Planet Money

Here's the scenario: A man and his wife are desperate to get to the hospital because she is about to deliver a baby. It's a hot summer day. It's rush hour. They flag down a private car and ask, "How much?" To their surprise the driver wants to charge them four times the normal price of a cab. So, is this a story about a cabbie taking advantage of a vulnerable couple or is it simply good economics? Today, we are talking about a company that charges people in desperate situations more for a ride, and we'll consider the argument that it might actually be better for everyone.

Ben Horowitz is a big-time venture capitalist. His firm invested in Facebook and Twitter. More recently, his firm invested some $50 million in startups related to bitcoin, the virtual currency that works like online cash. Ben thinks bitcoin is going to change the way people buy and sell stuff on the Internet.   Felix Salmon, a high-profile finance blogger at Reuters, is a prominent bitcoin skeptic.   So when Felix recently published an essay calling bitcoin a bubble that was sure to burst, Ben posted a comment challenging him to a bet over the future of bitcoin.   "I said, 'Why don't we just bet?'" Ben told us. "And I've read enough of Felix's stuff to know that would be irresistible to him."   "He's right about that," Felix said. "Being challenged by Ben Horowitz is kind of a high point of my career. So I immediately said yes."   When we heard about the challenge, we invited Felix and Ben to come on Planet Money to hash out the details of the bet. Basically, we offered to be their bookie. Fortunately for us, they accepted.   For more on the bet, see our post: A Venture Capitalist Is Betting A Pair Of Socks (And $50 Million) On Bitcoin's Future

Tomato inflation in South America. Coal start-ups in Indonesia. Fat Cats on Wall Street. What do they all have to do with each other? Their fates all rest on the words out of one man: Ben Bernanke.

Last week, we solicited your questions about dating, sex and love. This one came from 17-year-old, Arthur, who lives in Pittsburgh: I am a senior in high school and I have never been on a date. Should I be worried about this? When I do finally meet someone, will I be hurt by my inexperience? On today's show, economist and author, Tim Harford, applies economic theory to Arthur's question. He also tackles polyamory and offers suggestions on how to change your spouse's behavior.

In the mountains of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, there are basically no jobs. Villages are empty of young men, who go elsewhere in Mexico or to the U.S. to find work. On today's show, we meet two cousins from Oaxaca who dream of bringing jobs to their village. Their strategy: Launch a startup to make mezcal, a popular local liquor — then get people in the U.S. to buy it.

On today's show: Three stories about people who, intentionally or not, found themselves breaking the rules.1. In A City With Terrible Traffic, A Gridlock Economy Emerges2. Why U.S. Taxpayers Started — And Stopped — Paying Brazilian Cotton Farmers3. How A Community Bank Tripped On Footnote 1,861 Of The Volcker Rule

On today's show: Three stories about people who, intentionally or not, found themselves breaking the rules. 1. In A City With Terrible Traffic, A Gridlock Economy Emerges 2. Why U.S. Taxpayers Started — And Stopped — Paying Brazilian Cotton Farmers 3. How A Community Bank Tripped On Footnote 1,861 Of The Volcker Rule

For most of U.S. history, there was no minimum wage. A few times, politicians passed laws tiptoeing toward a minimum. But the Supreme Court struck those laws down. On today's show: how the U.S. finally got a minimum wage. It's a story of exploding bakeries, a blue eagle, and a guy who may or may not have been drunk.

To hire new employees, some companies are paying less attention to resumes and more attention to data — and the data are leading to some surprising findings. On today's show, we take a weird hiring test for a call-center job. And we hear what does (and doesn't) predict success for everyone from call-center workers to software developers.

Note: This episode was originally posted in 2011. If you know the right people — and if you can get other criminals to vouch for you — you can go online and buy huge bundles of stolen credit cards. As it turns out, Planet Money knows the right people. On today's show, we sit in with Keith Mularski of the FBI. Mularski got so deep into this world that he wound up running a major criminal website. He takes us to a giant online mall for stolen credit cards, where vendors offer discounts for repeat customers and banners advertise hacking and phishing tutorials.

A famous biologist predicts overpopulation will lead to global catastrophe. He writes a bestselling book and goes on the Tonight Show to make his case. An economist disagrees. He thinks the biologist isn't accounting for how clever people can be, and how shortages can lead to new, more efficient ways of doing things. So the economist, Julian Simon, challenges the biologist, Paul Ehrlich, to a very public, very acrimonious, decade-long bet. On today's show: The story of that bet, and the ugly precedent it set. For more, see The Bet, by Yale historian Paul Sabin. We talk to Sabin on today's show.

A famous biologist predicts overpopulation will lead to global catastrophe. He writes a bestselling book and goes on the Tonight Show to make his case.  An economist disagrees. He thinks the biologist isn't accounting for how clever people can be, and how shortages can lead to new, more efficient ways of doing things.  So the economist, Julian Simon, challenges the biologist, Paul Ehrlich, to a very public, decade-long bet. On today's show: The story of that bet, and the ugly precedent it set.  For more, see The Bet, by Yale historian Paul Sabin. We talk to Sabin on today's show.

On today's show, we follow up on a few of the stories we did in 2013. We hear what happened to a billion-dollar bet against a company that sells weight loss shakes, how a Washington marijuana shop found a bank. Also, we find the owner of a 20-year-old bat mitzvah T-shirt that traveled from Michigan to Kenya.

On today's show, a story on a Christmasy theme: Handbells! But also, a not-so-Christmasy theme: A decades-long feud between two big bell companies, located right down the road from each other. But then, a Christmasy ending: Peace!

On today's show, we tell the creation story of the Federal Reserve — one of the most powerful financial institutions on the planet. The story includes a 70-year-old man with a bad head cold and a bunch of mistresses, a nation that's deeply ambivalent about a central bank, and a secret meeting at an island with a sketchy name.