Can AI uplift entrepreneurs that traditional banks reject? | Mercedes Bidart
Impact entrepreneur Mercedes Bidart explains how informal entrepreneurs across Latin America are highly trusted within their communities yet are excluded from formal banking because they lack conventional financial records. She describes an AI-driven approach that transforms alternative data from phones, telecom records, videos, and social media into financial identities and risk scores, enabling micro-business owners to access fair, tailored credit instead of relying on violent, predatory lenders. Over three years, these models have reached market-level accuracy and helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs gain access to formal loans, illustrating how AI can make finance more inclusive when designed intentionally.
The remittance mystery
The episode investigates a puzzling surge in remittances flowing from the United States to several Central American and Caribbean countries, especially Honduras, despite heightened immigration enforcement and declining new immigration. Through interviews with a Honduran bank remittance manager, migrants, and economists, the reporters explore how fear of deportation, a looming remittance tax, and migrants' desire to build savings back home are driving this spike. They also examine how critical remittances are to economies like Honduras, the risks of over-dependence on this income, and the potential economic shock if these flows decline in the near future.
The Ramsey Show Live From Chicago
This live episode of The Ramsey Show is recorded in Chicago with hosts taking questions from the audience about money, relationships, and life transitions. Topics include setting financial boundaries with parents, resolving spender-saver conflicts in marriage, supporting low-income communities, navigating mid-journey Baby Steps, and finding meaningful work after a military career. The show ends with a collective debt-free scream and encouragement for attendees who are changing their family trees.
Tax the rich - and save the planet | Esther Duflo
Host Elise Hu introduces a TED Talk by economist Esther Duflo, who argues that the world's richest individuals and largest multinational corporations should fund climate damage costs through targeted taxes. Duflo quantifies the mortality and financial burden that greenhouse gas emissions from rich countries impose on low- and middle-income countries and proposes a global wealth and corporate tax to raise around $1.7 trillion annually. She advocates sending this money directly to people, especially in poorer nations, to build resilience and create a new grand bargain where rich countries pay climate damages and poorer countries commit to strong climate action.
Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
Radiolab revisits the Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, centered on the custody of Veronica, a child eligible for Cherokee Nation membership, and the application of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The episode traces the mid‑20th century history of widespread removal of Native American children from their families that led to ICWA, then walks through the conflicting narratives of Veronica's adoptive parents, her Cherokee father Dustin Brown, and their lawyers as the case moves through the courts up to the Supreme Court. A 2025 update explains that Veronica was ultimately returned to her adoptive parents and that, despite repeated legal challenges, ICWA was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 but continues to face ongoing challenges.
Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China? (Update)
Stephen Dubner interviews political scientist Yuen Yuen Ong about her research on corruption in China and the United States, based on her book "China's Gilded Age." Ong explains her four-part typology of corruption, how certain types of corruption can coexist with rapid economic growth, and why she believes the U.S. and China are both experiencing different versions of a "Gilded Age." She also critiques common corruption metrics, discusses China's evolving political-economic model under Mao, Deng, and Xi, and reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist prosperity and democracy.
In Gaza, money is falling apart
Planet Money follows two best friends from Gaza, Alaldeen Sheikh Khalid in Belgium and Mohamed Awad still in Gaza, as they piece together an improvised financial pipeline to move usable Israeli shekels into Gaza despite a blockade on cash and a barely functioning banking and internet infrastructure. Through their project Impossible Light and the story of a young woman named Haya living in a tent camp, the episode shows how extreme cash shortages, destroyed infrastructure, and war-driven scarcity have turned money itself into a scarce and damaged commodity, inflating prices and spawning a market where people literally "buy money with money" just to obtain physical cash. The episode details how this system works in practice, from international donors to Palestinian bank accounts to cash brokers and cash repairers, and what that means for ordinary Gazans trying to secure basics like food, tents, diapers, and milk.