surprising new direction. 

On today’s show, we unpack the Intel deal. Where did it come from, and what does it say about President Trump’s unconventional approach to managing the economy. 

For more:
The President’s Golden Share in U.S. Steel 
Bringing a tariff to a graphite fight 
A controversial idea at the heart of Bidenomics

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 Jeff Guo and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Jimmy Keeley with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.  

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Artemis II: Launch

NASA Artemis II launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson shares her
path to the console and what it takes to launch the first crewed Artemis
mission to the Moon. HWHAP 401. 

The lab behind Waymo and Google Glass that wants to reshape your life

The moonshot factory X is home to some of Silicon Valley’s boldest inventions. CEO Astro Teller reveals how the secretive lab tests crazy ideas that can change the world… even when they fail. 

TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Asking for a friend … which jobs are safe from AI?

There’s one question we seem to be hearing everywhere: “Is my job safe from AI?

Dozens of you, our listeners, have written to us about this. Saying things like, “Maybe my yoga teacher side gig is actually my safest bet now,” and “My parents were in real estate, and I never thought I’d say it … but maybe that’s what I should do?”  

If only there were a list that could tell you which jobs are safe from AI. We go looking for that list … and find that the AI future is going to be even weirder than we’d imagined.

Today on the show: We talk to two researchers who have come up with some first drafts of the future. We learned more about the machines that might be coming for our jobs, and also, more about what it actually means to be human.

Further Reading:
GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs
The EPOCH of AI: Human-Machine Complementarities at Work

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 Eric Mennel and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money‘s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

What happens to central banks under pressure?

President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve from a few angles. So we wanted to look at other examples of political pressure on central banks, to see what it might mean for us and for the economy. 

Enter the watchers. The people who’ve had their eyes trained on central banks all over the world, for years, notebooks out, scribbling down their observations. They’ve been trying to gauge just how independent of political pressure central banks actually are – and what happens when a central bank loses that independence. 

Today on the show, we sidle up next to three of the leading central bank watchers, to watch what they’re watching.

Further reading:
– Carolina Garriga’s: Revisiting Central Bank Independence in the World: An Extended Dataset
– Lev Menand’s: A New Measure of Central Bank Independence
– Carola Binder’s: Political Pressure on Central Banks

Further listening:
Lisa Cook and the fight for the Fed
A primer on the Federal Reserve’s independence
The case for Fed independence in the Nixon tapes
A Locked Door, A Secret Meeting And The Birth Of The Fed

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 Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Robert Rodriguez and Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Advancing NASA

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy joins us for our milestone 400th episode to share his journey and vision for advancing NASA into the future. HWHAP 400. 

Are the kids alright? Part 2

Teens today are navigating academic pressure, social media, gun violence and climate anxiety. But adolescent psychologist Lisa Damour argues that stress isn’t the enemy. It’s part of growing up. What matters is how teens and the adults around them learn to manage it. In part two of this series, Damour offers clear-eyed, compassionate advice plus a reminder: even in a turbulent world, kids are still resilient, resourceful and full of wonder.

TED Radio Hour+ subscribers now get access to bonus episodes, with more ideas from TED speakers and a behind the scenes look with our producers. A Plus subscription also lets you listen to regular episodes (like this one!) without sponsors. Sign-up at plus.npr.org/ted.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy