Jacob Goldstein
Jacob Goldstein is an NPR correspondent and co-host of the Planet Money podcast. He is the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.
Goldstein's interest in technology and the changing nature of work has led him to stories on UPS, the Luddites and the history of light. His aversion to paying retail has led him to stories on Costco, Spirit Airlines and index funds.
He also contributed to the Planet Money T-shirt and oil projects, and to an episode of This American Life that asked: What is money? Ira Glass called it "the most stoner question" ever posed on the show.
Before coming to NPR, Goldstein was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine. He has a bachelor's degree in English from Stanford and a master's in journalism from Columbia.
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Making fake dollars is big business in Peru, where counterfeiters hire people to finish each bill by hand. -
The solution, according to the Coase Theorem: Pay them to stop annoying you. Ronald Coase, who came up with that idea, died Monday at the age of 102. -
Most charities get money from donors and spend it on things they think will help people — schools, medicine, farm animals. GiveDirectly just gives money away. And that poses a challenge to the more traditional charities. -
There are no strings attached. People can spend the money on whatever they want, and they never have to pay it back. -
See average hourly wages and how many jobs have been lost (or gained) in health care, manufacturing and other big industries.
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Hospital prices just got a lot more transparent. But if you have private insurance, the new information won't help you. -
Earlier this year, the percentage of Americans who are working or looking for work fell to its lowest level since 1979.
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Amazon spent years trying to avoid charging sales tax. Now, the company supports a bill that would require it. -
A brief history of America, as seen through energy sources — from wood to nuclear power, and beyond.
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You'd be free to leave the state, as long as you left your money behind. That's essentially what it's like now for people in Cyprus.
