Back in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning and the shelter-in-place orders brought the economy to a screeching halt, a quirky-but-clever idea to save the economy made its way up to some of the highest levels of government. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib proposed an ambitious relief bill to keep the country’s metaphorical lights on: recurr ... Show More
Sep 2023
A black market, a currency crisis, and a tango competition in Argentina
The Nobel-prize winning economist Simon Kuznets once analyzed the world's economies this way — he said there are four kinds of countries: developed, underdeveloped, Japan... and Argentina.
If you want to understand what happens when inflation really goes off the rails, go to Arge ... Show More
23m 57s
Jun 2023
Why This Economist Wants to Give Every Poor Child $50,000
<p>“Wealth is the paramount indicator of economic prosperity and well-being,” says the economist Darrick Hamilton. He’s right. Policy analysis tends to focus on income, but it is wealth that often determines whether we can send our kids to college, pay for an illness, quit a job, ... Show More
52m 54s
Jun 2024
The Economic Theory That Explains Why Americans Are So Mad
<p>There’s something weird happening with the economy. On a personal level, most Americans say they’re doing pretty well right now. And according to the data, that’s true. Wages have gone up faster than inflation. Unemployment is low, the stock market is generally up so far this ... Show More
1h 31m
Apr 2021
Killing the Gold Standard
April 18, 1933. It’s almost midnight in Washington, DC. Newly-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has gathered his economic advisors for a late-night meeting. He called this meeting to announce his plan to effectively take the US off the gold standard, the system by which ... Show More
28m 5s
Nov 2023
Economic fact in literary fiction
Some of the most influential and beloved novels of the last few years have been about money, finance, and the global economy. Some overtly so, others more subtly. It got to the point where we just had to call up the authors to find out more: What brought them into this world? Wha ... Show More
26m 22s