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 ...
You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it. Because it was comfy. Or blue. Or the right price. But what if the style, the color, the cost, maybe even whether you would like it, were choices made for you years before you even thought about buying that piece of furniture.Today on the show: The city that makes or breaks the furniture world. We travel to High Point, North Carolina and meet the people who make the bets – on whether or not you'll want that comfy blue couch.This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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26:15
Title Pirates
A couple years ago, Gina Leto, a real estate developer, bought a property with her business partner. The process went like it usually did: Lots of paperwork; a virtual closing. Pretty cut-and-dry. Gina and her partner started building a house on the property.But $800,000 into the construction process, Gina got a troubling call from her lawyer. There was something wrong. At first, Gina thought the house had burned down. It turned out that the situation was... maybe worse.On today's show: Buying land seems pretty secure, right? There's so much paperwork and verification along the way. But a messy system of how titles are sold, transferred and documented makes a perfect entry point for a new kind of criminal: Title Pirates.Today's episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Liza Yeager. Fact-checking by Sarah McClure. Engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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25:30
The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
Mass deportations. What would actually happen—economically—if the President-elect follows through on promises to deport millions of people from America.We don't have to guess.Today we have two stories from Planet Money's daily podcast, The Indicator. First, the story from another time the US cracked down on immigration with the expressed intent of helping the economy. We look at how that worked out. And then we distill 20 years of research on immigrants and economic growth. What does immigration do for an economy? What types of immigration help? And who benefits?Our most recent newsletter goes into more depth on some of this. Part one of two here. Subscribe to our newsletter here.This episode is hosted by Adrian Ma, Darian Woods, and Wailin Wong. These episodes of The Indicator were originally produced by Cooper Katz McKim and Julia Ritchey, and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Maggie Luthar. They were fact-checked by Angel Carreras and Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon is The Indicator's Editor.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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15:58
The great German land lottery
Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung, a ritual dating back centuries. Osing refers to the area. And verlosung means "lottery," as in a land lottery. All of the land in this communal land is randomly reassigned to farmers who commit to farming it for the next decade.Hundreds of years ago, a community in Germany came up with their own, unique solution for how to best allocate scarce resources. For this community, the lottery is a way to try and make the system of land allotment more fair and avoid conflict.Today on the show, we go to the lottery and follow along as every farmer has a shot at getting the perfect piece of land — or the absolute worst piece of land! And we see what we can learn from this living, medieval tradition that tries to balance fairness and efficiency.This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Reporting help from Sofia Shchukina. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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28:55
The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made
This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.For years, few thought this technology was even possible. It still sounds like science fiction: A laser strong enough to blast holes in a bank vault hits a droplet of molten tin. The droplet explodes into a burst of extreme ultraviolet light. That precious light is funneled onto a wafer of silicon, where it etches circuits as fine as a strand of DNA. Only one company in the world that can make these advanced microchip etching machines: a Dutch firm called ASML.Today on the show, how this breakthrough in advanced chipmaking happened — and how it almost didn't. How the long-shot idea was incubated in U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and nurtured by U.S. tech giants. And, why a Dutch company now controls it.This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sally Helm. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman, and engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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.Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney