China is trying a bold experiment. The government wants to make it easier for people to trust each other. They are creating something known as a social credit score.
This would be a nationwide system, similar to an American credit score, but that stretches deep into all kinds of areas of public and private life. It involves tracking, monitoring and sometimes shaming people who break rules and default on debts.
Today on the show, our friends at The Indicator explore China’s new social credit system; we meet a man trapped on a blacklist, prevented from traveling freely, and he finds his picture looming over him on a billboard of shame. Also, we learn why many citizens like this system. They’re grateful for how it improves daily life in small ways.
Planet Money: The Seattle Experiment
It’s no secret how elections work: A winning campaign costs a lot of money, so candidates court people who have the money to spend. Say, business interests. Then, when a politician takes office, their powerful donors have more influence than the average citizen. It’s not a great system.
So Seattleites decided to tear it all up and try something radical: Fighting big money by flooding elections with even more money. The experiment… did not necessarily go as planned.
This episode is a collaboration with Vox’s The Impact podcast.
Planet Money: Why Did The Cow Cross The Border?
Lately, we’ve been nerding out about cattle. Specifically, about this one particular set of facts. Every year, the United States exports 500 million tons of beef to Mexico. But every year, the United States imports 500 million tons of beef from Mexico.
We heard this, and thought: How is that possible? Why are we trotting all these cows back and forth across the border? We sent a reporter to the border to find out. The answers to those questions explain a lot about how trade works.
Goodhart’s Law: Planet Money
If something is going wrong in your workplace, there’s probably a law that explains why. Like Goodhart’s Law, which says if a company decides to measure something, workers will find a way to respond with good numbers. Or, the Peter Principle, which says that every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.