Planet Money

Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in September 2012.  A decade ago, the Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, Italy, had a big problem with people skipping work. The absentee rate was around 10 percent.  People called in sick all the time, typically on Mondays, or on days when there was a big soccer game.  Foggia is in southern Italy. Barilla's big factory in northern Italy had a much lower absentee rate. This is not surprising; there's a huge economic gap between southern and northern Italy. It's like two different countries.  Barilla execs told Nicola Calandrea, the manager of the Foggia plant, that they would close the factory unless he brought the absenteeism rate down.  Calandrea decided that to save the factory, he had to change the culture. On today's show, we visit the factory and hear how Calandrea made it work.  For more: http://n.pr/1w0OpkT

Today on the show, a Republican governor lives the dream. He cuts taxes dramatically in his state, and he promises good times ahead. But the good times do not come. Now he's fighting for his political life. For more: http://n.pr/1pBNfq7

Mark Zuckerberg. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. Most of the big names in technology are men. But a lot of computing pioneers, the ones who programmed the first digital computers, were women. And for decades, the number of women in computer science was growing. But in 1984, something changed. The number of women in computer science flattened, and then plunged. Today on the show, what was going on in 1984 that made so many women give up on computer science? We unravel a modern mystery in the U.S. labor force.

Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in June 2012.  A few years ago, Jestina Clayton started a hair braiding business in her home in Centerville, Utah. The business let her stay home with her kids, and in good months, she made enough to pay for groceries. She even put an ad on a local website. Then one day she got an email from a stranger who had seen the ad.  "It is illegal in the state of Utah to do any form of extensions without a valid cosmetology license," the e-mail read. "Please delete your ad, or you will be reported."  To get a license, Jestina would have to spend more than a year in cosmetology school. Tuition would cost $16,000 dollars or more.  On today's show: Why it was illegal to braid hair without a license in Utah. And why hundreds of licensing rules in states all around the country are a disaster for the U.S. economy. For more: http://n.pr/1Ddlj3U

The popularity of fondue wasn't an accident. It was planned by a cartel of Swiss cheese makers, which ruled the Swiss economy for 80 years. On today's show: Swiss cheese. A story about what happens when well-meaning folks decide that the rules of economics don't apply to them. And got the world to eat gobs of melted fat.

Today's show is the story of a guy who tried to make something of himself by getting into a rough business: debt collection. It's also the story of the low-level, semi-legal debt-collection economy that sprung up in Buffalo, New York. And, in a small way, it's the story of the last 20 or so years in global finance, a time when the world went wild for debt. For more: http://n.pr/1ndvYHL

Prices of new textbooks have been going up like crazy. Faster than clothing, food, cars, and even healthcare. Listeners have been asking for years why textbooks are getting so expensive. On today's show, we actually find an answer.  

Today on the show: Stories about the secrets of jewelry stores, the problem with World's Fairs and a law signed by Abraham Lincoln that's being used today to go after the largest banks in the world. For more: n.pr/1prjqYP 

Charities raised $1.4 billion to help rebuild Haiti after the earthquake. After the tsunami in Asia in 2004, organizations raised $1.6 billion. But when something like Ebola happens, so far, people look the other way. On today's show: What does it take to get people to notice something half a world away, and what does it take to get people to pull out their wallets and donate money.

Note: Today's show is a rerun. It originally ran in August 2013.   More than half of all Japanese women quit their jobs after giving birth to their first child. That's more than double the rate in the U.S., and it's a problem for Japan's economy.   If more women returned to the workforce, it would go a huge way toward boosting growth in the country and solving a big demographic problem — not enough working people to support the nation's retirees.   But finding childcare in Japan is even harder than finding childcare in the U.S. The long-term solution is robot nannies. (Really.) On today's show: How Japanese working moms can survive until the robots arrive.   For more: n.pr/1B8omqW 

On today's show, we read our homeowners insurance policy. The details are amazing. Lava! Vermin! Falling objects! And, hiding in all the fine print, the story of how insurance works — and what makes it break.

Alex Blumberg is starting a business, a podcasting business. And he's recording himself as he starts the company — he's making a podcast about starting his podcasting company. Meta, right?   But starting a business can be lonely. Alex wants a partner to share in the stress and the risk, and potential investors say they'd prefer to bet on a team, too. Today on the show, Alex searches for a business partner. There have been Hewlett and Packard, Procter and Gamble, and Ben and Jerry. Now, there is Blumberg and....   Listen to the other episodes in Alex's podcast miniseries about starting a company at HearStartUp.com   Note: There's a curse word in today's episode. At about 1:25.

An amazing amount of stuff on the internet is free — Facebook, Twitter and Gmail. Of course, it's not exactly free. We pay, with our data. And right now, we're kind of stuck trading our data, for all this free software. Today on the show: two people who want to give you other options. These two people are trying to create services online that collect next to nothing — virtually no information, no data. A couple years ago, these people might have been dismissed as kooks. But one of them just raised $30 million.

For years now, the economy has been kind of stuck. The unemployment rate is getting better, but slowly. Household incomes have actually been falling. It's easy to feel stuck. Today on the show, stories of two people trying to get unstuck.

Zoo animals are different than most possessions, because zoos follow a fundamental principle: You can't sell or buy the animals. It's unethical and illegal to put a price tag on an elephant's head. Today on the show: What do you do in a world where you can't use money? For more: n.pr/1wbZb5S