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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.

 Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.

Planet Money

When workers past retirement age can’t afford to retire — that’s one thing. When they can, and just don’t want to — that’s trickier.

It used to be legal to force people to retire when they hit a certain age. The trend used to be earlier and earlier retirement. Now it’s later and later retirement. And younger workers say it’s impacting their career advancement and their ability to save for their own retirement.

At the same time, older workers are living longer, Social Security and Medicare funding are less secure than ever … and many people want to keep working.

Age in the workplace is a tricky thing to talk about. But today on the show, we’re talking about it. On the latest Planet Money, a law professor who says retirement should be mandatory at age 70. And an economist who says, actually … people should delay retirement even longer. 

Show notes: 

More of Planet Money’s coverage of the lump of labor fallacySamuel Moyn: Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth? And What to Do About It.Gerhard Casper and Saunders Mac Lane: “Older Doesn’t Mean Wiser”

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This episode was reported by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Eric Misitzis Mennel, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio: “Don’t Cross The Line,” “Aventure Burlesque,” and “Hollywood.”

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Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?

Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent, no taxes, no deed – just free land. That’s the communal system of property rights that governed a small Caribbean island for over a century.

This week on our Summer School World Tour we make port on the small economies of island nations, a great place to explore how different experiments play out. Every small change – the good and the bad – has big consequences.

First, the fascinating test case on the island of Barbuda, where the people there have found a way to run things without the usual, formal land rights.

Then, we consider the vulnerabilities of small nations as we dig into a mysterious sand heist in Jamaica. A stolen beach – yes, you read that right – and something called “sand forensics” reveal the importance of this seemingly infinite resource and the challenges of protecting public spaces when there’s money to be made.

Along the way we found ourselves asking: Does property have to be private? What happens when it’s not? How can you protect scarce resources when they’re part of the vast, public spaces everyone shares?

Featured Episodes:
The Island No One Owns (2020)Peak Sand (2018)
Featured Terms:

 • Tragedy of the commons
 • Property rights
 • Path dependence
 • Ownership in common

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NPR+ (sponsor-free listening & bonus episodes) • And please click “follow” in your podcast app so you don’t miss an episode. 

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This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre and edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Leyla Doss and engineered by Annlie Huang.

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Sand heists and property rights in the Caribbean (Summer School)

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made.

Today on the show, we have the story of the once-humble squishy dumpling and what it teaches us about how to make a viral hit and how to manufacture it, without getting left holding the bag. Hear it all firsthand from the creator of this trendy toy. 

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Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
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Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Melty Heart," "Summer Escape," and "Twilight Sparkle"

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What makes a toy go viral

Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their economy overnight.

Norway! It’s expensive, wealthy, and abundant in resources. We’re going to compare two of them in particular today: deep reservoirs of oil and icy waters full of salmon. While one resource was heavily in demand, the country had an oversupply of the other.

In this episode, we learn how Norway built its wealth by carefully avoiding the pitfalls of discovering oil that have plagued countries in the past and how it creatively created demand for its raw fish abroad.

How do you dodge the dreaded resource curse? What clever ways can you benefit from oversupply? And lastly, how do you get rich and stay that way?

Featured Episodes:
Norway Has Advice For Libya (2011)The Salmon Taboo (2015)
Featured Terms:
 • Resource curse / Dutch disease / paradox of plenty
 • Coordination problem
 • Free-rider problem

Support:
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Read: 
 • Our book: 
Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life • (
Audiobook here • ) 
 • Our weekly longform 
Planet Money newsletter • Our weekly 
Indicator link round-up newsletter
Follow: 
InstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookThis episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre and edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo with help from Annlie Huang and Robert Rodriguez.

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How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School)

Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest questions facing humanity.

In Kenya and Nigeria, economics isn’t just theory, it’s real life. We’ll look at some radical experiments that turned out to be enormously successful.

What are the building blocks of health, education and prosperity for all? How does a nation grow rich? What is the most effective way to spend a dollar to fight poverty? We find answers in a town that became the laboratory for new concepts in economic research that netted some researchers the most prestigious prize in economics.

Featured Episodes:

How randomized trials and the town of Busia, Kenya changed economics (2023)Nigeria, You Win! (2016)
Featured Terms:
 • Randomized controlled trial
 • Human capital
 • Missing middle
Support:
Planet Money+
Read: 
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Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life • (
Audiobook here • ) 
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The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark. This episode was fact-checked by Leyla Doss, with engineering by Annlie Huang.

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Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)

The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean. 

So on today’s show, we tell you just how much lettuce Americans eat every year (SO MUCH!), how bagged lettuce came to dominate grocery store shelves, what that means for food safety, and why these outbreaks continue to happen — despite the FDA’s efforts to stop them.

Check out other related episodes:
Food Scare Squad
How refrigeration took over the world

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Planet Money+

Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
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YouTube
Facebook

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune and it was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Electric Leak," "West Green Road," and "Melty Heart"

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Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine

In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Antonio arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.

In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death. They track down key eyewitnesses and surface crucial evidence that's never been made public.

Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed.

Listen to Embedded wherever you get your podcasts, including the NPR App, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and via RSS.

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New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast

As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major League Soccer – the top men’s professional soccer league in the U.S. and Canada – has been scrambling to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity when average American sports fans suddenly cared a lot about soccer.

In between World Cup matches, NPR Sports Correspondent Becky Sullivan has been following Major League Soccer executives as they try to figure out how best to get a foot in the door with sports fans in the U.S.

In this episode, we tag along to see if U.S. and Canadian professional soccer can harness 2026 for the mythical World Cup bump in soccer interest. What strategies are teams using? And does it stand a chance to work?

Support:
Planet Money+Read:
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletterOur weekly Indicator round-up newsletterFollow: 
InstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookThis episode of Planet Money was hosted by Becky Sullivan and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed with an assist from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

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Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?

China’s turbocharged growth may have made it rich, but now it has to deal with rich country problems. 

High-speed trains that connect every town. Gleaming new bridges and skyscrapers. An apartment (or two) for every family. No country on Earth has seen the kind of economic growth that China has over the last 50 years. China has become the factory to the world, a grand experiment in central government planning mixed with personal ambition. 

It was all enabled by what our guide for today calls, an engineering state, a central planning mindset where leaders believe they can engineer their way out of economic problems. And problems are mounting. 

Today on the show, the perils of prosperity and the despair of success as China deals with overbuilding. 

We’ll travel back to China’s free-wheeling boom-era of the early 2000s and hang out with a property developer who amassed his wealth at the center of the action – private jet rides, thousand-dollar fish soup, casual bribes. Then, as the economy slows, we ask what can we learn from the despair of success. Does rising youth unemployment signal a less prosperous future? With young people struggling to find white-collar jobs, some of them are opting out of work altogether. 

Featured Episodes:
China’s real estate crisis, explained (2023) Young, “spoiled and miserable” in China (2023) 

Featured Terms: 

 • Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
 • Engineering State
 • Malinvestment

Support:

Planet Money+

Read: 

 • Our book: 
Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life • (
Audiobook here • ) 
 • Our weekly longform 
Planet Money newsletter • Our weekly 
Indicator link round-up newsletter • Dan Wang’s book: 
Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the FutureFollow: 

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This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer 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.

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Building things and breaking things in China (Summer School World Tour)

Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had to have an in. There was no easy way to find one. But over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has exploded. There are now many online resellers where you can shop for used and discounted luxury items. One big problem — how can you be sure if it’s real and authentic?

Some online resellers claim to have solved this problem. They say they’ve developed a process of authentication, and so buyers can trust that the bag is really Gucci or Cartier or Hermès or whatever. But according to some luxury brands, authenticity is something that is often imitated but never replicated.

In today’s episode of Planet Money, the fight between Chanel and The RealReal. And how luxury brands are reacting to the enormous and growing secondhand market for luxury goods.

Support:
Planet Money+Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your LifeOur weekly longform • 
Planet Money newsletterOur weekly Indicator round-up newsletterFollow: 
InstagramTikTokYouTubeFacebookThis episode of Planet Money was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Charlotte Isidore, who also fact checked this episode. Jess Jiang edited the show and it was engineered by Cena Loffredo. 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.

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Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be forced to?

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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