#planetmoney — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #planetmoney, aggregated by home.social.
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OK, I’m intrigued. And it should have some clues about how Palintir actually works. Planet money has some fascinating episodes.
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/02/nx-s1-5953112/palantir-software-data-surveillance
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played Sell Me a Sasquatch with the family.
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Older workers aren’t retiring. Should they be required to?
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Planet money talks about a Caribbean island has no formal property rights.
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/05/nx-s1-5913981/summer-school-caribbean-property-rights-sand-heist
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OK, I’m particularly interested in listening to this one!
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OMFG, Listening to "The Indicator from Planet Money" about a proposed system for verifying works were human created -- by requiring "the drafts" and looking at "the metadata" for files in Microsoft Word, etc.... WTFO?
So I'll never be able to prove that I've *ever* written anything ever in my life because I use plain text and only plain text?
NO, ****er, you can't see my "vim metadata".
This really pisses me off -- it's because I'm a human being (and not a consumer drone) that I use plain text and never any "office" program or "word processor" -- those just aren't products (open source or not) that I need to use or would ever use.
Text should always be text -- good old UTF-8 or ASCII. No metadata. No containers. No licenses. Nothing but text 'cause that's what text is.
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placed a hold request for the #PlanetMoney book.
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Me: aw, come on fellas, don’t make fun of me, I’m a cool guy
Also me: Hooray! My pre-ordered copy of “Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces that Shape Your Life” by Alex Mayyasi and the Hosts of #NPR’s Planet Money just got in!!!!
🤓
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#BookReview for "Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life" by the team behind #NPR 's #PlanetMoney podcast.
Recommended
Common economic concepts (cost disease, compound interest, cartels and more) presented in a lively way.
The book is clearly made for print first and audio second. It lacks the conversational back-and-forth of the podcast. The first chapter in particular is jarring - presumably made of many small tidbits of information presented in a visually interesting way, but lacking smooth transitions in an audio medium.
Still, the team does a good job of keeping the discussion lively, using real world examples and a light tone as they make the concepts approachable for a wide audience. -
I just listened to this Planet Money episode about NBA teams taking to get better draft picks: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/06/nx-s1-5739178/nba-draft-tanking
Here's my plan for solving the problem. Tell me what's wrong with it!
Rank the teams based on their whole-season performance, BUT rather than considering all the games for the entire season, use a random subsample of games (like, say, ¼), with the random selection algorithm weighted to choose more games near the start of the season.
#PlanetMoney #NBA #NBADraft (1/3) -
Planet Money: "Don't hate the replicator, hate the game"
A solution to the "replication crisis" in some fields, maybe.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/27/nx-s1-5720653/replication-crisis-games-abel-brodeur
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When Trump decided to collect #tariffs some companies thought this was illegal, and they sued to get their money back. No one knew what the #SupremeCourt would decide. Companies that wanted money now, sold their rights to any future refund for 20% of its value. Hedge funds paid them for this right. When the Court ruled tariffs illegal, a company could now get 40% from a hedge fund for quick cash. If a company wanted the full 100%, it would have to pay for a lawyer. Source: #PlanetMoney podcast.
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@drahardja There's apparently (thanks, #PlanetMoney!) A good amount of solid research that says when your central bank becomes non-independent, the economy suffers. These folks surely know this.
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Planet Money gets AI wrong (again)
In its ongoing quest to provide cover for the AI bubble, Planet Money ignores the fact that rigged markets aren't efficient and that data centers built specifically for AI are useless for anything else.
https://blog.kamens.us/2026/01/11/planet-money-gets-ai-wrong-again/
#PlanetMoney #NPR #economics #AI #bubbles -
Planet Money gets AI wrong (again)
Planet Money‘s coverage of generative AI has been consistently facile and far too reluctant to challenge or examine critically the claims of AI proponents. Their most recent episode about this, “So are we in an AI bubble? Here are clues to look for,” was so bad that I felt compelled to send them this email about it:
To: [email protected]
Subject: What you missed about the AI bubbleI just finished listening to https://www.npr.org/2026/01/09/nx-s1-5672643/market-ai-what-is-a-bubble. It was hugely problematic.
First of all, you failed to acknowledge or mention or even hint at in any way the fact that bubbles are very often driven by at best smoke and mirrors and at worst outright cheating and fraud.
I don’t have to tell you about all the fraud that caused the housing bubble, because you reported on it extensively and in great detail.
As for the dot com bubble, I was there, working for a company whose IPO paid for the down-payment for the house I still live in 29 years later, and I can tell you first-hand that all of us engineers working for that company knew that senior management was delusional and our IPO was driven by lies. Not to mention all the jokes that were being told during that bubble, of which you surely must be aware, about how all any startup had to do to to get a huge pile of investor cash was put the word “internet” in their pitch somewhere.
There is every reason to believe this same thing is going on with AI. There have been plenty of news articles explaining why—much of it straight economics reporting your team should surely be aware of—and plenty of rock-star experts in the field calling it out on a regular basis.
