Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

This episode originally ran in 2015.

About one hundred years ago, a scientist and statistician named Francis Galston came upon an opportunity to test how well regular people were at answering a question. He was at a fair where lots of people were guessing the weight of an ox, so he decided to take the average of all their guesses and compare it to the correct answer.

What he found shocked him. The average of their guesses was almost exactly accurate. The crowd was off by just one pound.

This eerie phenomenon—this idea that the crowd is right—drives everything from the stock market to the price of orange juice.

So, we decided to test it for ourselves. We asked Planet Money listeners to guess the weight of a cow.

Spoiler: You can see the results here.

This episode was hosted by David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein. It was produced by Nadia Wilson and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Those letters at the end of web addresses can mean big bucks — and, for some small countries, a substantial part of the national budget. Zachary Crockett follows the links.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Vince Cate, technical contact for the .ai domain in Anguilla.
  • Kim Davies, Vice President of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority Services and President of Public Technical Identifiers at ICANN.
  • Tianyu Fang, contributing editor at Reboot.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "The Two-Decade Fight for Two Letters on the Internet," by Jacob Judah (The New York Times, 2024).
  • "Whose Domain Is It?" by Tianyu Fang (Reboot, 2023).
  • "How a Tiny Pacific Island Became the Global Capital of Cybercrime," by Jacob Judah (MIT Technology Review, 2023).
  • "The Tropical Island With the Hot Domain Name," by Rachel Metz (Bloomberg, 2023).
  • "The Never-ending ccTLD Story," by Peter K. Yu (SSRN, 2003).

Last month, Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years. That is a really big deal, because it means that one of the spookiest stories in modern economics might finally have an ending.

Back in the 1980s, Japan performed something of an economic miracle. It transformed itself into the number two economy in the world. From Walkmans to Toyotas, the U.S. was awash in Japanese imports. And Japanese companies went on a spending spree. Sony bought up Columbia Pictures. Mitsubishi became the new majority owners of Rockefeller Center.

But in the early 1990s, it all came to a sudden halt. Japan went from being one of the fastest growing countries in the world to one of the slowest. And this economic stagnation went on and on and on. For decades.

On this episode, the unnerving story of Japan's Lost Decades: How did one of the most advanced economies in the world just fall down one day — and not be able to get up? Japan's predicament changed our understanding of what can go wrong in a modern economy. And gave us some new tools to try and deal with it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and engineered by Cena Loffredo. It was edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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In 2019, Mike Ketchmark got a call. Mike is a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, and his friend, Brandon Boulware, another lawyer, was calling about a case he wanted Mike to get involved with. Mike was an unusual choice - he's a personal injury lawyer, and this was going to be an antitrust case.

But Brandon knew Mike was great in front of a jury. And that he'd won huge settlements for his clients in the past.

So the lawyer friend drops by Mike's office, and pitches him the case. Rhonda and Scott Burnett had just sold their home for $250,000, and out of that amount, they had paid $15,000 in commission (plus a small fee), which was split between two real estate agents - even though they had hired only one. And the commission was high - 6%. Mike's friend said the whole thing seemed... suspicious. Maybe even illegal.

Mike agreed to take the case, a case that would soon become bigger than one about just what had happened to the Burnetts. It would become a fight about the way homes are bought and sold in the U.S. and challenge the way real estate agents have done business for more than 100 years.

This episode was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Keith Romer. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Keith Romer, engineered by Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke chats with David Beito on his latest book, The New Deal’s War on the Bill of Rights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance (Independent Institute, 2023). Beito begins by recounting his early interests in classical liberalism, his association with then fellow student, Nancy MacLean, and his work on tax revolts and mutual aid societies. He then discusses FDR’s ideological motivations and his pragmatic approach to politics, critiques FDR’s encroachment on civil rights, including his approval of Japanese concentration camps, and explains the contrast between FDR’s legacy amongst historians and economists.

