Anti-impact environmentalists want you dead; they will settle, in the short term, for you to feel guilty for existing, producing and consuming, and willing to comply with any degree of central planning and freedom curtailment to “save the planet” from you.
Karissa Tang is a 17-year-old in California who got curious about the impact of AI on typical teen jobs like cashiers and fast food counter workers. She embarked on an ambitious economic research project and shares her findings with us.
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.
In the final episode, we’re looking at the numbers behind some of the UK’s most potent political debates:
Has 98% of the UK’s population growth come from immigration?
Do we spend more on benefits in the UK than in other high-income countries?
Is the gap between rich and poor growing?
Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Contributors:
Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University
Lukas Lehner, Assistant Professor at the University of Edinburgh
Arun Advani, Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation and a Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick.
Alex Scholes, Research Director at NatCen
Credits:
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Lizzy McNeill, Nathan Gower, Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon
With American intervention in Venezuela, some are claiming that the Trump administration is simply invoking the Monroe Doctrine, or its corollary, the “Donroe” Doctrine. In reality, neither doctrine is an appropriate reason for US military intervention in Latin America.
Whatever advances Great Britain made during the Margaret Thatcher years have long been reversed as the UK finds itself in decline of its economy and social fabric. Big government, once again, is the culprit.
In his inaugural speech, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared an end to “rugged individualism” and the embrace of “the warmth of collectivism.” New Yorkers are about to find out that collectivism will not produce what they need to have better lives.
Berlin nightclub in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood closed permanently in November 2023, after four decades in business. The closure happened amid stalled negotiations between the bar’s owners and its unionizing employees. Today, the space remains empty, and it’s unclear what will take its place.
In our last episode, Curious City looked into a mural that was a staple at Berlin for much of its existence. Today, we revisit an episode of WBEZ’s The Rundown podcast from just after the club closed. In asking some of the people who worked there, danced there and made memories there, it’s obvious that Berlin was more than just a bar.
“It felt like a secret almost,” said All The Way Kay, who DJed at Berlin for over 15 years. “It felt like something that you wanted to hold very, very close to you because spaces like that really don't exist.”
We talked with Kay, queer historian Owen Keehnen, DJ Greg Haus and several listeners who called The Rundown podcast to share what Berlin meant to them and what they hope for the future.
What kind of state does the UK find itself in as we start 2026? That’s the question Tim Harford and the More or Less team is trying to answer in a series of five special programmes.
In the fourth episode, we’re searching for answers to these questions:
Are one in four pensioners millionaires?
Is England’s education system performing better than Finland’s? And how does it compare to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Are our prisons going to run out of space?
Is the weather getting weirder?
Get in touch if you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at: moreorless@bbc.co.uk
Contributors:
Heidi Karjalainen, Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Harry Fletcher-Wood, Director of Training at StepLab
John Jerrim, Professor of Education and Social Statistics at University College London
Cassia Rowland, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government
Friederike Otto, Professor of Climate Science at Imperial College London
Credits:
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producers: Lizzy McNeill, Nathan Gower, Katie Solleveld and Charlotte McDonald
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound mix: Sarah Hockley and Neil Churchill
Editor: Richard Vadon
President Trump claims Venezuela stole American oil. Is that true? We trace Venezuela's oil industry from its 1920s birth through nationalization and then collapse. Today on the show, how did the Venezuelan oil industry get to a point where it’s barely pulling from its reserves? And will anything change now?