Pure maple syrup can be five times as expensive as “pancake syrup,” but maple farmers — and breakfast connoisseurs — say it’s worth it. Zachary Crockett pours it on thick.
SOURCES:
Emma Marvin, co-C.E.O. of Butternut Mountain Farm.
Last month, President Donald Trump announced an unusual deal. Intel, the biggest microchip maker in America, had agreed to give the United States a 10 percent stake in its business. That means the U.S. government is now Intel's largest shareholder — and a major American company is now a partially state-owned enterprise.
This deal has raised a lot of eyebrows. The U.S. government almost never gets tangled up with businesses like this. Some have accused the president of taking a step toward, well, socialism.
But the Intel deal didn’t come out of nowhere. It's actually the latest chapter in one of the most aggressive economic experiments the United States has ever attempted. An experiment that Trump is now taking in a surprising new direction.
On today's show, we unpack the Intel deal. Where did it come from, and what does it say about President Trump’s unconventional approach to managing the economy.
This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Keith Romer. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Jimmy Keeley with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
What does it take to “play 3D chess at 250 miles an hour”? And how far will $12.5 billion of “Big, Beautiful” funding go toward modernizing the F.A.A.? (Part two of a two-part series.)
There’s one question we seem to be hearing everywhere: “Is my job safe from AI?”
Dozens of you, our listeners, have written to us about this. Saying things like, “Maybe my yoga teacher side gig is actually my safest bet now,” and “My parents were in real estate, and I never thought I’d say it ... but maybe that’s what I should do?”
If only there were a list that could tell you which jobs are safe from AI. We go looking for that list…and find that the AI future is going to be even weirder than we’d imagined.
Today on the show: We talk to two researchers who have come up with some first drafts of the future. We learned more about the machines that might be coming for our jobs, and also, more about what it actually means to be human.
Today’s episode was produced by Eric Mennel and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Federal Reserve from a few angles. So we wanted to look at other examples of political pressure on central banks, to see what it might mean for us and for the economy.
Enter the watchers. The people who’ve had their eyes trained on central banks all over the world, for years, notebooks out, scribbling down their observations. They’ve been trying to gauge just how independent of political pressure central banks actually are – and what happens when a central bank loses that independence.
Today on the show, we sidle up next to three of the leading central bank watchers, to watch what they’re watching.
This episode was produced by Willa Rubin with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Robert Rodriguez and Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
Flying in the U.S. is still exceptionally safe, but the system relies on outdated tech and is under tremendous strain. Six experts tell us how it got this way and how it can (maybe) be fixed. (Part one of a two-part series.)
When we stumbled upon Milk.com, we were mystified. It appears to be someone’s personal website. But memorable domain names can be worth a million dollars or more. So, why is someone using this valuable internet real estate to post their resume and favorite recipes?
Back in the internet’s early days, it was easy to get a domain name. They were cheap or even free. The first people to grab them may now be holding onto assets that can sell for millions of dollars. These potential profits have attracted a unique breed of investor who buys and sells domain names, gambling on the value of everyday words.
On our latest show: What is a domain really worth? And we ask the owner of milk.com why he’s not selling — and if there’s a price that might change his mind.
Planet Money is writing a book! Sign up for updates about pre-sale special gifts and for book tour events.
This episode was hosted by Alex Mayyasi and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by James Willetts. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
(Routledge, 2025), which addresses the most important ethical and political questions about immigration and aims to teach by questioning rather than preaching. He urges conceptual clarity about terms like “civilization,” “state,” and “immigration,” and argues that framing debates strictly as “justice” disputes is unhelpful amid deep moral disagreement. Building on his book, Immigration and Freedom, he warns that immigration control often curtails citizens’ freedoms and highlights how restrictive policies can create a hostile climate toward migrants even where overall public support for immigration remains strong.
Dr. Chandran Kukathas is Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Political Science at School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University and a Distinguished Affiliated Fellow at the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of Immigration and Freedom (Princeton University Press, 2021) and The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2007).
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