For the most part, Americans don’t like the simple, boring act of putting money in a savings account. We do, however, love to play the lottery. So what if you combined the two, creating a new kind of savings account with a lottery payout?
It’s the banking tool that got millions of people around the world to stop wasting money on the lottery. So why won’t state and federal officials in the U.S. give it a chance?
Season 2, Episode 5
Our latest podcast is called “Lottery Loopholes and Deadly Doctors.” (Download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen via the media player above, or read the transcript below.) This is the final episode of five one-hour Freakonomics Radio specials that have been airing on public radio stations across the country. (Check here to find your local station.)
These hour-long programs are “mashupdates” — that is, mashups of earlier podcasts which we’ve also updated with new interviews, etc.
In two weeks, we’ll start releasing a series of brand new podcasts. Among the topics to listen for: the selling of souls, the value of college, and the strategic use of jerkitude (that is, acting like a jerk).
This week on Freakonomics Radio, experts and pundits are notoriously bad at forecasting, in part because they aren’t punished for bad predictions. Also, they tend to be deeply unscientific. The psychologist Philip Tetlock is finally turning prediction into a science — and now even you could become a superforecaster.
You want to listen to Freakonomics Radio? That’s great! Most people use a podcast app on their smartphone. It’s free (with the purchase of a phone, of course). Looking for more guidance? We’ve got you covered.
Stay up-to-date on all our shows. We promise no spam.