Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

Casinos think they can stop skilled gamblers from eking out a tiny edge at blackjack. Is that a losing bet? Zachary Crockett doubles down.

 

• SOURCES:
  • "Ben," former professional card counter.
  • Bill Zender, co-founder of Bill Zender and Associates casino consulting firm.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Blackjack Player Sues Ameristar Casino, City of Black Hawk Over Alleged Detainment for Card Counting," by Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton (The Denver Post, 2023).
  • "Why Does the House Always Win? A Look at Casino Profitability," by J. B. Maverick (Investopedia, 2023).
  • "Counting the Cost," by Bill Zender (GGB News, 2022).
  • "Nevada Supreme Court Orders Casino To Pay Card Counter," by I. Nelson Rose (Gambling and the Law, 2017).
  • "Counting Cards Is Legal, But ..." by Mark Pilarski (Detroit Free Press, 2016).
  • "Card Counter Sues Planet Hollywood Over Detention, Confiscated Casino Chips," by Carri Geer Thevenot (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2015).
  • "Real People Behind Story of '21' Discuss Film's Facts," by Ed Symkus (The State Journal-Register, 2008).
  • Blackbelt in Blackjack: Playing 21 as a Martial Art, by Arnold Snyder (1997).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "How to Make Your Own Luck," by Freakonomics Radio (2020).
  • "The Economics of Sports Gambling (Replay)," by Freakonomics Radio (2020).
  • "Could the Next Brooklyn Be … Las Vegas?!" by Freakonomics Radio (2015).
  • 21, film by Robert Luketic (2008).

The lawyer commercial is almost an art form unto itself. Learned practitioners of the law doing whatever it takes to get your attention, from impressive dirt bike stunts to running around half naked. All so when you land in trouble, you don't have to think hard to remember their name. Odds are you can name one or two right now.

This world of law ads did not exist fifty years ago. Then, lawyers were not allowed to advertise. Not by law, by the exclusive organization that decides who gets to be a lawyer: state bars.

On today's episode, how that changed. How a couple of lawyers placing an ad in a local newspaper led to the inescapable world of law firm ads we know today. And, how the right to advertise got put on the same level as some of the most important, fundamental rights we have.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Sean Saldana. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.)

Back in 2016, things were pretty bad in Venezuela. Grocery stores didn't have enough food. Hospitals didn't have basic supplies, like gauze. Child mortality was spiking. Businesses were shuttering. It's one of the epic economic collapses of our time. And it was totally avoidable.

Venezuela used to be a relatively rich country. It has just about all the economic advantages a country could ask for: Beautiful beaches and mountains ready for tourism, fertile land good for farming, an educated population, and oil, lots and lots of oil.

But during the boom years, the Venezuelan government made some choices that add up to an economic time bomb.

Today on the show, we have an economic horror story about a country that made all the wrong decisions with its oil money. It's a window into the fundamental way that money works and how when you try to control it, you can lose everything.

Then, an update on Venezuela today. How it went from a downward spiral, to a tentative economic stabilization... amidst political upheaval.

This original episode is hosted by Robert Smith and Noel King. It was produced by Nick Fountain and Sally Helm. Today's update was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk, produced by Sean Saldana, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Neal Rauch. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

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Welcome to the series, Women and Policy, where Jessica Carges interviews women who work on policy research related to women.

On this episode, Jessica Carges chats with Courtney Joslin on contraceptive accessibility and women's healthcare. Courtney explains how geography, high costs, and shortages of healthcare workers increase the difficulty of accessing contraceptives, how new state-based policies may provide innovative solutions, and how increased access leads to higher education, increased earnings, and lower healthcare costs.

Courtney Joslin is a Resident Fellow and Senior Manager of the Project for Women and Families at the R Street Institute. Her work covers a range of issues such as telehealth, birth control, and economic mobility policy. Most recently, Courtney was the policy analyst for the Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University, where she worked with legislators and scholars on economic issues in Alabama. Courtney is an alum of the Mercatus MA Fellowship.

Learn more about Jessica Carges' work here.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Virtual Sentiments, our new podcast series from the Hayek Program is streaming! Subscribe today and listen to seasons one and two.

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

Learn more about Academic & Student Programs

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CC Music: Twisterium

Making money in the stock image business requires a sharp eye for trends, a very specific type of model, and a race against A.I. Zachary Crockett takes his shot.

