Earlier this year I saw the movie trading places again on Netflix and I thought I've seen this movie over and over again

but I've never really understood what happens on the trading floor at the end of the

movie and one of the great things about working in public radio is that it's a pretty small world.

So I've met Robert Smith before, and so I just wrote them at Planet Money and I said, I want to do a story

where you help explain the economics of trading places to me.

And for everyone else like me who also doesn't quite get it, but loves the movie, but doesn't

quite get it.

And so I wanted to share that story with you guys.

It was so much fun working with them.

And I really liked the story that came out.

Back in the 1980s, Louis Winthrop III was a big deal in the world of futures trading.

He worked at a fancy deal in the world of futures trading.

He worked at a fancy firm in Philadelphia

and this guy knew commodities.

Pork bellies.

Hmm.

I have a hunch something very exciting is going to happen in the porkfilly market this morning

Louis was the best he was about to get married and the future looked bright

We are going to make a great couple. We're going to have a great life.

Until his bosses Randolph and Mortimer Duke took all of that away from him.

And so begins the great parable about what happens when the rich become poor, the poor become

rich at a con man inherits the Earth.

...