David T. Beito is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Alabama and a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute in California. He is the author of five books including From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

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CC Music: Twisterium

The verdant lawns promise everlasting rest — but what does it mean to sign a lease for all eternity? Zachary Crockett finds out where the bodies are buried.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Terry Arellano, co-founder and president of Cemetery Property Resales, Inc.
  • Jeff Lindeman, C.E.O. and General Manager of Mountain View Cemetery.
  • Tanya Marsh, professor of law at Wake Forest University.
  • Maureen Walton, founder and president of The Cemetery Exchange.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Los Angeles Burial Crypt Near Marilyn Monroe, Hugh Hefner on Sale for $2 Million," by Stephanie Nolasco (Fox 10 Phoenix, 2023).
  • "Why the Brooklyn-Queens Border Is Full of Dead People," by Keith Williams (The New York Times, 2017).
  • "Death in the City: What Happens When All Our Cemeteries Are Full?" by Ana Naomi de Sousa (The Guardian, 2015).
  • "Our First Public Parks: The Forgotten History of Cemeteries," by Rebecca Greenfield (The Atlantic, 2011).
  • "Selling a Burial Plot is a Grave Decision," by Erin Peterson (Kiplinger, 2010).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "How to Be Better at Death," by Freakonomics Radio (2021).

There's been a lot of disagreement in Congress and in the country about whether the U.S. should continue to financially support the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Some taxpayers don't think the U.S. should give Ukraine any money to fight off Russia's invasion. And some taxpayers have concerns about how they might be funding weapons that have been used to kill civilians in Gaza. And there are questions about how much individual taxpayers contribute to war efforts, generally.

So in this episode, we attempt to do the math: The average taxpayers' contribution to Israel and Ukraine. It's not so simple. But in attempting to do this math, we get this window into the role of our tax dollars on foreign assistance, and how the U.S. sells weapons to other countries.

For links to some of the reports we looked at to report this episode, check out the episode page on NPR.org.

This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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(Note: This episode originally ran in 2020.)

In the restaurant game, you need to make the most of every table every minute you are open. And you need to make sure your guests are happy, comfortable, and want to come back.

If you're a restaurateur, your gut tells you "more seats, more money," but, in this episode, restaurant design expert Stephani Robson upends all that and more. She helps Roni Mazumdar, owner of the casual Indian spot Adda in New York's Long Island City, rethink how a customer behaves at a table, and how small changes can lead to a lot more money.

It's a data-driven restaurant makeover.

This episode was originally produced by Darian Woods and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler produced this update. Engineering by Isaac Rodrigues and Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark originally edited the show and is now Planet Money's executive producer.

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Relocating halfway across the world is hard enough for humans. For pets it can require a specialist. Zachary Crockett waits at the airport, holding a sign saying "Fluffy."

 

• SOURCES:
  • Amelia Barklow, owner of two pet ducks, Wobbles and Bean.
  • Mike Gays, managing director of Global Pet Relocation.
  • Gemma Tappin, pet relocation consultant team leader at Global Pet Relocation.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Service Dogs Are Allowed on Planes, but There Are Some Requirements to Get Them There," by Zach Wichter (USA Today, 2023).
  • "More Dogs Die on United Than on Any Other Airline. Here’s Why," by Martine Powers (The Washington Post, 2018).
  • "Emotional support peacock denied flight by United Airlines," by Daniella Silva (NBC News, 2018).
  • "Banned by Many Airlines, These Bulldogs Fly Private," by Christine Haughney (The New York Times, 2011).
  • Pet Travel information, by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Should You Trust Private Equity to Take Care of Your Dog?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023).

It is rare that a new e-commerce company has such a meteoric rise as Temu. The company, which launched in the fall of 2022, has been flooding the American advertising market, buying much of the inventory of Facebook, Snapchat, and beyond. According to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Temu is one of the most downloaded iPhone apps in the country, with around 50 million monthly active users.

On today's show, we go deep on Temu: How does it work, how did it manage such a quick rise in the U.S., and what hints might it offer us about the future of retail? Plus, we'll talk to the bicycle-loving U.S. Representative who is working to shut down a loophole that has proved very helpful to Temu's swift ascent.

This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi with reporting from Emily Feng. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Keith Romer, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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