Planet Money cover art

Planet Money

Planet Money

By: NPR
Listen for free

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.

Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney
Copyright 2015-2021 NPR - For Personal Use Only Economics Politics & Government
Episodes
  • A trip to the magic mushroom megachurch

    A trip to the magic mushroom megachurch
    Jan 24 2026
    Book tour dates and ticket info here.

    Just as every market has its first movers, every religion has its martyrs — the people willing to risk everything for what they believe. Pastor Dave Hodges just might be a little bit of both. He’s the spiritual leader of the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants, in Oakland, California which places psilocybin mushrooms at the center of their religious practice.

    Today on the show, like its 130,000+ members, we’re going to take a trip through the psychedelic mushroom megachurch. We’ll meet one of the lawyers trying to keep psychedelic religious leaders like Pastor Dave from running afoul of the law, and get a peek into how the government decides whether a belief system counts as sincere religion.

    This episode was reported with support from the Ferris-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship.

    Subscribe to Planet Money+

    Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

    Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

    This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Eric Mennel. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?

    BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?
    Jan 22 2026
    Planet Money has teamed up with the company Exploding Kittens to make a board game inspired by the legendary economics paper The Market for Lemons. We’ve decided we want a mass-appeal party game that quietly sneaks in the economics, so that we can report from inside a world that no other Planet Money project has entered: the real shelves at real big box retail stores.

    We have a great game mechanic and a set of rules. Now all we need is a good name and theme.

    Turns out, that is way harder and way higher stakes than any of us could have imagined.

    In the third episode of our series, we learn the importance of a good game name and theme and try to come up with one for our game.

    Find our previous episodes in the board game series, here and here.

    Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+

    Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

    Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

    This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Willa Rubin, and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
  • Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty

    Chevron, Venezuela and the Paradox of Plenty
    Jan 17 2026
    Venezuela and Chevron have perhaps one of the strangest partnerships … ever? Chevron, one of the world’s most famous and profitable oil corporations, has for decades, been plugging away in Venezuela, one of the world’s most famous and infamous socialist countries.

    Today on the show, the story of their intertwined histories. Before Saudi Arabia, before Iran… there was Venezuela, the first petrostate. The first country whose entire economy became dependent on oil. With the blessing of oil, an entire economic textbook of complications opened up: from the Dutch Disease, to the resource curse, to mono-economic vulnerability.

    And, oddly, along for that ride…Chevron.


    Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+

    Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.


    Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.


    This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Erika Beras and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Luis Gallo with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.


    Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    NPR Privacy Policy
    Show More Show Less
    33 mins
All stars
Most relevant
Love the show. it has got too political at some point, but it still has great episodes.

Facts, not only opinions.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.