2025-07-30
36 分钟Come see Planet Money live August 18th at the Bell House in Brooklyn.
We're taping the finale of Planet Money Summer School, where we're going to crown our valedictorian.
It'll be a fun night out with storytelling, special guests, trivia, and of course, economics.
You might even end up on the podcast.
Buy your tickets now at npr.org slash planetmoneylive.
That's npr.org slash planetmoneylive.
This is Planet Money from NPR.
Welcome back to Planet Money Summer School.
We're hanging out here every Wednesday until Labor Day,
just like an ice cream truck that plays a catchy jingle of knowledge.
In the first half of our short political economy semester,
we talked about the things that the government pretty much has to do.
Provide basic infrastructure, pay for things the market won't provide,
like national defense and a social safety net, and set the rules of competition.
But today,
we discuss what happens when the government really wants to get their hands dirty and shape the direction of the economy,
even decide which companies should prosper and which ones should fail.
This is class number five, industrial policy.
Traditional economics says that the market is guided by the forces of supply and demand.
Customers decide what they want to buy and private enterprise responds to that need.