Hey, it's Kenny Malone, and I want to take a quick minute to talk about public media. It was founded to inform, to educate, to expand our perspective. But as of this fall, federal funding for public media, including NPR and local NPR stations, has been eliminated. It was a huge blow on top of an already very busy year here at Planet Money.

You know, in 2025, we've raced to publish episodes on the trade war, the Doge Chainsaw, the fight over the Federal Reserve.

And obviously, we could go on and on. But we've also tried to balance that heavier stuff with stories to entertain and illuminate,

even delight, we hope, from time to time.

Like the story about why it is so hard to find a public toilet or the mystery behind the website milk.com.

We've also taken on some bigger projects this year, like the end of Pax Americana

and kicking off our quest to make

a board game. So it's been a lot. And we want to be just as ambitious next year to meet

whatever the moment calls for with, of course, your help. So thank you if you've already gone

the extra mile as an NPR Plus supporter. And if not, you can join

our Plus community. You can get a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across

NPR's podcasts and support public media along the way by signing up for NPR Plus today. You can just go to plus.npr.org.

And of course, thank you.

This is Planet Money from NPR.

Chicago journalist Mick Dumkey has an amazing memory.

He's the type of person who can look at a map of a new city and then go for a run and not get lost.

Or recall exactly where he was on a Tuesday in December of 2008.

He was at the gym.

I'm a regular weightlifter, Nick,

even though you'd never know it from looking at me

because I'm not a very big guy.

But I'm pretty sure I was in the weight room at that time.

...