By Jacob Goldstein

Today's monthly jobs report suggests two key pieces of the economic picture are likely to persist in the coming months: High unemployment and low interest rates.

Continue reading "High Unemployment, Low Interest Rates: Get Used To It" >

The U.S. economy added 431,000 new jobs in May, the federal government said this morning. Sounds promising.

But dig a little deeper, and the number doesn't look so nice. Almost all of those jobs -- 411,000 of them -- were temporary employees hired to work on the census. Those jobs typically last only for a few months.

The private sector added only 41,000 jobs during the month. It's much lower than what economists were expecting, and far fewer jobs than private employers added in April. It suggests the economic recovery is slowing.

Continue reading "Job Growth: A Big, Disappointing Number" >

Everybody's talking about the "new normal." On the investing shows, this is shorthand for an era in which returns on stocks and bonds are lower than they've been in the past.

But Mohamed El-Erian, the bond-fund CEO who coined the term, says it goes much deeper than that.

Today on All Things Considered, El-Erian tells Planet Money's Adam Davidson that the new normal includes changes to the fundamental structure of the global economy:

Continue reading "Mohamed El-Erian Explains 'The New Normal'" >

By Jacob Goldstein

Despite the fact that Haiti has largely fallen off the media radar screen, Google searchers are still trying to answer a basic question Planet Money's been wrestling with: Why is Haiti so poor?

Continue reading "Googlers And Planet Money Are Trying To Answer The Same Question " >

We come across all these fascinating books that we don't have time to dig into on the regular Planet Money podcast. So we're trying something new.

From time to time, we'll offer a special, bonus podcast where we talk to big thinkers about their ideas.

Today, Adam Davidson talks to Ian Bremmer about his new book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?

Bremmer argues that free-market capitalism is increasingly conflicting with "state capitalism," where states use markets for political gain.

He cites the recent conflict between China and Google as an example. He says, ultimately, the conflict wasn't about freedom of speech or human rights. It was about China supporting a Chinese search company called Baidu.

"The Chinese government preferred a private company, but a Chinese private company -- Baidu," he says.

Download the deep-read podcast. And please let us know what you think, and who else you'd like us to interview.

By Jacob Goldstein

BP is looking for ways to better manage "low-probability, high-impact" risks like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the company's CEO tells the FT.

But those kind of Black Swannish risks are, by their nature, remarkably difficult to manage.

Sure, BP and other oil companies can cut fewer corners. And they can prevent the exact failures from the BP spill from recurring. But what about all the other low-probability, high-impact risks they face?

Continue reading "BP And The Challenge Of Low Probability, High Impact Risks" >

Mark Lennihan/AP

By Jacob Goldstein

Warren Buffett -- the wise, grandfatherly investor -- has described derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction."

Warren Buffett -- the billionaire financier -- today had this to say about those weapons:

I use them to make money. If I think they're mispriced, I buy them.

Both sides of Buffett were on display today.

Continue reading "Warren Buffett: Wise Grandfather vs. Billionaire Financier" >

By Jacob Goldstein

Oil is still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. The feds are looking into criminal charges against BP. And it may take months before the well is capped.

What are the long-term implications for BP, and for the oil industry?

Continue reading "Will Offshore Drilling 'Go The Way Of Nuclear Power'?" >

By Jacob Goldstein

Apple CEO Steve Jobs spoke yesterday at a WSJ tech conference, and there were some interesting tidbits. The WSJ's Walt Mossberg asked Jobs about the development of the iPhone and the iPad:

"I actually started on the tablet first," Jobs says. "I had this idea of being able to get rid of the keyboard and type on a multitouch glass display."

But once Apple developed the display, and added touch-scrolling, "I thought, 'Oh my God, we can build a phone out of this,' " he says. "And I put the tablet project on the shelf, because the phone was more important."

Also in the video, Jobs predicts a "post-PC era," when PCs will be like trucks -- powerful machines used by the few, rather than the many. And he says he hopes tablets will help newspapers stay in business. "I don't want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers," he says.

After the jump: Remember Apple TV? In another video from the conference, Jobs discusses the difficult economics of bringing high-tech innovation to Television.

Continue reading "Steve Jobs: The iPad Came Before The iPhone" >

(iStockphoto)

Back in the '80s, Kay Fishburn had a dream: Americans would band together and make voluntary donations to bring the national debt way down. She became something of a minor celebrity.

On today's Planet Money, we check in with Fishburn. And we talk to an economist, who explains why it would be a bad idea for Americans to raid their savings accounts to pay off the national debt.

It's all part of our ongoing quest to understand this whole gifts-to-pay-down-the-debt thing.

After the jump: reader mail, a spreadsheet and a Bob Edwards interview.

Continue reading "The Tuesday Podcast: What If Everybody Chipped In To Pay Off The National Debt?" >