The Indicator from Planet Money

High mortgage rates are nudging some aspiring homeowners to consider adjustable-rate mortgages over the standard 30-year fixed-rate option. Are ARMs the better choice in today’s economy?

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–When mortgage rates are too low to give up
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Pakistan in recent years has taken a U-turn on cryptocurrency, opting to regulate digital assets instead of outright banning them. On today’s show, what the country’s crypto boosters hope to gain for their efforts and why religious scholars are still skeptical of its value.

Fact checking by Leyla Doss.

Your Next Listen
–How stable is stablecoin?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

On a very spooktacular Indicators of the EEK!: How America’s top corporations are ghosting their taxes; why more meal deals are an ominous sign; and terrifying Halloween candy prices!

Fact checking by Corey Bridges

Your Next Listen
–A finance fright fest–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org/.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The landmark supreme source case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates for massive corporate spending in elections. Today, can a Montana ballot initiative pave the way for getting corporate money out of American elections?

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Can a "moneyball" system work for campaign funding?–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Does business school fix the world? Or does it just churn out consultants, bankers and tech workers? A professor and a dean debate the value of the modern-day MBA.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
––Are small town colleges going extinct?
––Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org/.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Meta’s new AI agent Muse is one of the fastest-growing apps ever. It’s a big bet from a company spending billions to win the AI race. But what is the real cost of using this powerful, free AI product?

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–SNAP strains, youth baseball's class divide, and Meta's bug bounty–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

There are now more bots than humans online. What does that mean for how we experience the internet? Can bots and humans peacefully coexist online?

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Can the internet survive AI summaries?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

This week’s notable indicators: A distressing credit warning for CoreWeave, a Pokémon heist, and depleted maple syrup reserves in Canada.

Fact checking by Cooper Katz McKim.

Your Next Listen
–Why Pokemon cards are growing faster than your retirement account
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Elections are more expensive than ever, but are campaign donations going to the races where they’ll make the most impact? Today, we talk to the startup co-founder of Oath who believes there’s a smarter way to allocate individual donations.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–How did political campaigns get so expensive?–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Should money and class figure more prominently in how we identify ourselves? Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi thinks yes. Today on the show, a conversation with Mona, author of the forthcoming book Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Chasing the American Dream at Outback Steakhouse–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The United States national debt is running at more than $40 trillion dollars. It’s a potential crisis in the making, but President Donald Trump suggested it can all be solved just by inflating the debt away. Today, we dig into the nitty gritty on how and when inflating the national debt could work.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Is the federal debt REALLY that bad?–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Oracle, the multinational tech giant has taken on a lot of loans to build up its AI capacity. But Oracle’s investors are not happy with this piling debt load. We explain why Oracle is such a pivotal player — and potentially weak link — in the AI-fueled economy.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–How the bond market is handling AI risk?
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Is AI coming for our jobs? Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes AI could wipe out many white-collar jobs in the next few years. While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argues AI will reshape existing roles and create even more jobs than we have now. So which future are we really facing: a job-pocalypse or a jobs transformation?

For answers, join The Indicator's Adrian Ma for "Ask An Economist.” This is a virtual event and live Q&A featuring two economists who've studied this issue: Daron Acemoglu, a Nobel Prize-winning professor at MIT, and Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at Stanford and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. We’ll also invite you to ask questions and share your thoughts!

It's Wednesday, October 28th, at 3:00pm ET, noon PT. This is a Zoom event exclusively for NPR+ and other qualifying supporters. For registration and event details, you can listen to this audio message or check out http://npr.org/askaneconomist.

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

This week’s indicators: Why is inflation so super (derogatory)? How did Bumble go from dating app doldrums to a stock market sweetheart?; And oh, bother! Could Winnie the Pooh be moving home to England from New York City?

Fact checking by Leyla Doss.

Your Next Listen
–Retiree benefits bump, credit repayment slump, and a dating app in the dumps–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org/.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

The 2026 midterm elections are fast approaching, and it’s gearing up to be the most expensive election in American history. So how did we get here, where every election feels more expensive than the last?

Today on the show, we’re exploring what’s causing the flood of money into our politics.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Bad economics, smart politics–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

A labyrinthine rebate process. Shrinking cereal boxes. Mystery rental car charges. Cockroaches?! We share listener tales of Consumer Rage and unpack the economic forces driving that ANGER.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Consumers are mad as hell and aren't gonna take it anymore–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org/.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

This year's Nobel Prize for Economics went to American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford! Their research focused on macroeconomic models and economic shocks.

But … How did we get a Nobel Prize in economics, or as it’s actually called, the more long-winded “Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel”? And why did nearly 70 years pass between the first Nobel Prizes and a Nobel recognition for economics?

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Why do we live in unusually innovative times?–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org/.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Nearly 30 million bison once roamed North America, from modern Canada to Mexico. In the late 1800s, white settlers and the U.S. military annihilated the population of bison, bringing these creatures to the brink of extinction. The consequences for the people who relied on the bison were dire — and still being felt today. In an episode that first aired in August 2023, we spoke to one economist who revealsthe shocking numbers about the destruction of the bison, and one member of the Blackfeet Nation who is trying to bring them back.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez. This episode originally aired Aug. 21, 2023.

Your Next Listen –Blood, oil, and the Osage Nation: The battle over headrights
–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

This week our top indicators include changes to the funding model for SNAP, private equity’s influence on youth baseball and Meta’s attempt to find flaws in its brand new AI assistant.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
–Why Trump's spending bill could close your grocery store–Over 2,000 episodes in our archive on the NPR App

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
–The Indicator newsletter — a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
–Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
–Find the Planet Money book
–Find the Planet Money game, Sell Me A Sasquatch, and other merch at the NPR Shop!

Support public media by subscribing to NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Federal immigration enforcement arrests reached record highs this past summer, and under the second Trump administration, immigration agents can now more easily access so-called sensitive areas, including hospitals. Today on the show: how both patients and healthcare workers are bearing the physical and economic costs of these deportation campaigns.

Featuring Dr. William D. Lopez, author of Raiding the Heartland: an American Story of Deportation and Resistance.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

Your Next Listen
How ICE arrests are creating 'economies of fear'

Connect with The Indicator from Planet Money
The Indicator newsletter - a weekly roundup of news, ideas and staff picks.
Buy the Planet Money book
Instagram
TikTok
YouTube

For sponsor-free episodes, subscribe to NPR+

Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at http://plus.npr.org.

See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy