Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates to get inflation under control. One side effect is that taking out a mortgage to buy a home has gotten very expensive. That's especially a problem for some homeowners who managed to get a lower mortgage rate years ago. They have a sort of... champagne problem. Or, "golden handcuffs" as it's called.

These homeowners may find they are "locked in" to their current home. In order to move to a new home, they have to take out a new mortgage at a much higher rate. It is one of the many problems plaguing the housing market right now.

The Fed is expected to start cutting rates next week. Will the golden handcuff mess finally start to unlock? And what does it mean for people looking to buy their first home?

On today's episode: We go deep into the golden handcuff problem and why it matters for everyone (including non-homeowners). We have FOMO about a big economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And we contemplate how to pronounce one of the most important interest rates in the economy: The IORB.

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sean Saldana. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Are the promises made by AI boosters all hype, or are we actually under-appreciating the transformative potential of AI?

Can artificial intelligence make humans more productive, unlock hidden potential and remake work as we know it? Or, should it not even be called intelligence at all, artificial or otherwise.

On today's episode, we take sides. Two reporters flip a coin to see who argues which point: is AI overrated or underrated? They bring research, real world examples, expert opinions and warm blooded human insight. You decide who makes the best case.

If you're interested in learning more, check out Greg's article 10 reasons why AI is overrated. It includes all sorts of reporting we couldn't fit into the episode. And while you're there, subscribe to the Planet Money newsletter.

Today's episode was hosted by Darian Woods and Greg Rosalsky. These episodes of the Indicator were originally produced by Corey Bridges and they were edited by Paddy Hirsch. They were engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez and Neal Rauch and they were fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannan is the Indicator's editor.

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Almost everyone who buys a home spends thousands of dollars on title insurance. Most of them don’t understand it, and almost none of them use it. So why does it exist? Zachary Crockett closes the deal.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Christy Bieber, personal finance writer.
  • Laurie Goodman, institute fellow at the Urban Institute Housing Finance Policy Center.
  • Kathy Kwak, chief operating officer of Proper Title.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Remarks of President Joe Biden — State of the Union Address As Prepared for Delivery," (The White House Briefing Room, 2024).
  • "Fannie Mae Expands Use Of Attorney Opinion Letters (AOLs) As Title Insurance Alternatives," by Christine Stuart (National Mortgage Professional, 2023).
  • "U.S. Private Auto Insurers Break Premium, Loss Ratio Records in Q1," by Kris Elaine Figuracion and Tyler Hammel (S&P Global, 2023).

 

• EXTRA:
  • "'Insurance Is Sexy.' Discuss," by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

Summer camp is a classic rite of passage in the U.S. It's a place of self-discovery, where kids come to make new friends and take on new challenges. But what if it were ALSO a place where children came to learn how to survive in a free market economy?

That's part of the idea behind a summer camp at JA BizTown, in Portland, Oregon. Kids at the camp run tiny fake businesses in a tiny fake town. There are retail stores and restaurants, insurance companies and power utilities. As camp begins, a gaggle of child CEOs take out business loans from their peers in the tiny fake banking industry – and they spend the day racing to run their businesses profitably enough to get out of debt before pickup time.

On today's show, Planet Money takes a romp through capitalism summer camp. Will the children of BizTown be able to make ends meet and pay back their loans to the banks? Or will a string of defaults send this dollhouse economy into financial collapse? It's Shark Tank meets Lord of the Flies.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Sally Helm. It was produced by James Sneed, and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Gilly Moon. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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Campaigns can be a jargony slog. And this year, we are seeing a lot of economic terms being thrown around, many of which... aren't entirely straightforward.

In this episode, we try to make the mess of words that accompany a presidential campaign into something a little less exhausting: A game of bingo.

Follow along as we dig into five terms that we expect to hear in the upcoming presidential debate, along with some others we hope to hear.

You can play along, too, at npr.org/bingo. Play online or print cards to play with friends on debate night!

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Meg Cramer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Nathan Goodman chats with Anthony Gregory on his latest book, New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State. Most Americans remember the New Deal as the crucible of modern liberalism. But while it is most closely associated with Roosevelt’s efforts to end the Depression and provide social security for the elderly, we have failed to acknowledge one of its most enduring legacies: its war on crime. The book reassesses the political importance of the 1930s by highlighting the general crisis of lawlessness, arguing that the Roosevelt administration’s criminal justice policies transformed liberalism and the constitutional order. They also helped legitimate government itself, transcending the institutional, jurisdictional, partisan, racial, and social divisions that had previously frustrated national enforcement authority.

