Katy Vine reports on yet another promising young person, Tye Thomas, and how he went through the rise and fall of a full political career, in just one year, at the age of 21, in the Texas town of Gun Barrel City. (15 minutes)
More in Personal Finance
Act Two: Taxes
Al Drucker used to work for the IRS doing tax enforcement.
Act One: Money for Nothing and Your Cows for Free
Planet Money reporters David Kestenbaum and Jacob Goldstein went to Kenya to see the work of a charity called GiveDirectly in action.
Act Four: Don't Hate The Player
Shawn Allee tells a story of the oldest kind of million dollar idea, the scam.
Staff Recommendations
Sissies
A family where the father was one kind of sissy and the son was another kind, and how the family was destroyed despite the fact that no one wanted it to be.
Arms Trader (2009)
The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man suspected of being an illegal arms dealer.