NPR: Planet Money

It's something you can see on every day and on every block in most major cities. But in Myanmar, a country that was cut off from the rest of the world for decades, an ATM is a small miracle.

How do you secretly stash away a million dollars? One way is to hide the money in plain sight, right in the heart of New York City. Today's show: the case of who owns Apartment 5B.

Meet a single mother who makes $16,000 a year and managed to fund a vacation at a Caribbean resort with an interest-free loan from one of the world's largest banks.

One night, Lariat Alhassan heard an ad on the radio. It said the Nigerian government was offering millions of dollars to people with business ideas, practically no strings attached. She gave it a go.

In New York City, more than 5,000 food trucks and carts compete for the business of hungry office workers. And finding the right spot to set up shop can mean the difference between fortune and ruin.

To serve Muslim customers, a bank in Michigan tried to comply with both U.S. regulations and Islamic law. One problem: Islamic law prohibits charging interest.

You won't have to get coffee. But you might have to ride a hoverboard. Apply by May 29.

On today's show, we open up some of those annoying pharmaceutical spam emails and find out who's clicking to buy herbal viagra? Also, what happens when they do?

Beer. Water. Pretzels. It takes effort, strategy, and some serious lungs to sell expensive junk food at a baseball game. Meet the hot dog vending legend of Fenway Park.

To get to the other side...where there are millions of dollars in tax breaks.

Housing subsidies are often given out through a lottery. But why do we let random chance decide who gets help with the rent? We don't do that for food stamps or health care, so why housing?

In this episode, we consider a world where everybody cheats, and where you can't win unless you game the regulators: Professional cycling.

When you're an employer looking at a giant stack of resumes, you have to find some way to quickly narrow the field. How do you do that fairly? And what happens when your good intentions backfire?

We talk to Kid Rock about how he tried to cut scalpers out of the business — and still sell cheap tickets to his shows.

The modern class action was created on a typewriter in the back of a car. (Sort of.) Now, thousands of these lawsuits are filed every year. How did we get here? Is this really a good way to do things?

Credit cards with chips in them have been around for four decades. So why is America only getting them now? And now that they are here, why are so few places using them?

Imagine a safer kind of gun. Imagine a company with a plan to build it. Imagine customers ready to buy it. Imagine what could go wrong. A whole lot.

A California mall straddles the border between two cities — and the minimum wage is higher on one side.

Puerto Rico is part of the United States, but not one of the United States. And this limbo status has brought a world of economic trouble.

And how can we meet our fake shareholder and fake director?

On today's show, we tell the stories of a few mysterious lines on IRS form 1040 — the basic tax form. In its own, maddening way, the 1040 is a great American document.

There's a revolution underway in the world of cable TV--more and more people are getting rid of it. And there are some unforeseen consequences when we cut the cord and go our separate ways.

We talk to a professional poker player who lost on the first day of poker's most famous tournament--but went on to get a huge payout. Turns out there's a game behind the game.

In this show, we dive deep into the world of hiding money. We look for the easiest place to shelter a bank account and set up our own shell company in an offshore tax haven. Good times.

Argentina decided that it could take on the world. They had a bunch of debt and said, 'we're not paying.' Then a group of hedge funds took the entire country to court.

One day in the early 1990s, a man walked into the U.S. embassy in Ecuador. He said he had information on how to go after some of most powerful drug traffickers in the world.

A million-dollar bet pits a bunch of really smart money managers against the simplest investment idea in the world.

Most of us don't think of citizenship as a product. It's something more: It's part of who you are. On today's show, we look at what happens when citizenship goes up for sale.

Today, we bring you the future as dreamt up by presidential candidates. Also: sober economists poking holes in the candidates' dreams.

We took a sample of the most novel economic proposals and asked a panel of economists: Are they good or bad?

Firefighters don't go to fires as much as much as they used to. Yet the fire department is still set up the same way. What should change?

A lot of people dream of not paying their taxes. Larry Williams scoured the fine print of IRS code, talked to lawyers, settled on a plan, then just stopped paying taxes.

There's a secret war going on inside every franchise. At KFC, it all goes back to a guy with a white beard and a black string tie: Colonel Harland Sanders.

Regret. Self-loathing. Jealousy. Happy Valentine's Day! We bring you little stories that we love so much, we wish we had thought of them ourselves.

He has thousands of dollars stashed around his house. She's part of an informal savings club. And Miguelo Rada has a whole bank in his pocket.

Politicians have argued for decades that CEOs should earn less money. But there was a moment in the 1990s when CEO pay suddenly shot up. What happened?

For years, Saudi Arabia has been living off one resource and one resource only: Oil. But now, the price of a barrel has plummeted, and the country is scrambling to adapt.

You've seen these ads: "You can work from home and get rich. It's easy. Call this number!" So, what happens when you respond?

We ponder the origins of money, the economics of Santa, and the business of cemeteries. Why? Because you asked.

We uncover the secrets of the auction world. There is conniving. There are tricks. Also: Hydraulic hammers.

Our power grid was designed long before the digital age. The electricity it gives out doesn't work right for our computers, phones and gadgets. So what to do?

According to one theory, we tip because we feel guilty, not because we want better service.

How much of published scientific research is false? Scientists are trying to figure it out.

If those had been the winning Powerball numbers, this would have been our last show. Instead, the story of the oldest lottery we could find and of the man who outsmarted the odds.

Sneaking people across the U.S.-Mexico border is a well established, booming business. Today on the show, we meet a businessman and a client in the evolving industry of human smuggling.

On today's Planet Money, the complex economy of one elementary-school lunchroom.

In the 1600s, a good spice rub was the ultimate display of wealth. People would risk their lives for a sack of cloves. On today's show, we cook a recipe from the spice trade days.

In the 1600s, a good spice rub was the ultimate display of wealth. People would risk their lives for a sack of cloves. On today's show, we cook a recipe from the spice trade days.

Not every story has an ending. Sometimes after we finish a podcast and send it to you, the facts change, a new chapter unfolds. Today on the show, we update some of our favorite episodes from 2015.

There are people with Birkin bags, and there are the rest of us. Today on the show: the elaborate, upside-down strategy that has kept a $60,000 purse the "it" bag for 30 years.