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This is Planet Money from NPR.

That ring can only bring one thing.

It's the Planet Money Summer School. You're listening, hard-thinking, audio economics degree.

And the only education you can get these days without putting on pants or taking on debt.

I'm your host, Robert Smith.

This is the sixth year we've done summer school, six years of taking the biggest ideas in

economics and packing them up like a beach read for your ears. If you've been enrolled with us

since the very start, your parents might be wondering if you're finally a doctor yet, soon,

soon. Of course, you may be asking Robert, we have already done whole summers on micro and macro

economics. We've learned about investing, entrepreneurship, and the economic history of the world.

What else is there? Well, this summer, we will tackle the biggest economic player of the mall,

the government. As you might have noticed, the biggest debates in our

country right now are about how much government should be up in our business, in trade, taxes,

immigration, health care, regulations, you name it. Every day, it feels hard to make any personal

or economic decision until we can figure out what the government is going to do.

So every Wednesday this summer, we will hear stories of how politicians sometimes make all of us

richer, and yeah, sometimes screw it all up. And we'll talk about the big economic question.

What is the right amount of government in our lives? As always, we will have a final exam at the end of the season and a souvenir diploma plus, and this is big, a live graduation ceremony in New York City in late August, details in the show notes, and at the end of this episode.

So government, the big G.

I know we like to imagine the free market,

...