Madeline
Planet Money is the podcast that discusses current and historical economic times. It belongs to the NPR suite of podcasts that covers business situations, and adds just a dash of humor to make learning about economics engaging. Although I subscribe to a number of NPR podcasts, this is the one I make an extra effort to listen to when a new episode becomes available. Because each episode explores a different part of the emerging economic situations, I have included a few of these episodes that have resinated with me and stuck in my mind.
Inflation And Skimflation
In the new COVID world where there is a shortage of people willing to work and yet inflation is higher than it has been in decades, we are now experiencing “skimflation.” This is the term that this episode dubs as what happens when these two things come together. It is explained as when people are paying more for a good or service but getting less in return. Examples of this that they provide include taking more time for a pizza to get delivered due to the shortage of cooks and delivery personal. Or waiting in long lines at the grocery store to purchase groceries for a higher price.
The Economic Issues For Ex Prisoners
When someone is released from prison they are given a list of court costs and fines that could be worth thousands of dollars of debt. This debt is full of random fees including mental health charges, medical expense, forensic fund, child abuse, and more. None of these fees have been directed to the person, they are general fees that everyone accumulates while in prison. These fees are not intended to be the punishment but they are. To make matters even worse, it is difficult for these people to find employment that will pay for daily expenses let alone these random fees.
The Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google
This episode was released when it was announced that the US filed a lawsuit for antitrust against Google. This is the law that prevents Monopolies from occurring. The lawsuit includes three parts of the Google business including general search and two other advertising business. It is now up to the court to decide if Google forces people to use only Google to search regardless of other (smaller but many) search engines. But many products use Google as the default search engine making it difficult for non technical users to change this.
What Remote Work Means To The Office
The two hosts make their own predictions on if remote work will continue or if the office will come back. They use the computer as a historical example of a similar past situation. They go into how big cities started to grow and rural communities shrank when offices became more prevalent. This then caused more people to make more money and therefore spend more money in these areas. It discusses how impromptu conversations occur in the office and not in remote work.
How To Loan The US Government Money
You can loan the US government money by purchasing a T-bill. They explain how to go about loaning the government money and the risk associated with it, basically none. But they also explain why the return on this loan is very little. They also explain why there is some risk into purchasing government debt, mostly through unexpected global circumstances, although it has almost never happened in the past. In this episode, they purchase government debt and show how to do it and what happens in real time.
