Planet Money

The economy won't be healthy until the housing market bottoms out. It may take another year. On today's Planet Money, economist Mark Zandi tells us what it will take for the bust to end -- and sketches out housing's profound influence on the broader economy.

We need four bales of cotton to make the Planet Money t-shirt. On today's Planet Money, we go shopping in Texas and Brazil -- and find a long-running trade war. We meet a Brazilian who took on the world's largest superpower, a Texas cotton farmer who's tired of hearing the Brazilians complain, and a guy named Renato -- a.k.a. Retaliation Master. Music: Johnny Cash's "Cotton Fields"

Back in May, we announced on the podcast that we'd be making a Planet Money t-shirt. Then we got swamped in the details. This week, though, we're back with two podcasts on the t-shirt project. Today, we look at the economics of design. And we explain why ripping off other people's fashion ideas is a good -- and, for the moment, perfectly legal -- strategy for us to pursue. Music: Avett Brothers' "Kick Drum Heart"

On today's Planet Money, we go shopping with George Minichello. George is one of hundreds of federal employees who goes to stores all over the country and record the prices of thousands of different things. A bag of romaine lettuce. A boy's size-14 collared shirt made of 97 percent cotton. A loaf of white bread. Their work drives the consumer price index, a key economic indicator known to its friends as CPI. The index measures inflation in the U.S., and it influences everything from Social Security checks to the price of school lunches to how big your raise will be next year.

How does a guy whose mom is a heroin addict -- a guy who drops out of high school, has a kid, and starts working a minimum-wage job at a fast-food restaurant -- climb out of poverty? On today's podcast, we hear the answer from Katherine Newman, a sociologist who studied 300 fast-food restaurant workers in Harlem in the early '90s.

On today's Planet Money, we make a radical change in our investment strategy: We buy gold. And we find that our new investment raises some unsettling questions. Music: Dispatch's "Flying Horses."

On today's Planet Money, we hear from Tim Taylor, an economist who starts out his econ classes with this question. He says about 2/3 of the students choose B. There's no right answer here. But, Taylor says, there is an implicit lesson.

The U.S. is the world's biggest manufacturer -- way bigger than China, according to the National Association of Manufacturing. So why doesn't it feel that way? On today's Planet Money, we visit two factories to find out. Music: V.V. Brown's "Quick Fix"

On today's Planet Money, we meet a single mother who makes $16,000 a year -- and who managed to fund a vacation at a Caribbean resort with an interest-free loan from one of the world's largest banks. Edith Calzado gets credit cards with teaser zero-percent interest rates -- then transfers her balance before the rate ticks up. She signs up for store cards to get discounts -- then pays off her bill on time. She gets food stamps and lives in subsidized housing. Her son is doing well in school. She may be the single most successful and productive beneficiary of government assistance you'll ever meet. But when she talks about people on traditional welfare -- cash that's given to mothers with babies -- she sounds like Ronald Reagan attacking welfare queens

Brazil's economy is booming now, but for most of the 20th century it was an economic mess. In the 80s and 90s, Inflation was so high that grocery stores were raising their prices every day. So the government brought in in four economists who had been talking to each other for years about how to fix Brazil's inflation problem. Their solution: Create a currency that doesn't exist. No coins, no bills. Music: Hey Marseilles' "Rio."

An animated funeral for Toxie, our toxic asset.

Is it OK to raise money from rich investors, who expect to make a profit? Muhammad Yunus, the father of microfinance, says no. If you have investors who expect profits, you'll ultimately turn into something more like a loan-shark than a do-gooder. Vikram Akula, founder of SKS Microfinance -- a company that had an IPO earlier this year -- says raising money from profit-seeking investors is the only way to spread microfinance quickly around the world. On today's Planet Money, Akula and Yunus hash out their differences. Music: Stars' "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"

We are gathered here to day to commemorate the passing of Toxie, Planet Money's toxic asset. The first to speak will be Wit Solberg, the investor who helped us buy Toxie. Wit also invested in Toxie -- and, like us, he lost more than half his investment. We'll also hear from Samir Noriega, an analyst who served as Toxie's doctor. He was the first to diagnose Toxie back in April and to name the cause of death this week: home loan modifications. In other words, lenders helping homeowners out and forgiving debt.

Last week, we had a socialist, Richard Wolff, on to explain what Socialism actually is and what a true Socialist government might look like these days. Today, two libertarians explain what libertarianism is and what they like and don't like about the Democrats and Republicans.

Despite what you may have heard, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats aren't socialists. And the top Republicans in Washington aren't free-market libertarians. But given how freely everybody's throwing those terms around these days, we're wading in to get a deeper understanding of what they really mean. On today's Planet Money, we talk to an actual socialist -- Richard Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts -- about socialism. Coming next week: Libertarianism. Music: Billy Bragg's "The Red Flag."