 

• SOURCE:
  • Yuri Arcurs, C.E.O. and founder of PeopleImages.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "The Last Stock Photographers Await Their Fate Under Generative A.I.," by Katie Deighton (The Wall Street Journal, 2024).
  • "The Impressive 100-Year History of Stock Photography: From Analog to A.I.," by Ivanna Attié (Stock Photo Secrets, 2024).
  • "How Much Can You Make Selling Stock Photos? — It’s Not as Profitable as it Used to Be," by Matic Broz (Photutorial, 2024).
  • "Confessions of a Stock Photography Model," by Andrew Kimler (Vox, 2016).

"Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy."

That is the bold promise in Planet Money's tagline. And we believe the show does live up to it. Over the last year, we've told stories about breakdancing, rum, pagers, buffets, colors, and heartbreak.

But then one host wondered: what if we really held ourselves to that promise? What if we challenged ourselves to find economic meaning in the most esoteric and far-flung topics imaginable?

That's when we turned to you, our listeners. And boy did you deliver. You sent in ideas so obscure, so banananas, so guaranteed to stump and bamboozle that our host maybe started to regret her life choices...but she was resolved to give it a try.

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm and Keith Romer. It was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Molly Messick and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Next week, JD Vance and Tim Walz will face off in the only confirmed vice presidential debate ahead of the election. As voters look ahead to what their economic policies might be, we look back to see what they have said and done, and how it turned out.

Planet Money's newsletter author Greg Rosalsky has spent some time combing through the economic records of Vance and Walz, and has some knowledge to share. Why does Walz support universal free school lunches, and why do some criticize him for it? Why have some called Vance a "Khan-servative?" And, how much do these candidates represent a break from the past?

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Greg Rosalsky. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer. Sierra Juarez fact-checked it, and it was engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's Executive Producer.

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How does a fresh tuna get from Japan to Nebraska before it goes bad? And how does its journey show up in the price of your spicy tuna rolls? Zachary Crockett gets schooled.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Sasha Issenberg, journalist and author.
  • David Utterback, owner of Yoshitomo and Ota sushi restaurants.
  • Nobu Yamanashi, president of Yama Seafood.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Wild or Farmed? Pacific or Atlantic? Here’s What to Know About Bluefin Tuna," by Jean Trinh (Los Angeles Times, 2023).
  • "The Untold Story of Sushi in America," by Daniel Fromson (The New York Times Magazine, 2021).
  • "The Intricacies of Tuna Grading," (Luke's Lobster Blog, 2020).
  • "Sushinomics: How Bluefin Tuna Became a Million-Dollar Fish," by Svati Kirsten Narula (The Atlantic, 2014).
  • The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy, by Sasha Issenberg (2007).
  • Yoshitomo.

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Is the Future of Farming in the Ocean?" by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

Table saws are extremely dangerous. The government estimates that injuries from table saws send something like 30,000 people to the emergency room every year. 3,000 of those end in amputations. The costs of those injuries are enormous. Are they also avoidable?

In 1999, inventor Steve Gass had a realization: Humans conduct electricity pretty well; Wood does not. Could he develop a saw that could tell the difference between the two?

Steve invented a saw that can detect a finger and stop the blade in milliseconds. Then, he tried to license it to the big tool companies. He thought it was a slam dunk proposition: It would dramatically reduce the injuries, and the cost of medical treatments and lost wages associated with them.

On today's episode: What does it take to make table saws safer? When someone gets hurt by a power tool, there are tons of costs, tons of externalities. We all bear the cost of the injury, in some way. So, it can be in society's best interest to minimize those costs. We follow Steve's quest to save thousands of fingers. It brought him face-to-face with roomfuls of power tool company defense attorneys, made him the anti-hero of the woodworking world, and cost the lives of many, many hot dogs.

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People often say that money can't buy you happiness. Sometimes, if you ask them to tell you more about it, they'll mention a famous 2010 study by Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton. That study found that higher household income correlates with greater emotional well-being, but only up to around $75,000 a year. After that, more money didn't seem to matter.

This was a famous study by two famous academics. The result stood for over a decade. And it feels good, right? Maybe the rich aren't so much happier than anyone else. But researchers have recently done a complete 180 on this idea. In 2021, psychologist Matt Killingsworth found nearly the opposite: That more money does correlate with more happiness. And that the relationship continues well beyond $75,000 per year.

Today on the show: Does more money mean fewer problems? Two researchers with totally different takes come together to hammer out a better understanding of the relationship between money and happiness.

This episode was hosted by Sally Helm and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Sean Saldana, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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