The Indicator from Planet Money
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The Indicator from Planet Money
A bite-sized show about big ideas. From the people who make Planet Money, The Indicator helps you make sense of what's happening in today's economy. It's a quick hit of insight into money, work, and business. Monday through Friday, in 10 minutes or less.
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Petty! Econ! Grievances!
We have some grievances. Economic ones. And we’re airing them out.
On today’s show: Redeeming fast food rewards points in airports, not...
Three beefs: U.S. and Brazil, Taco Bell and liability, Waymo and trial lawyers
It’s Indicators of the Week!
Today on the show: Brazil’s fast payments system that’s got the Trump administration huffy, why Taco Bell m...
Can Paramount "gift" its way past the FCC?
Paramount’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery has a few hurdles ahead of it. One of them is an FCC approval. But a recent investigation...
Can Y’all Street outflank Wall Street?
Biz-friendly Texas is opening a stock exchange, built and based in the state. Can it become—or best—Wall Street? And how has politics influenced the b...
Tale of Two Cities
The formerly sleepy economies of suburban Austin, Texas and Syracuse, NY are getting two new semiconductor chip plants. They’re bringing thousands of...
Why doesn't the US have better sunscreen?
Why has the Food and Drug Administration taken so long to approve new sunscreens? Unlike the rest of the world, the FDA only just approved its first n...
New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast
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 o...
The Strait of Hormuz no-fee, China cuts down on pollution and IMAX's economic Odyssey
It’s Indicators of the Week (now on YouTube!).
On today’s episode: What happened to Trump’s proposed Strait of Hormuz fee?; China’s poll...
Why the Pope wants to disarm AI
Over 100 years ago, Pope Leo XIII wrote a seminal letter encouraging workers to unionize in the face of industrialization. The current Pope Leo XIV in...
Why your neighbor might be paying less for their car
Many Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates are diversifying away from oil, but how do you actually measure that? After China resumed buying Americ...
Can the internet survive AI summaries?
AI summaries are gaining traction and making the potential for a “zero click web” increasingly real. What does that mean for the internet as we know i...
Young people aren’t paying their car loans. We can help.
About one in 20 car loans made to young people are in serious delinquency. That’s the highest rate since the global financial crisis. Today on the sho...
SK Hynix to the moon, Gen-Z to their rooms, and Connecticut tax reform looms
It’s Indicators of the Week (now on YouTube!).
On today’s episode: You could’ve septupled your money if you invested in this scalding-ho...
Why Google fell behind in the AI race
When it comes to AI, Google’s Gemini does not have the same household recognition that Claude and ChatGPT do. One big explanation: the innovator’s dil...
Cracking down on egg prices
Too much news, there’s just too much news. Today on the show, we tackle three big stories we’re following: Venezuela’s ever-increasing debt problem, t...
We're in a renter's market (believe it or not)
Depends on where you live, but renters have a lot of power right now in the United States. What’s behind this trend and how might you be able to take...
Why the US is losing the drone war
The US defense industry is struggling to keep up with the revolution in cheap drones vs. expensive reusable military equipment.
Today on...
Obama's new Presidential Center and his tricky relationship with the South Side
How do residents of the South Side of Chicago feel about their new neighbor: the Obama Presidential Center? A mixture of pride and excitement, tempere...
Does the new Fed chair care about jobs?
Last month, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh presided over his first interest rate decision and press conference … but he didn't talk much about maximum empl...
Why Trump wants to rip up his own trade deal
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he touted the USMCA as the largest and most fair trade deal ever achieved. So why is he now talking about...
What Iran teaches us about why wars start
If war is so costly, why do we keep fighting them? We dig into the wars in Iran, Ukraine and Gaza to understand the incentives that lead countries int...
What you should know about your student loans
For many of the 43 million Americans with federal student loans, July 1 is a day to mark on the calendar. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is introd...
GLP-1 and women, the AI office boom, and RTO: CEO ego?
It’s Indicators of the Week (now on YouTube!).
On today’s episode: The effect of GLP-1s on women and the workplace; NYC’s once flailing o...
AI is pumping out books. Are they any good?
Are all these AI books any good? And by good, we mean are people willing to buy them — not whether the prose is singing. We talk to two researchers wh...
How stock options made him an overnight millionaire
In 2019, Juan Hernandez was laid off from SpaceX. Luckily, he still had the opportunity to buy $50K - $60K of the company’s stock and, years later, it...
Why the $250 bill would be good … For criminals!
A plan to create a new $250—with President Donald Trump’s face on it—has created a lot of pushback. Who probably won’t be pushing back, though? Crimin...
An urban planner, infinite scroll, and … what is a public good?
It’s time for The Indicator Quiz! We test you, dear listener, on your knowledge of topics that we’ve covered on The Indicator. For today's quiz show,...
How your phone keeps you scrolling ... even when you want to stop
You pick up your phone to do one quick task, and suddenly 20 minutes have flown by without you even noticing. How do apps do that to you? Today on the...
Are we in a new era of permanently higher prices?
Inflation is at a three-year high. That’s a problem for the Fed. Yet, under the leadership of new chair Kevin Warsh, it opted yesterday not to hike in...
Is gambling the reason we have pro sports?
To hear author David Bockino tell it, gambling has always been a key ingredient of pro sports in the U.S.—it’s as American as apple pie. Bockino is th...
Your American Dream is pending review
The Trump Administration recently announced changes to how would-be immigrants get green cards. And it’s causing a lot of confusion, fear and even pan...
Community colleges are kind of underrated
Community college is an increasingly popular hack for those who want to change their career. Here’s what you should know about this gateway to economi...
Inflation is bad, work from home sad, FIFA World Cup tix NOT deal to be had
It’s Indicators of the Week (now on YouTube!). It’s our weekly look at some of the most fascinating economic numbers from the news.
On t...
The SpaceX IPO drama explained
What the SpaceX IPO, the largest ever, reveals about big tech, the NASDAQ and more big IPOs to come. Sure it will make Elon Musk a trillionaire, but w...
Should we tax AI?
Should we tax AI? The AI race has made a lot of people richer … but most of those gains seem to have gone to the wealthy while everyday workers aren't...
U OK, UK?
In the United Kingdom, young people are out of work, government borrowing costs are high, and the nation is burning through PM’s like yesterday’s left...
The fired labor economist who couldn't get unemployment
A top labor economist encounters the endlessly frustrating labyrinth of filing for unemployment after getting fired by President Trump. Why are unempl...
Who should new grads boo more? AI or remote work?
Is AI really to blame for young people finding it hard to land first jobs? Is Black unemployment a leading indicator for the rest of the economy? Here...
Equinomics, bag fees, and leftover campaign dollars
Our listeners have QUESTIONS about the economy. And we have answers. Today on the show, we look at why horse breeding might be slowing down, why airli...
Can the internet be reclaimed from Big Tech?
Why one former senior advisor of the FTC thinks a libertarian myth of the internet has given Big Tech too much power.
Fact checking by Vi...