TED Radio Hour

On today's show, how a policy that made natural gas very cheap for every household in Ukraine almost bankrupted the nation. And how that led, in part, to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

If you asked someone on the street 100 years ago, "How's the economy doing?" They wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about.   On today's show: How we started boiling down entire nations into a single number. And how that number made people think they could control everything.

People in La Crosse, Wisconsin are used to talking about death. In fact, 96 percent of people who die in this small, Midwestern city have specific directions laid out for when they pass. That number is astounding. Nationwide, it's more like 50 percent. In today's episode, we'll take you to a place where dying has become acceptable dinner conversation for teenagers and senior citizens alike. A place that also happens to have the lowest healthcare spending of any region in the country.

College is expensive these days. Yet, most universities argue an undergraduate education is actually worth much more than what students pay for it. Clearly there is an emotional logic to this argument. But what do the numbers tell us? In today's episode, Planet Money takes a behind the scenes look at Duke's balance sheet and considers the university's case that $60,000 a year is actually a discount.

From billion-dollar bailouts to Occupy Wall Street, it's safe to say the financial crisis didn't exactly paint a great picture of the banking industry. It's precisely that stigma that drove Kevin Roose to follow a group of young Wall Street recruits around for three years. In today's episode, Roose takes us behind the scenes of some of the largest banks, their secret societies and the young people escaping it all.  

A 30-year old woman finds out she has a viral infection attacking her heart that will kill her unless she has a transplant. Four years later she gets a new heart and goes on to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro. Inspiring story right? Will it move you to become an organ donor? Not necessarily. And that's a problem for the 120 thousand people waiting for organs in the United States. Behavior change is hard. That's something that organ donor advocates know firsthand...

It's cheap to fly on Spirit Airlines, but you have to pay extra for perks. And by perks, we mean a bottle of water or space in the overhead bin. It's totally rational: pay for what you use, don't pay for what you don't use. And it's increasingly popular: Spirit is the fastest growing airline in America. And yet. Lots of people really don't like Spirit Airlines. In a Consumer Reports survey published last year, Spirit finished last among U.S. airlines...

LeBron James, the best basketball player in the NBA, makes $17.5 million a year. He is the most underpaid professional athlete in the world today. On today's show, we explain why LeBron is getting hosed — and why that's probably a good thing for NBA fans, team owners, other pro players, and even LeBron himself. Note: This episode originally aired in January of 2013.

Here's the scenario: A man and his wife are desperate to get to the hospital because she is about to deliver a baby. It's a hot summer day. It's rush hour. They flag down a private car and ask, "How much?" To their surprise the driver wants to charge them four times the normal price of a cab...

Ben Horowitz is a big-time venture capitalist. His firm invested in Facebook and Twitter. More recently, his firm invested some $50 million in startups related to bitcoin, the virtual currency that works like online cash. Ben thinks bitcoin is going to change the way people buy and sell stuff on the Internet.   Felix Salmon, a high-profile finance blogger at Reuters, is a prominent bitcoin skeptic...