Planet Money

We play with a computer model of our broken economy and try to fix it.  It turns out not to be so easy.

A few months back, we set up a couple shell companies — Unbeliezable, Inc., in Belize, and Delawho? in Delaware.On today's show, we talk to some tax lawyers to try to figure out what we can do with our companies. We draft a resolution so we can go to Belize to meet the fake director and fake shareholder of our company. And we learn owning shell companies in tax havens is a lot more of a hassle than we thought.

Earlier this summer, we assembled five prominent economists from across the political spectrum and gave them a simple task: Identify major economic policies they could all stand behind.They agreed on a broad economic platform that would sink any political candidate that supported it. (Here's the show we did on their platform; here's a blog post.)Today, we talk to those economists again. This time, we hear a bunch of the ideas some of them liked but others shot down — including free heroin for addicts, a new tax on financial speculation, and $2 trillion in new, deficit spending on infrastructure projects.

A cab ride through the streets of Manhattan. A cramped room in Brooklyn where a man makes beautiful suits by hand. A company in Germany that can't hire workers fast enough. A trip to the moon and back.On today's show, we have four short Planet Money stories.

A cab ride through the streets of Manhattan. A cramped room in Brooklyn where a man makes beautiful suits by hand. A company in Germany that can't hire workers fast enough. A trip to the moon and back.On today's show, we have four short Planet Money stories.

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.

On today's show, we hit the streets of with economist Tim Harford. In his book, Adapt, Harford argues that success always starts with failure.Harford takes us on a failure tour of New York. Highlights include a Gutenberg Bible (turns out the Bible business wasn't so good to Gutenberg) and the Woolworth Building (Woolworth's had some great innovations in its day, but eventually got beat by big-box stores).Failure, Harford argues, is essential to economic growth. Old companies fail and are replaced by newer companies with fresh ideas.Perhaps inevitably, we wind up on Wall Street."Of course we have this classic phrase now, 'too big to fail,'" Harford says. "That really tells you what was wrong with Wall Street: We created institutions that couldn't fail safely."

Tony Mata is a meat inventor; his job is figuring out new things to do with meat. He thinks he recently discovered a new steak — a novel way to cut up a chunk of beef that's currently not worth much. Mata is so excited about his discovery that he's trying to patent it.This raises a basic question: Can you patent a steak?On today's show, we talk to Mata. We visit the workshop of Gene Gagliardi, the inventor of Steak-Umm and KFC's popcorn chicken. And we try to figure out what meat inventors tell us about patents and innovation.

On today's show, we talk to Nicholas Wapshott, author of Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics.That clash is still clashing today. Paul Ryan has cited Hayek as an influence (though they disagree on some key points); President Obama has clearly been influenced by Keynes. And, really, there's no way to reconcile the ideas."This election is about two profound, competing theories that really can't exist in the same room at the same time," Wapshott says.It's on.

The city of Harrisburg, Pa owes over $1.5 billion. David Unkovic, the city's former receiver, tried to save the broke city, but his plan just led to political trouble.A few months ago, Unkovic left a scrawled, handwritten note on the steps of the courthouse. "I find myself in an untenable position in the political and ethical crosswinds," the letter said, "and am no longer in a position to effectuate a solution."Unkovic fled Harrisburg and stopped answering emails, phone calls, and questions from the press. Until recently. He's started to speak out about what drove Harrisburg into debt — and what drove him out of town.On the show today, Unkovic speaks. And eats a Philly pretzel.

Thomas Peterffy's life story includes a typing robot, a proto-iPad, and a vast fortune he amassed as one of the first guys to use computers in financial markets.On today's show, Peterffy tells us his story — and he explains why he's worried about the financial world he helped create.We learned of Peterffy's story from the forthcoming book Automate This.

Maastricht is the home of the euro. It's the Dutch town where European leaders signed the treaty that created the single currency.It's also a place where it's legal for "coffeeshops" to sell marijuana.Tourists from around Europe used to come to Maastricht to get high. Recently, though, Maastricht's mayor soured on marijuana tourism, and the town banned the sale of the drug to foreigners.On today's show: Even in the home of the euro, the European Dream still isn't a reality.

In spite of the drought, many U.S. farmers will do just fine this year. They are, after all, covered by crop insurance — a program that costs U.S. taxpayers $7 billion a year.On today's show, we travel to Fairbury, Illinois. We meet three generations of farmers who tell us that, even without government-subsidized crop insurance, their farms would survive the drought.So why does the government spend so much on crop insurance programs? We talk to an ag economist who has a surprising answer.

On today's show, we visit an office building that straddles the border between Germany and the Netherlands.On one side of the building, there's a German mailbox and a German policeman. On the other side, a Dutch mailbox and a Dutch policeman.The building was supposed to make it easy to work in both countries. But it's also a reminder of how the European dream isn't yet a reality.

On today's show, we visit an office building that straddles the border between Germany and the Netherlands.On one side of the building, there's a German mailbox and a German policeman. On the other side, a Dutch mailbox and a Dutch policeman.The building was supposed to make it easy to work in both countries. But it's also a reminder of how the European dream isn't yet a reality.