TED Radio Hour

Planet Money's Steve Henn wanted to know how much someone could learn about him by just sitting back and watching his internet traffic flow by. So he invited a couple computer guys to bug his internet connection for a week. On today's show: What they discovered, and what that tells us about security, smartphones and free WiFi.

One of the biggest banks in the world, BNP Paribas, is about to be punished. The financial cops are in the middle of deciding what they are going to do. They're trying to figure out how to punish a bank in a way that actually makes it change. There are some standard ways to punish a bad bank. Fines are the first thing every regulator and judge tries. There's also getting the bank to admit guilt. Now they might try something never done before. Today on the show: how to punish a bank.

Today on the show: Stories about bored traders, a bank that charges customers to deposit money, and a pawn shop for the rich.

Certain things are just hard to improve on. The classic example: the mousetrap. Also: the paperclip. And, the super-size version: the pallet. In its way, the pallet is perfect. A few pieces of cheap lumber nailed together, without an extra nail or board. It keeps things a few inches off the floor and works with a forklift. Amazing. This perfect system of moving stuff around on pallets has been around for a long time. And for basically 50 years, no one really improved on it in this country...

The other day we noticed something strange: a pack of Milk Chocolate M&M's weighs 1.69 ounces, but a pack of Peanut Butter M&M's weigh a tiny tiny bit less, 1.63 ounces. The two packs are same price, but you get slightly less of the Peanut Butter M&Ms! 0.06 ounces less! It turns out there is a whole weird world living down there at the third decimal place. When you pull on that little thread, lots of things start to unravel...

Note: Today's show is a re-run. It originally ran in July 2013. Climate change seems like this complicated, intractable problem. But maybe it doesn't have to be. On today's show, we talk to a couple economists about a very simple idea that could solve the climate-change problem: tax carbon emissions. A carbon tax could be paired with cuts in the income tax. And it would drive down emissions without picking winners or losers, and without creating complicated regulations.

There's this big idea floating around right now. It sounds crazy and fringey, but it turns out some non-crazy, non-fringey people are into it. The idea is this: let's get rid of the banks. Don't make them safer. Don't make them smaller. Just get rid of them. On today's show: A world without banks.

When we talk about European economy, we usually focus on the screw ups – the sunny South, with the big deficits. But the strangest report recently came out of Brussels—saying how well Germany's economy is doing. And how that's a big problem for the rest of the countries in the Eurozone. Today on the show: How when you're in a group, doing extremely well can be a problem.

Tons of entrepreneurs have come up with clever ways to make money using little drones: farmers, who want to spot aphids on their soybean plants; ranchers trying to find lost cows; crews wanting to film shiny cars cruising on windy roads. There's just this one little problem – according to the Federal Aviation Administration – all these people- they are breaking the law. Today on the show: drones are proliferating, but who owns the air? If you buy a house, you know you own the ground...

Today on the show we have three radio stories for you about the strange ways people think about their the future. In the first Ashley Milne-Tyte talks to two graduates Seeking A Fortune Through Search Funds. Then David Kestenbaum tells us How One State Convinced Its 'Young Invincibles' To Get Health Insurance. And in the last story Jacob Goldstein explains Why Inflation Is So Low.