Tag: Planet Money

A compendium of short stories connected by a single unifying theme…and I swear I’ve heard them all before on this very podcast. But it’s not a repeat. Is there word for podcast-centric deja vu?

 

I didn’t expect the “shrimp” in the title to be quite so literal.

 

I love it when Planet Money is able to present a fully-developed AND timely episode (too often when they rush to put out an episode to address a topic in the news, it winds up feeling unfinished).

This one could’ve also been called “All about Oneida.” How do you f*ck a sex cult? You let Wall Street take it over.

 

#774: Unspeakable Trademark
Fri 1:17 PM
web:http://www.npr.org/planetmoney
Media: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510289/npr.mc.tritondigital.com/NPR_510289/media/anon.npr-mp3/npr/pmoney/2017/05/20170526_pmoney_pmpod774.mp3?orgId=1&d=1256&p=510289&story=530256348&t=podcast&e=530256348&ft=pod&f=510289
You can name your business whatever you want. But the government won’t register it as a trademark if it thinks it’s offensive. It gets weird when you try to decide what is too offensive to trademark.
NPR
Eric’s Thoughts:

Interesting episode…until you realize they never once consider the ramifications of the N-word. It’s a lot more cut & dry than the terms that do get covered here — and A LOT harder to defend in the same contexts. Maybe that’s why they left it out? Because it’s too indefensible? 

#772: Small Change
May 19, 2:27 PM
web:http://www.npr.org/planetmoney
Media: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-510289/npr.mc.tritondigital.com/NPR_510289/media/anon.npr-mp3/npr/pmoney/2017/05/20170519_pmoney_pmpod772.mp3?orgId=1&d=1277&p=510289&story=529183404&t=podcast&e=529183404&ft=pod&f=510289
How fast is the world really changing? The answer has implications for everything from how the next generation will live to whether robots really will take all our jobs.
NPR

Eric’s Thoughts:

Spoiler alert: Episode focuses on a theory that the world is actually barely changing at all these days — that things are changing too slowly, not too quickly, and that’s the root of many of our troubles. File this away in “not sure I believe it yet, but want to hear more.”

https://overcast.fm/+BP5-5rydc

In the previous episode — which is about the descendants of slaved once owned by Georgetown University, who were sold to a Southern plantation in order to keep the school float — I had some serious issues with Georgetown’s plan to offer “semi-legacy status” to the teenage descendants applying to the school today as a apologetic gesture. It felt like, well, an empty gesture, especially considering how crucial those slaves were to the school’s very existence.  This episode digs into an entirely different way to compensate the descendants…Reparations. And, boy, is it a complex issue.  Planet Money does a pretty good laying out all the complexities.

https://overcast.fm/+BP5-z1x_A

I saw the headlines about this while ago (how Georgetown sought to make things right with the descendants of slaves the school once exploited). Nice to go beyond the headlines…way beyond.

https://overcast.fm/+BP58rExaM

AKA “why locally-produced daytime television is frequently garbage”

https://overcast.fm/+BP58F832w

Companies like Xerox and Kleenex can become synonymous (and interchangeable) with a generic product.  But can that go backwards? Can a generic product become a company?  Some dude in Ireland is certainly trying…