What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - One Year - 1942: The Most Hated Man in America
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2022
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At the beginning of World War II, the greatest threat to the American war effort wasn’t the Nazis or the Japanese—it was runaway inflation. The man in charge of stopping it was the country’s “price czar,” Leon Henderson. In 1942, he controlled how much coffee ordinary people could drink and how many tires they could buy. Those rules made him a nationwide villain. But would they save the country?
One Year is produced by Evan Chung, Sophie Summergrad, Sam Kim, and Josh Levin.
Derek John is senior supervising producer of narrative podcasts and Merritt Jacob is senior technical director.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, TBD listeners, it's Lizzie. |
| 0:02.2 | And I've got something special for you today |
| 0:04.0 | while we take a little break over the holidays. |
| 0:07.1 | It comes from one of my favorite slave podcasts, One Year, |
| 0:10.8 | which looks at the people and struggles that changed America, |
| 0:14.0 | one year at a time. |
| 0:16.0 | Their latest season goes all the way back to 1942, |
| 0:19.4 | a tumultuous year with a lot of eerie parallels to today. |
| 0:23.7 | At the beginning of World War II, |
| 0:25.2 | the greatest threat to the American war effort |
| 0:27.6 | wasn't the Nazis and it wasn't the Japanese. |
| 0:30.2 | It was runaway inflation. |
| 0:32.4 | The man in charge of stopping it was the country's price |
| 0:35.7 | czar, a man named Leon Henderson. |
| 0:38.0 | You can forget Jerome Powell on the Fed. |
| 0:40.4 | In 1942, Leon Henderson controlled nearly everything |
| 0:44.7 | in the economy. |
| 0:45.7 | How much things cost, how much workers got paid, |
| 0:48.8 | and it often made him a villain. |
| 0:50.7 | But did his actions save the country? |
| 0:54.5 | We'll be back with new episodes of World Next CBD |
| 0:57.2 | in the new year. |
... |
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