You failed to acknowledge any of this. Instead, you begged the question by assuming that the market efficiency hypothesis (i.e., Fama) is correct, and then the rest of what you said for the entire episode was predicated on that assumption. Markets where investment is being driven by lying, cheating, and fraud are not efficient, they are rigged. Rigged markets cannot be sustained forever; this is why bubbles pop.
Second, the bit at the end about “maybe all these data centers we’re building will be useful for something else even if the bubble pops” entirely missed the point—which, again, is no secret, it’s mentioned frequently in news coverage—that these data centers are being built specifically for AI with hardware which is only good for AI and which becomes obsolete and has to be replaced at gargantuan expense every few years. This is nothing like the fiber optics you mentioned as a supposedly comparable example. Fiber-optic cables can be used to carry any data for any purpose. AI data centers can’t be repurposed for other things without ripping out all the hardware inside them and replacing it, at huge financial and environmental cost.
There are plenty of experts who could have discussed both of these issues intelligently. It’s journalistic malpractice that you didn’t seek them out and include any of what they have to say for this episode.
Jonathan Kamens
#AI #bubbles #economics #NPR #PlanetMoney -
"When Chicago pawned its parking meters"
Chicago has restrictions on what it can do to improve its transit situation due to a stupid contact it signed.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5642708/chicago-parking-meter-privitization
#transit #Chicago #ChicagoHistory #NPR #PlanetMoney #podcast
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Why the US chose not to have a passenger train system like Europe 🚆
Why can't the US be like Europe, Japan or India? US railroads could still be worth bragging about.
"The US has more railroad tracks than any other country, including China, which has extensive rail systems. But those tracks are almost exclusively used to transport goods, not people."
#Trains #Rail #PassengerRail #FreightRail #US #AllanZarembski #PlanetMoney #Amtrak #TheIndicator #MardiGrasExpress
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So I assumed buy now pay later was a long term play where they would eventually charge for doing it.
Turns out the businesses are footing the bill if you use it
Learned from the planet money podcast from #npr
Buy now, pay dearly? (update) https://one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5605981:nx-s1-mx-5802357
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CW: After the shutdown, SNAP will still be in trouble
You may already be aware that Tyrant #Trump is refusing to allow food stamps to be issued, even though he could.
But even beyond that, his "big beautiful bill" could spell the end of SNAP in multiple states. This #PlanetMoney #economics #podcast episode tells the story. Claiming they're tackling fraud, Republicans have placed onerous restrictions on states, while cutting the resources they have to meet those restrictions - which will cause most states to have to fund their own SNAP programs, which not all states can afford.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/31/nx-s1-5593039/snap-ebt-food-stamps-oregon -
The latest #PlanetMoney episode is literally "why don't people trust economists? We've asked four economists..." :D
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CW: A thought experiment on how to fix the national debt problem
The #NPR #economics #podcast #PlanetMoney had an interesting episode on how #Trump is massively increasing the national debt, and possible solutions - ways to grow the economy, which would lessen the impact of the debt. Both left-leaning and right-leaning economists weighed in on how to grow the economy.
tl:dr; Trump's doing everything wrong, basically the opposite of what you'd want to do to grow the national GDP.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/02/1255100731/national-debt-crisis-growth-budget -
is listening to the "We bought a toxic asset" playlist from #PlanetMoney.
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🚀 Another HARD-HITTING exposé from Planet Money reveals that modern medicine is apparently so advanced that we should all just be cured by now! 🙄 Meanwhile, 14 million Americans didn’t get the memo and continue to abuse the system for a good nap while earning those sweet disability checks. 😴💰
https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ #HackerNews #PlanetMoney #ModernMedicine #DisabilitySystem #HealthCareExposé #HackerNews #ngated -
CW: Current events, economics
This week, the US imposed tariffs on the world, in proportion to America's trade deficit with each country, before putting tariffs for all but China on pause.
But what is a trade deficit? And is it a problem the US has the highest total trade deficit in the world? (It depends.) https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/1243652738/tariffs-trump-trade-deficit-white-house (24 minute listen)
#podcasts #economics #radyListens #planetMoney #tradeDeficit #capitalInflow #foreignInvestment #netExports #macroeconomics #housingCrisis
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#PlanetMoney buys a mystery #diamond https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/1240892101/diamond-market-natural-lab-grown-gemological
Just checked on Alibaba, Ebay, and Amazon, wholesale lab-grown diamonds are super cheap!
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The Tangerine Tyrant is a genius.
Taxes are unpopular but Governments needs money.
Xenophobia is rife, tariffs are a popular idea.
Tariffs are a tax on the country imposing them. A popular tax!
This Planet Money episode prompted my revelation.https://pca.st/episode/d29812d3-8ced-4ac0-b85c-05d711f28dc3
#NPR #PlanetMoney #ArmchairEconomist