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Best Podcasts
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We wanted to really understand how this whole housing bust/economic catastrophe is playing out. So we sent David Kestenbaum and Chana Joffe-Walt to Kansas City, where a former Wall Street guy named Wit Solberg runs a shop that buys and sells toxic assets. Wit sold them a $1,000 sliver of a toxic asset he'd bought for $36,000. The asset — a bond made up of residential mortgages — was marked down from the pre-crash price of $2.7 million. Of course, it's marked down for a reason. About 15 percent of the homes in the bond are in foreclosure, [...]
Could the Greek crisis spell the end of the Euro? No way, says Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen. Eichengreen, says that if the Greek parliament were to even discuss the possibility of going back to Greece's old currency, the Drachma, it would send people running from Greek bonds. Eichengreen's got plenty more to say about the Euro. He argued recently that European countries should put in place a system for Euro-zone bailouts, complete with "temporary control of the national budget by a committee of 'special masters' appointed by the European Union." (Somehow, this idea seems unlikely to [...]
The economies of Jamaica and Barbados — two countries with very similar histories — have grown far apart in the last several decades. That difference in GDP shows up in all sorts of ways, Planet Money's Alex Blumberg found on a recent trip to both countries. Today, we get the first installment: What schools look like in each country. A principal in Jamaica keeps her school running with help from neighborhood volunteers, a donation from a Jamaican pop star and some funding from a U.S. aid program. A principal at a similar school in Barbados says government funding [...]
Adam Davidson takes a road trip to Vegas, via Haiti. When Adam and Chana Joffe-Walt traveled to Haiti recently, they kept hearing about "Magic" — a big clothing trade show in Vegas that the Haitians hoped would be a post-earthquake boon for their apparel industry. So Adam went to Vegas for the show. But Haiti, as it turns out, is only a bit player on the Vegas scene, swamped by the likes of China, Bangladesh and Egypt. And the real star of the show turns out to be Ron Kirk, the U.S. trade representative. What Haiti [...]
Greece is scrambling to get its national debt under control. Investors are already nervous. So what would happen if Greece actually defaulted— if it simply stopped making payments on its bonds? Investors would go beyond nervous. They might even panic. Particularly because Greece isn't alone among European countries when it comes to being heavily indebted. Investors would start demanding higher interest rates on bonds sold by countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal. And then they, in turn, could default. At least, that's what Ken Rogoff, Harvard prof and former chief economist at the IMF, says [...]
Last week on This American Life, our own Alex Blumberg had a story about corporate personhood. The idea was actually pitched by Alex's dad, who was pretty upset about the recent Supreme Court ruling that essentially said: "Hey, giant companies are like people. So they get to spend money on political campaigns just like you and me." It was Alex's father's dream that motivated him to the bottom of this issue. He wanted Alex to call up Exxon Mobil and say: "Who do you think you are?" Alex's story went on the radio— but halfway [...]
We meet Yvrose Jean Baptiste, a small-time Haitian wholesaler. Yvrose has a unique business model. She borrows money from a microcredit bank and every two weeks takes a bus to the Dominican Republic border, where she buys a bunch of produce and products to bring back to Port-au-Prince. She then lends out her goods out to various small shop owners and people who sell things on the street. She gives them two weeks to sell everything and then comes back to pick up the money. Yrose says it's been a successful model in the past, but the earthquake has [...]
We meet "Mango Man," Jean Maurice Buteau who heads JMB exports in Port-au-Prince. Jean Maurice buys mangoes from rural Haitian farmers and sells them to the US. Unfortunately, between the mango farm and his office near the port, almost half the mangoes get damaged. If Jean Maurice could just get his farmers to put their mangoes in plastic crates, he says he could double his revenue and the farmers' income. We take a look at why a simple idea like plastic crates, is in Haiti, not so simple at [...]
We look at the world through the eyes of Matt LeBlanc, an efficiency expert (or lean expert), who runs around with a stopwatch and equations, trying to figure out how to eliminate waste in our economy. He finds it everywhere. LeBlanc says sometimes people love him and thank him. And sometimes [...]
Adam and Chana are on the ground in Haiti. And despite the general misery and constant funerals, Adam tells us people there are starting to talk about how to rebuild the country and the economy, maybe in a better way. The world helped rebuild Indonesia after the tsunami, and Rwanda after the genocide. But Haiti's troubles run deep, and have existed for [...] |
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