Summer School 4: Who are all these regulations protecting?

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

LIVE SHOW: August 18th in Brooklyn. Tickets here.

There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things; maybe cheat at the game and steal other people's ideas, or cut some corners on safety. In theory, the government as referee steps in to make the rules and enforce them, and manage competition in a way that hopefully makes things better for us all.

But you have to ask... When is the government protecting you and when is it protecting the already rich and powerful?

We'll meet a man trying to corner the market for frozen meat, with the help of patents. And then we'll head to the salon, and ask — Should the government really require dozens of hours of training for a license to braid hair?

Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the code!)

The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone. Just a quick message before class gets started, Planet Money Summer School is having a live graduation ceremony and party in New York City on August 18th. Planet Money Plus supporters get a 10% discount.
0:12.6	Check out the show notes for a link to buy tickets before they sell out.
0:16.8	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:23.5	Welcome back, everyone, to Planet Money Summer School.
0:26.2	An economics course so easy, you can literally do it with your eyes closed.
0:31.0	My eyes are closed right now.
0:33.0	This season on summer school, we are tackling the role of the government in our economic lives.
0:37.6	We've looked at government as the big spender who buys all the drinks, and as the sneaky
0:42.8	pickpocket, who uses the tax code to remake society. Today, we look at the government as,
0:48.7	where's my whistle, here we go, a referee. There are occasional incentives in business that make it very profitable to do bad things.
1:00.1	Maybe cheat at the game and steal other people's ideas or cut some corners on safety.
1:05.5	The government as referee steps in to make the rules and enforce them, manage competition,
1:10.6	in a way that hopefully makes
1:11.9	things better for us all. But you have to ask, when is the government protecting you,
1:17.5	and when is it protecting the already rich and powerful? These rules always create winners and
1:22.8	losers, as we will see today. Every summer school has a few classic Planet Money case studies. We'll have those
1:28.6	coming up and a worldly professor to help us figure out the big ideas. That professor today is
1:34.4	Joanne Ricard Ugett, an associate professor who teaches political science at Loyola University, Maryland.
1:40.5	But more importantly, a listener to Planet Money, who heard past seasons of summer school
1:45.5	and encouraged us to look at the economics of government.
1:49.5	So good to have you on, Joanne.
1:51.4	Hi, Robert.
	...

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