Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

We want to make a board game. It must, of course, teach the world about economics. It must be fun. It’d be nice if it sold lots of copies! How hard could that be!? (Monopoly and Catan are hugely popular and basically little economy simulators, after all.)

Well, turns out, it’s quite hard!

We’re in a golden age of tabletop games. Thirty years ago there were around 800 new games each year. Now it is more like 5,000. Just a handful of those get to be hits. 

In the first episode of our new series, Planet Money sets forth on an epic quest to beat the odds. 

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This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

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Polly Trottenberg and Kenneth Levin discuss the highs and lows of the American air traffic control system. To get subscriber-only episodes, sign up for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

The post A 30,000-Foot View of Air Traffic Control appeared first on Freakonomics.

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Some singles choose to skip the apps and get fixed up the old-fashioned way — but it doesn't come cheap. Zachary Crockett puts himself out there.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Maria Avgitidis, C.E.O. of Agape Match and author of Ask a Matchmaker: Matchmaker Maria's No-Nonsense Guide to Finding Love.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Dating Apps Have Hit a Wall. Can They Turn Things Around?" by J. Edward Moreno (New York Times, 2024).
  • "Love, (un)automated: Human matchmaking in the era of online dating," by Liesel Sharabi (Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2024).
  • "The New Old Dating Trend," by Faith Hill (The Atlantic, 2023).
  • "What It’s Like to Work With a Matchmaker," by Alyson Krueger (New York Times, 2021).
  • "New York State Dating Service Consumer Bill of Rights."

 

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The next time you open your fridge, take a second to behold the miracles inside of it: Raspberries from California, butter from New Zealand, steak from Nebraska. None of that would have been remotely possible before the creation of the cold chain. 

The cold chain is the name for the end-to-end refrigeration of our food from farm to truck to warehouse to grocery store and ultimately to our fridges at home. And it’s one of the great achievements of the modern world. 

On today’s show, Nicola Twilley, food journalist and author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, tells us the story of how our world got cold, and what that’s meant for the economy.  

We’ll hear about two pioneers of cold: The cheapskate meat baron Gustavus Swift, and the train-hopping chemist Polly Pennington. And we’ll take a look at whether all this refrigeration might have created some new problems. 

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Today’s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Nick Fountain and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Keith Romer. 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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In this episode we first published in 2021, the political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang argues that different forms of government create different styles of corruption — and that the U.S. and China have more in common than we’d like to admit.

The post Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China? (Update) appeared first on Freakonomics.

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On Wall Street, fortunes are often won and lost with the tiniest advantages. And for the past few years, one trading firm has stood out from the rest for both huge profits and careful secrecy — Jane Street Group.


But last year, one of Jane Street’s biggest and most lucrative trading strategies was unexpectedly revealed in a Manhattan courtroom. The news ricocheted around the world. It drew the attention of competitors and regulatory agencies, destabilized billions of dollars worth of trades, and called into question some of the most fundamental strategies in global finance. 

Some Planet Money episodes about finance:

• The rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management
• How George Soros forced the UK to devalue the pound

Further reading: 

• Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC, Douglas Schadewald, and Daniel Spottiswood
• “Jane Street’s Indian Options Trade Was Too Good,” from Bloomberg
• SEBI's report: "Interim Order in the matter of Index manipulation by Jane Street Group"
• “Jane Street Defends India Trading Activity, Blasts Regulator,” from Bloomberg

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This episode was produced by Eric Mennel, with production help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Cooper Katz-McKim. It was edited by Jess Jiang. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark


Music in this episode:

Bob Bradley, “Cyber Crime”

Jason Bowld; Colin Doran, “Falling Apart 2”

Runman, “Dark Shop”

Martin Haene [SUISA], “Heavy Trip”

Adam Riches [PRS], Murray David Stockdale [PRS], Sammy Gordonski [PRS], “Monster”

Alex Arcoleo;Josh Oliver, “Day Dreamer”

Alex Arcoleo, “Best Part”


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They have thousands of congregants and millions of dollars in income. Zachary Crockett passes the collection plate.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Julie Roys, founder of the Roys Report.
  • Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford International University, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "The faithful see both crisis and opportunity as churches close across the country," by Scott Neuman (NPR, 2023).
  • "Million Dollar Homes Become Status Symbols of Televangelists and Pastors," by Barry Bowen (Trinity Foundation, 2022).
  • "Megachurch 2020," by Scott Thumma and Warren Bird (Hartford Institute for Religion Research, 2020).
  • Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches, by Scott Thumma and Dave Travis (2007).
  • "Ministers' Compensation & Housing Allowance," (IRS).
  • MinistryWatch.

 

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Israel has been blocking the flow of physical money into Gaza since the start of the war. So whatever paper cash was in Gaza before the war, that’s all that’s been circulating. It’s now falling apart from overuse. 


Two best friends, one in Gaza and one in Belgium, are now trying to get money in.


But how do you get money into a bank account in Gaza? And how do you get that money out, in Gaza, when there are no functioning banks or ATMs? And almost no electricity. And spotty internet. And what is there to buy? How does money even work in Gaza right now? 


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This episode was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo, Robert Rodriguez, and James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer. 

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In his new book “Breakneck,” Dan Wang argues that the U.S. has a lot to learn from China. He also says that “no two peoples are more alike.” We have questions.

The post China Is Run by Engineers. America Is Run by Lawyers. appeared first on Freakonomics.

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A lot of jobs in the modern economy don’t pay a living wage, and some of those jobs may be wiped out by new technologies. So what’s to be done? We revisit an episode from 2016 for a potential solution.

The post Is the World Ready for a Guaranteed Basic Income? (Update) appeared first on Freakonomics.

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