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Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.

Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney

Most Recent Episodes

Why you bought your couch
Amanda Aronczyk/NPR

Why you bought your couch

You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it. Because it was comfy. Or blue. Or the right price. But what if the style, the color, the cost, maybe even whether you would like it, were choices made for you years before you even thought about buying that piece of furniture.

Why you bought your couch

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Title insurance, title pirates, and a house built on someone else's land.
VisualField/Getty Images

Title insurance, title pirates, and a house built on someone else's land.

A couple years ago, Gina Leto, a real estate developer, bought a property with her business partner. The process went like it usually did: Lots of paperwork; a virtual closing. Pretty cut-and-dry. Gina and her partner started building a house on the property.

Title insurance, title pirates, and a house built on someone else's land.

Listen · 25:30
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The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)
Edwin Levick/Getty Images

The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)

Mass deportations. What would actually happen—economically—if the President-elect follows through on promises to deport millions of people from America.

The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators)

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The great German land lottery

Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung, a land lottery dating back centuries. Erika Beras/NPR hide caption

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Erika Beras/NPR

The great German land lottery

Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung, a ritual dating back centuries. Osing refers to the area. And verlosung means "lottery," as in a land lottery. All of the land in this communal land is randomly reassigned to farmers who commit to farming it for the next decade.

The great German land lottery

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The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made

What does it take to make the most advanced microchips in the world? For one, you need some of the smoothest mirrors humanity has ever produced. Jeff Guo/NPR hide caption

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Jeff Guo/NPR

The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made

This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.

The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made

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What markets bet President Trump will do
Chip Somodevilla/Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

What markets bet President Trump will do

On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By reading those signals — by breaking down what people were buying and what they were selling — you can learn a lot about where the economy might be headed. Or at least, where people are willing to bet the economy is headed.

What markets bet President Trump will do

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Moving to the American dream? (update)
Alastair Pike/AFP via Getty Images

Moving to the American dream? (update)

Back in the 90s, the federal government ran a bold experiment, giving people vouchers to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods into low-poverty ones. They wanted to test if housing policy could be hope – whether an address change alone could improve jobs, earnings and education.

Moving to the American dream? (update)

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The veteran loan calamity

The US Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. Alastair Pike/Getty Images hide caption

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Alastair Pike/Getty Images

The veteran loan calamity

Ray and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because of Ray's service in the Army. During COVID, the Queens – like millions of other Americans – needed help from emergency forbearance. They were told they could pause home payments for up to a year and then pick up again making affordable mortgage payments with no problems.

The veteran loan calamity

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So your data was stolen in a data breach
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

So your data was stolen in a data breach

If you... exist in the world, it's likely that you have gotten a letter or email at some point informing you that your data was stolen. This happened recently to potentially hundreds of millions of people in a hack that targeted companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, Advance Auto Parts and others that use the data cloud company Snowflake.

So your data was stolen in a data breach

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