Cardiff Garcia

The Diamond-Water Paradox poses the question: If we need water to survive and we don't need diamonds, why are diamonds expensive and water cheap?

President Trump broke with tradition by lamenting that rising rates are keeping the dollar strong and the trade deficit wide. But rising rates and a stronger dollar are the results of his own agenda.

The European Commission just slapped Google with a $5 billion fine for abusing its Android monopoly. How did it create the alleged monopoly? By making Android free.

Can the yield curve predict recession, or is it a dated model? Planet Money explains.

Three worrying indicators to keep an eye on — less complicated than the yield curve, but something you can talk about at the water cooler.

It may be too late to avoid a trade war between the U.S. and China, but there might be a simple way to stop the trade wars of the future.

We respond to your letters, tweets and messages: We talk Iran, yield curve and how to pronounce Hyundai.

Starbucks, Ikea, Vancouver, Scotland: They've all banned plastic straws. The movement is meant to help reduce plastic waste in the ocean. But will it work, or will it backfire?

Banks and other financial institutions have their own banking accounts at the Federal Reserve. Morgan Ricks argues that regular folks should have access to Fed accounts, too.

President Trump recently announced strict economic sanctions in Iran. Today on the show, we talked to a young Iranian man about what it's like to live in the Iranian economy right now.

Every time the yield curve has inverted since 1970, the economy has fallen into recession. It's getting close to inverting now, but it may no longer be the recession predictor it once was.

Two stories from our Indicator team. One province in China makes many of the world's flags. It's a unique window on global trade. And we find out why so few teenagers are working summer jobs.

It's jobs Friday! For a comprehensive mid-year update on the labor market, we ask labor economist Betsey Stevenson ten questions in ten minutes.

A quirk in French labor law makes it especially difficult for a company to lay off its employees. It's a system designed to protect workers, but it also has consequences for the rest of the economy.

Flags: symbol of a country, patriotic rallying cry, and a telling economic indicator. Today on the show, a factory in China that makes American flags, and what it tells us about the modern economy.

The unemployment rate is already below the Federal Reserve's estimate for maximum employment. But former Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin says it may still have further to fall.

Every year, the nation's biggest banks are subjected to stress tests, hypothetical disaster scenarios designed to test their balance sheets. But the stress tests could soon be getting less stressful.

The price of oil continued climbing throughout this year, catching forecasters and consumers by surprise. What happened, and what might make it move in the second half of the year?

June marks the birthday of two of the most famous economists of all time: Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. Whose ideas are most relevant today? Stacey and Cardiff duke it out.

Team Indicator takes on the World Cup. We drink, we cheer, we watch the game and, of course, we bring our economic indicators.