Planet Money

Say you've messed up so badly that the only people who will offer you help want your pain and suffering in exchange. They want, to use a fashionable term, austerity. Do you have to accept it? What if that turns out that the pain and suffering is a 20-year detour detour into economic collapse?On today's show, we hear from a Greek economist about the options open to the country. And we talk to a Greek couple that's getting married tomorrow. They're not sure how they're going to pay for the wedding.

For decades there was this debate about Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor.On one side were people making what seems like the straightforward argument: People who get Medicaid fare better than people who don't.On the other side were those making the contrarian argument. They argued that there is already a safety net for the poor and the uninsured, and that Medicaid's reimbursement rates are so low that most doctors don't see Medicaid patients anyway.The debate was perennial and unresolvable. You couldn't simply compare people with Medicaid to those without, because the two groups had different characteristics.To truly answer the question, you would need to take a big group of people, and randomly divide them into two groups. One group would get Medicaid, and the other wouldn't. But doing that would be unethical.Then, a few years back, Oregon announced that it had 10,000 new slots in its Medicaid program. Far more than 10,000 people wanted to enroll. So the state held a lottery.The state of Oregon didn't mean to be creating the perfect experiment to test whether Medicaid actually helps people. But that's what it was doing.Katherine Baicker, a health economist at Harvard, followed people who entered the Oregon Medicaid lottery — and she compared the outcomes between those who were given Medicaid, and those who were denied.On today's show, we talk to her about what she learned — and we hear ger findings mean for the debate over health care in America.

On today's show, we take you backstage in Spain's banking mess, the latest front in the never ending financial crisis that is Europe.It's the story of how a group of people tried to fix a problem, but wound up creating a banking monster.

Lincolns used to be the coolest cars in the world. They used to be driven by kings, moguls and celebrities. Today, Lincolns are driven by the old, the out-of-touch, and the guys hustling you at the airport.On today's show: How Lincoln is trying to regain its former glory — and how the story of Lincoln may be the story of the U.S. auto industry, for better or for worse.

Once a bank run starts, it takes on a logic of its own. Even a solid, solvent bank can't hold up for long if people start to panic. This is a problem for Europe right now, as depositors continue to pull money out of banks in Spain and Greece.On today's show, we talk to Douglas Diamond, an economist who is one of the go-to guys on bank runs, and we hear from Greek bank teller who is handing out euros to panicked depositors.We walk through the three things you can do to stop a bank run — and figure out what options are left for Europe.BONUS: Check out our special bank run playlist assembled by Zoe Chace.

As the world considers the possible death of the euro, it's worth considering a famous historical example. Ok, it's not that famous. But it's still worth looking at: The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian currency union in 1918.Just as the countries of Europe today share the euro, the Austrian empire and the Kingdom of Hungary had created a shared currency: the Austro-Hungarian crown.After World War I, the region broke up. All of a sudden there were lots of countries wanting to switch to their own currencies.At the beginning, they used a simple system: Countries simply stamped existing Austro-Hungarian currency with particular markings to turn it into new, domestic currency. Some countries used ornate samps; Romania's stamp was just a cross.This quickly led to chaos. Everyone wanted to get their money stamped in the country they thought would have the strongest currency. Countries sealed their borders, but it was no use."You had boxcar loads of currency" moving across borders, says Michael Spencer, an economist who has written about this period.It turns out, killing a currency is hard to do.* Note: Today's podcast is a rerun. It first ran in November, 2011.

States across the country have promised their employees sweet retirement benefits, but haven't set aside enough money to pay for those benefits.On today's show, we hear from Illinois, which owes its state pension funds $83 billion.And we hear from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory halfway around the world. The territory may point to the future for many U.S. states: It just became the first American public pension fund to file for bankruptcy.

The uprisings in Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen all started last spring. They've all resulted in regime change — except for the uprising in Syria.Why is Syria locked in a brutal and seemingly endless conflict? The answer has to do with history, politics, and a growing class of entrepreneurs who are struggling to pick a side. Their decision could turn the tide of the conflict. It could also cost them their lives.

On today's show, we follow a couple guys who run a pizza shop in New Orleans as they buy their first Facebook ad. We visit a business in New Jersey that sells Facebook "likes" in bulk. And we check in with a business school professor who explains what Facebook would have to do to live up to its valuation — which, even after its post-IPO fall, is still roughly $90 billion.

Ashley Dias is 26 years old. She has cystic fibrosis. About six weeks ago, her lungs gave out. She was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic and told she'd need a lung transplant to survive.Lungs are a scarce resource. But unlike many scarce resources, lungs aren't for sale. So doctors have had to develop a system to allocate them.Ashley's life depends on that system.

Every single dollar bill in the world — every $20, every $100, everything — is printed on paper made at one small mill in Massachusetts. That's been the case for 130 years.On today's show, we visit the mill. We hear the story of the guy who jumped out a hotel window to win the government contract to print all that paper. And we ask: Will anybody be using paper money in 50 years?

On today's show, we visit beautiful Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.Price of one year at Lafayette: $55,688. Up 63 percent from the price a decade ago.At least, that's the sticker price — the price you get if you add up tuition, room and board, and all the fees listed on the school's website.But there's a huge gap between the sticker price and what the average student actually pays after figuring in grants and scholarships.That's true at private colleges around the country. Nationwide, the average sticker price is more than twice as high as the price students actually pay, and the gap is getting wider.It turns out, it makes economic sense to have a high sticker price and offer lots of discounts. On the show today, we explain why.

We're in a gym full of high school students. The gym is at the headquarters of the New York Federal Reserve, just a few blocks from Wall Street. The students are here for the High School Fed Challenge.If you're a high school student and you dream of holding the U.S. economy in the palm of your hand — if you want the power to control interest rates and to print money out of thin air — the Fed Challenge is for you.On today's show, we sit in on the finals — and hear from a bunch of teenagers about what Fed policy means for them.

Ian Bremmer calls his big idea "G-Zero." Here's how he described it in an essay last year:We are now living in a G-Zero world, one in which no single country or bloc of countries has the political and economic leverage — or the will — to drive a truly international agenda.On today's show, we take a world tour with Bremmer to find out who thrives and who struggles in a G-Zero world.Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and author of a new book called Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. For more, listen to our G-Zero podcast from last year.

On today's show, we bring you three Planet Money radio stories:1. Pay Your Taxes: A Cautionary TaleWhen IRS agents raided the house of rapper Young Buck, they seized all his things: his white leather dining chairs, his watches, his craps table, his tattoo kit. Even his refrigerator. The Nashville artist, who was once part of 50 Cent's G-Unit, owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. 2. On The Million-Dollar Trail Of A Mystery SuperPAC DonorThe superPACs raising money to support presidential candidates have few restrictions. They can accept checks for any amount. One rule they do have: They must reveal who donated money.3. We Stand At The Doorstep Of A Foreclosed House. Then We Go In.In Florida, the foreclosure process takes 861 days, on average.That means houses often sit in limbo for more than two years after the owner stops paying the mortgage. Maybe the homeowner is still living in the house. Maybe he's renting it out. Maybe squatters are living there, or maybe it's empty and falling down.