Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

It’s unreactive, lighter than air, and surprisingly important to the global economy. Zachary Crockett goes up an octave.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Sophia Hayes, professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis.
  • Phil Kornbluth, president of Kornbluth Helium Consulting.
  • Bo Sears, C.E.O. of Helix Exploration PLC.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Why Semiconductor Growth Will Drive Helium Demand," by Kitty Wheeler (Technology Magazine, 2024).
  • "The World Is Running Out of Helium. Here's Why Doctors Are Worried," by Caroline Hopkins (NBC News, 2022).
  • "Nothing on Earth Can Replace Helium — and It’s in Peril," by Joseph DiVerdi (The New York Times, 2019).
  • Selling the Nation's Helium Reserve, by the National Research Council (2010).
  • "Discovery of Helium in Natural Gas at the University of Kansas," by the American Chemical Society (2000).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Is Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Its Most Valuable Asset?" by Freakonomics Radio (2024).

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.

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How did Florida International University’s new football stadium come to be named after the rapper and singer Pitbull? Adrian Ma and Wailin Wong of The Indicator from Planet Money explain.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Scott Carr, director of athletics at Florida International University.
  • Adrian Ma, co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.
  • Wailin Wong, co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • The Indicator from Planet Money

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.

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Mannequins may be made out of plastic or fiberglass, but for retailers they’re pure gold. Zachary Crockett strikes a pose.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Stacie Bornn, vice president of sales, marketing, and creative at Fusion Specialties.
  • Judi Henderson, C.E.O. and president of Mannequin Madness.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "How This Oakland Business Gives Mannequins New Life (Almost)," by Christopher Beale (KQED, 2024).
  • "Nike's Controversial Plus-Size Mannequin Is a Brilliant Business Decision," by Kate Taylor (Business Insider, 2019).
  • "A Glance at History of Store Mannequins," by Anne D'Innocenzio (AP News, 2014).
  • "Making a Fashion Statement, With or Without Clothes," by Elisabetta Povoledo (The New York Times, 2011).
  • "Stores Demand Mannequins With Personality (Heads Optional)," by Stephanie Clifford (The New York Times, 2011).
  • "Body Design, Variable Realisms: The Case of Female Fashion Mannequins," by Sara K. Schneider (Design Issues, 1997).

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.

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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.

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This is the last episode of a three-part miniseries on entangled political economy (EPE), hosted by Mikayla Novak. Entangled political economy is a sub-discipline of political economy that explicitly views individuals and the private and public sectors as being intertwined in overlapping exchange relationships along competitive and collaborative dimensions.

On this episode, Mikayla Novak is joined by Marta Podemska-Mikluch who discusses her life in Poland under socialism, her time working alongside Richard Wagner, genuine versus parasitical entrepreneurship, dyad versus triad exchanges, the health care system, the future of analyzing rhetoric using AI, and more!

Marta Podemska-Mikluch is the Schnell Family Chair in Econ-Capital Systems and Associate Professor in Business and Economics and Public Health at Gustavus Adolphus College. She is the Director of the Entangled Political Economy Research Network (EPERN).

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 now streaming! Subscribe today and listen to seasons one and two!

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CC Music: Twisterium

Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from motor oil to prescription glasses — often for pennies per hour. Zachary Crockett reports from North Carolina.

SOURCES:

• Laura Appleman, professor of law at Willamette University.
• Christopher Barnes, inmate at the Franklin Correctional Center.
• Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.
• Brian Scott, ex-inmate, former worker at the Correction Enterprises printing plant.
• Louis Southall, warden of Franklin Correctional Center.

RESOURCES:

• "Prisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands," by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason (AP News, 2024).
• "Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound," by Talmon Joseph Smith (The New York Times, 2023).
• "Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers," by the American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (2022).
• "Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison Profit," by Laura Appleman (Wisconsin Law Review, 2022).
• "Prison Labor Is on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic," by Eliyahu Kamisher (The Appeal, 2020).
• Correction Enterprises.

EXTRAS:

• "Can Data Keep People Out of Prison?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).

On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were selling — you can learn a lot about where the economy might be headed. Or at least, where people are willing to bet the economy is headed.

On today's show, we decode what Wall Street thinks about the next Trump presidency — what it means for different parts of the economy, and what it means for everyone. Does the wisdom of the market think President Trump will actually impose new tariffs and lift regulations? What about taxes and spending? And will inflation ultimately go up or down?

What markets bet President Trump will do. That's today's episode.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo, Sally Helm, Erika Beras, and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Martina Castro and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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