Jacob Goldstein
Jacob Goldstein is an NPR correspondent and co-host of the Planet Money podcast. He is the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.
Goldstein's interest in technology and the changing nature of work has led him to stories on UPS, the Luddites and the history of light. His aversion to paying retail has led him to stories on Costco, Spirit Airlines and index funds.
He also contributed to the Planet Money T-shirt and oil projects, and to an episode of This American Life that asked: What is money? Ira Glass called it "the most stoner question" ever posed on the show.
Before coming to NPR, Goldstein was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine. He has a bachelor's degree in English from Stanford and a master's in journalism from Columbia.
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Tech companies are getting into the house-flipping business, buying up billions of dollars in homes from ordinary Americans. The companies are being funded in part by global investors.
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Those online tests where you click boxes to prove you're not a robot are going away. A new test is here, it's always running in the background, trying to figure out if you're really a human being.
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There's a new way to pay for college. It's not debt — but students are on the hook after they graduate.
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A three-part series on the history of competition, big business, and antitrust law, one of the most important but least-understood bodies of law in the United States. -
The Federal Reserve targets an inflation rate of 2 percent. Why 2 percent? And how close are we to the target?
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In the campaign leading up to the Brexit vote, economist Tim Harford played the role of independent fact checker. Now that it has passed, he's letting out some strong feelings.
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Many of the lines on tax forms like the 1040 seem oddly specific. Some are for farmers, some for divorcees, some for servicemen and women. Behind each of those we can see the process that shapes our tax code. NPR looks at one line — for performing artists — and how it came to be.
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Not all debt collectors work at banks or big, corporate agencies. Many work at small, storefront shops. At least one worked in a former karate studio. -
A typical UPS truck now has hundreds of sensors on it. That's changing the way UPS drivers work — and it foreshadows changes coming for workers throughout the economy. -
Over the past 50 years, both the way the federal government spends money and what the government spends money on has changed a lot.
