Caitlin Kenney

We talk to Kid Rock about how he tried to cut scalpers out of the business, then compare that to what Taylor Swift did.

There are hundreds of thousands of people doing stuff to your Internet experience that you may think is the work of an algorithm. They're working from home doing tiny tasks computers can't quite do.

It's Tax Day. Have you filed yet? How honest were you? Caitlin Kenney, reporter and producer at NPR's Planet Money, talks about how tax collectors in the Philippines, Italy and the UK encourage people to file, and how it's done in the US.

Lots of angry customers took to Twitter this holiday season to express their frustration that packages containing gifts weren't delivered in time to be under the tree Wednesday.

While most of the angry messages were directed at UPS and FedEx, some retail analysts suggest there may be a different culprit ...

Bangladesh is the cheapest place in the world to make a T-shirt. But this month, the minimum wage there will rise from $39 a month to $68 a month. That's got some factory owners nervous about whether Western retailers there will pull out. Our Planet Money team examines the future ...

Part of the Planet Money T-shirt Project

This is the story of how the garment industry is transforming life in Bangladesh, and the story of two sisters who made the Planet Money T-shirt.

Shumi and Minu work six days a week operating sewing machines at Deluxe Fashions Ltd. ...

The government has filed suit to block the merger of American Airlines and US Airways. The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice says the merger "would create the world's largest airline and leave just three legacy carriers remaining in the U.S. [which] would substantially lessen competition for commercial ...

Kid Rock is tired of scalpers taking tickets away from his biggest fans.

One way to stop that: Raise ticket prices. If Kid Rock charged more for his tickets, scalpers wouldn't be able to sell them at such a big markup.

But Kid Rock doesn't want to raise prices.

"I ...

In 2011, we talked to Freeway Rick Ross (pictured), about the economics of illegal drugs. Ross was one of the biggest crack dealers in LA in the '80s and '90s, and he confirmed for us what a lot of economists say about illegal drugs — making them illegal ...

On this week's This American Life, we took a close look at a patent lawsuit involving the online backup company Carbonite. Carbonite was sued for patent infringement by a shell company called Oasis Research. According to Carbonite, Oasis was seeking $20 million in damages.

Carbonite and another company sued ...

Credit bureaus are exploring using social media to suss out your creditworthiness. Bloomberg reports:

Users of Facebook, Pinterest Inc. and Twitter Inc. share personal details every day through public postings, status updates and location check-ins. That information is proving useful in validating identity, evaluating whether to make a ...

Planet Money fan @David_Rab just set up a new place on Reddit for Planet Money fans to discuss the show. Reddit is a link sharing site, which allows users to vote up or down content or comments. David created what's called a "subreddit" for Planet Money, a ...

The idea behind microcredit is that if you give poor people in developing countries access to credit, the ability to borrow, they will use that money to start or expand businesses which will eventually help them pull themselves out of poverty. But ever since these programs boomed in the early ...

On today's show: Three short stories from the far flung shores of New Zealand, Ireland and New Jersey.

First up, it's no secret that some Americans hide money offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Over the past decade, some 39,000 people have come forward voluntarily to tell the IRS about ...

Back in 2010, our own Jacob Goldstein called the cupcake craze a "bubble of historic proportions." He called it too early.

The following year, Crumbs Bake Shop went public, and Jacob began to doubt himself.

Maybe some broader trend is at work here, and cupcakes aren't just ...

If you have a CD or book you don't want anymore, you can sell it. The law says that's perfectly legal. But what about an MP3 or an e-book? Can you legally resell your digital goods?

When Hurricane Sandy struck, it devastated businesses all over New York City. One area hit particularly hard was Coney Island, an iconic New York beach at the tip of South Brooklyn. At the time, we reported on the damage to a family-owned amusement park, Deno's Wonderwheel Amusement Park, ...

Last month, we reported on a company called ReDigi that's basically a digital version of a used record store. You can sell them your old mp3s, and you can buy "used" mp3s that other people have sold.

Capitol Records sued ReDigi for copyright infringement. Their complaint alleged ...

Businessweek has a great piece describing how Samsung came to dominate the smartphone industry. One secret of their success — quality control:

In 1995, Chairman Lee was dismayed to learn that cell phones he gave as New Year's gifts were found to be inoperable. He directed ...

Say you buy a textbook in another country, where textbooks are cheap. Then you bring the book back to the U.S. and sell it at a profit. Did you break the law?

No, you didn't. In a ruling that came down yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of ...