F@#$ Planet Money

Onto a Podcast review!

The skip to the end sentence:  I love this podcast, listen to it if you can.

I first found Planet Money while listening to This American Life.  The Planet Money staff did a stripped down explanation of the 2008 mortgage crisis, and it was clever, humorous and informative.  So I subscribed to the Pod Cast.

Stripped down is their modus operandi.  The PM staff has a knack of explaining complex issues into easy to follow language. 

This is not to say they come up with definitive conclusions, like ever.  Economics revolves around competing opinions and values.  Economics is inherently messy.  I contrast that with Freakonomics.  Freakonomics, while also asking interesting questions, is run by rock star economist Steven Levitt.  And while Levitt has novel/intriguing stories, Levitt rarely admits possibility of error.

PM is run by laymen reporters.  Reporters who routinely look for the divergent opinions. 

PM also has an endearing DIY attititude.  A couple years ago, they wanted to do a story on toxic assets.  Whats the best way to handle that?  Well to buy one of course.

So they did, named it Toxie and did a series of stories on what made Toxie toxic.  From the purchasing of it, the tracking down and attempted interviews with the distressed mortgage holders within it, and the byzantine way the money was paid out.  Long story short for toxie, besides people getting behind on their mortgages, there were about 90 levels of payment priority.  Toxie was in the bottom third, so as payments dried up, Toxie stopped paying out earlier.

From the remaining Toxie money, they bought some gold.  And did a series of stories on the crazy gold inflation of the past couple years.  Like how did gold become a currency anyways?

PM has also explored manufacturing by forming a company to make T-Shirts.  They also explored off shore corporations by forming one.  Located in Belize, they named it UnBelizable.

Anyways, the Podcast that inspired this post was #430, were they looked at V!agra spam.  The most surprising thing, is that these black market pharmacies actually sent the correct medications.  They did recommend NOT ordering from this, leaving aside the illegal to buy without a prescription issue.  You surrender information to sketchy companies, including your phone number.  And they relayed a testimonial from a person who quit ordering from these pharmacies and had to stop answering their phone due to the volume of harrasing sales calls.