Anthony Gregory is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. Anthony is a historian who has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, Brown University, and the Rhode Island School of Design, and he is the author of New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State, The Power of Habeas Corpus in America: From the King’s Prerogative to the War on Terror, and American Surveillance: Intelligence, Privacy, and the Fourth Amendment.

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.

Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram

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CC Music: Twisterium

It takes fungi-sniffing dogs, back-room deals, and a guy named “The Kingpin” for the world’s most coveted morsel to end up on your plate. Zachary Crockett picks up the scent.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Jason McKinney, co-founder and C.E.O. of Truffle Shuffle.
  • Besart Morina, truffle dealer.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Dogs Pay the Price in Italian Truffle War," by Margherita Stancati (The Wall Street Journal, 2022).
  • "How Truffles Took Root Around the World," by Federico Kukso (Smithsonian Magazine, 2022).
  • "Has the American-Grown Truffle Finally Broken Through?" by Rowan Jacobsen (Smithsonian Magazine, 2021).
  • "Sonoma County Farm Strikes Black Truffle Gold After 9 Years of Waiting," by Jenn Harris (Los Angeles Times, 2021).
  • "In Nicolas Cage’s ‘Pig,’ How Much Is the Truffle Hog Worth Anyway?" by Victoria Petersen (The New York Times, 2021).
  • "Predicted Climate Change Will Increase the Truffle Cultivation Potential in Central Europe," by Tomáš Čejka, Miroslav Trnka, Paul J. Krusic, Ulrich Stobbe, Daniel Oliach, Tomáš Václavík, Willy Tegel, and Ulf Büntgen (Nature Scientific Reports, 2020).
  • "Inside the Exceptionally Shady World of Truffle Fraud," by Ryan Jacobs (Eater, 2019).
  • "Truffle Thieves Face Paramilitary Threat," by Kim Willsher (The Guardian, 2012).
  • "The Hidden Life of Truffles," by James M. Trappe and Andrew W. Claridge (Scientific American, 2010).
  • "Cultivation of Black Truffle to Promote Reforestation and Land-Usestability," by José Antonio Bonet, Christine R. Fischer, and Carlos Colinas (Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 2006).

When Cody Fischer decided to get into real estate development, he had a vision. He wanted to build affordable, energy efficient apartments in Minneapolis, not far from where he grew up.

His vision was well-timed because, in 2019, Minneapolis's city council passed one of the most ambitious housing plans in the nation. One aim of that plan was to alleviate the city's housing shortage by encouraging developers like Cody to build, build, build.

But when Cody tried to build, he ran into problems. The kinds of problems that arise all over the country when cities confront a short supply of housing, and try to build their way out.

Today on the show, NIMBYism, YIMBYism and why it's so hard to fix the housing shortage. Told through the story of two apartment buildings in Minneapolis.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and Sofia Shchukina, and edited by Molly Messick. It was engineered by James Willets and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Take the 2024 Planet Money Summer School Quiz here to earn your personalized diploma!

Find all the episodes from this season of Summer School here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School.

We are assembled here on the lawn of Planet Money University for the greatest graduation in history – because it features the greatest economic minds in history. We'll hear from Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and some surprising guests as they teach us a little bit more economics, and offer a lot of life advice.

But first, we have to wrap up our (somewhat) complete economic history of the world. We'll catch up on the last fifty years or so of human achievement and ask ourselves, has economics made life better for us all?

This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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Once considered noble and heroic, pigeons are now viewed as an urban nuisance — one that costs cities millions of dollars a year. Zachary Crockett tosses some crumbs.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Andrew Blechman, journalist and author.
  • David Champagne, owner of Bird Busters, Inc.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Racing Pigeon Sells For A Record-Breaking $1.9 Million At Auction," by Carlie Porterfield (Forbes, 2020).
  • "Feathers of Honor: U.S. Army Signal Corps Pigeon Service in World War I, 1917–1918," by Frank A. Blazich Jr. (Army History, 2020).
  • "Pigeon Wars," by Jon Mooallem (The New York Times, 2006).
  • Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird, by Andrew Blechman (2004).
  • "Pigeons Have Magnets," by Charles Walcott, James L. Gould, and J. L. Kirschvink (Science, 1979).
  • "The Pigeon as a Quality-Control Inspector," by Thom Verhave (American Psychologist, 1966).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Freakonomics Radio Live: 'Jesus Could Have Been a Pigeon,'" by Freakonomics Radio (2018).