planetmoney:

How A Small Bondage Business Competes In The Global Economy

welcome to tumblr, planet money.

Planet Money’s Minimalist Economic Posters

(via Minimalist Econ Posters : Planet Money : NPR)

From This American Life Episode 441: “Why would a company rent an office in a tiny town in East Texas, put a nameplate on the door, and leave it completely empty for a year? The answer involves a controversial billionaire physicist in Seattle, a 40 pound cookbook, and a war waging right now, all across the software and tech industries.”

tballardbrown:

U.S. Mint Stores $1 Billion In Dollar Coins That No One Wants : NPR

A joint inquiry by NPR’s Planet Money and Investigations teams found that more than $1 billion of unused dollar coins are the wasteful byproducts of another failed congressional effort to replace the dollar bill in everyday commerce.

This picture makes me want to pull a Scrooge McDuck.

Why We Tip : Planet Money : NPR

Studies show that the size of the tip doesn’t have much to do with the quality of service. The weather, how sunny it is, what kind of mood people are in, these factors matter just as much as how satisfied the customers are with the service they receive.

(Photo credit: Fuschia Foot/Flickr)

It’s Ain’t Over Till…: Planet Money converts U.S. home prices…to opera.

Defining Ponzi Scheme

Planet Money asks an investor to explain how Ponzi schemes work. 

Dan Edstrom is an expert in the way finance companies bundled mortgages together, sliced them up, and sold them off to investors. This is a chart of everything going on with the mortgage on his family’s house.