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Make Me Smart

Daily Business News & Culture podcast
Kimberly Adams
Latest Episode

The 2020 election will be all about socialism

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Feb 26, 2019 · Episode 102

Episodes 1461 - 1470 of 1576

  • Feb 20, 2019 · Episode 101

    What’s the deal with the Green New Deal?

    U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks during a news conference at the East Front of the U.S. Capitol February 7, 2019 in Washington, DC. 
    Alex Wong/Getty Images

    It’s more about the political climate. It’s an ambitious plan to de-carbonize the American economy while adding new jobs in infrastructure and alternative energy.

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  • Feb 13, 2019 · Episode 100

    The Oscars are a mess

    We're taking the Oscars to The Dark Place this week, y'all.
    Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

    New York Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris helps us make sense of it.

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  • Feb 5, 2019 · Episode 99

    When memes are moneymakers

    The Instagram account @world_record_egg garnered the most-likes post on a single post before revealing a PSA on Super Bowl Sunday about... the effect of social media on mental health.
    Screengrab via Hulu

    It’s our dankest episode yet. We get you up to speed on memes before we ask the money question: Where is the profit when they go viral?

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  • Jan 30, 2019 · Episode 98

    Can we shut down the shutdowns?

    Storm clouds fill the sky over the U.S. Capitol Building, June 13, 2013 in Washington, DC.
    Mark Wilson/Getty Images

    How did closing the government became a political weapon in the first place?

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  • Jan 23, 2019 · Episode 97

    Think before you major

    Students pull a mock 'ball & chain' representing the $1.4 trilling outstanding student debt at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2016.
    PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

    The years of your life, the mountains of debt… more people wonder if higher ed pays off.

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  • Jan 16, 2019 · Episode 96

    Do it for the ‘gram

    Visitors take pictures of themselves at the Supercandy Pop-Up Museum in Cologne, western Germany.
    ROLF VENNENBERND/AFP/Getty Images

    And by “it” we mean “deleting Facebook.” Wait, what?

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  • Architecture students at the Technical University of Munich in 2018.
    Joerg Koch/Getty Images

    Can design thinking help us solve this country’s problems at scale? What about existential-crisis scale?

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  • The Twitter account of far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was suspended for a week in August. 
    Photo by Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images

    As a year of social media scandals ends, let’s revisit our talk with internet law professor Kate Klonick.

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  • Adam Conover at Marketplace HQ.
    Ben Hethcoat/Marketplace

    We’re rerunning our interview with fact-checking comedian Adam Conover. His mission is kind of like ours: Challenging assumptions and questioning everything in a bid to make us all smarter. Doesn’t that sound useful over the holidays?

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About the show

“Make Me Smart” is a podcast about the economy, technology, society, and culture hosted by Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams. New episodes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. In a time when the world is moving faster than ever, this podcast is where we unpack complex topics, together. Because none of us is as smart as all of us.

Before coming to Marketplace, Adams reported on the political, social and economic upheaval in Egypt following the Arab Spring. While reporting in Cairo, she received awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, the Religion Communicators Council, and the Association for Women in Communication. She was also competitively selected for the International Women’s Media Foundation “Great Lakes” Reporting fellowship to Uganda, where she reported on environmental, economic and LGBT issues.

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