2025-07-23
35 分钟Hey everyone, just a quick message before class gets started.
Planet Money Summer School is having a live graduation ceremony and party in New York City on August 18th.
Planet Money Plus supporters get a 10% discount.
Check out the show notes for a link to buy tickets before they sell out.
This is Planet Money from NPR.
Welcome back everyone to Planet Money Summer School.
An economics course so easy, you can literally do it with your eyes closed.
My eyes are closed right now.
This season on Summer School, we are tackling the role of the government in our economic lives.
We've looked at government as the big spender who buys all the drinks and as the sneaky pickpocket who uses the tax code to remake society.
Today, we look at the government as, where's my whistle, here we go, a referee.
There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things.
Maybe cheat at the game and steal other people's ideas or cut some corners on safety.
The government as referee steps in to make the rules and enforce them,
manage competition in a way that hopefully makes things better for us all.
But you have to ask,
when is the government protecting you and when is it protecting the already rich and powerful?
These rules always create winners and losers.
as we will see today.
Every summer school has a few classic Planet Money case studies, we'll have those coming up,