Planet Money complains. To learn.

By Sarah Gonzalez,

Marianne McCune, James Sneed

Published April 30, 2025 at 9:32 AM EDT

On today's show: we're ... venting.

We at Planet Money are an ensemble show – each with different curiosities and styles. But we recently realized many of us have something in common: We're annoyed consumers.

So we're going to get ranty ... but then try to understand the people annoying us. Like stingy coffee shops, manufacturers that don't design things for repair ... and stores that send way to many emails every day.

Along the way, we learn a very sad thing about satisfaction and the future of skilled labor in the U.S.

(Also, we should all just stop using umbrellas. They have negative consumption externalities. Come on people.)

This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by ______ Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: Source Audio - "City Dreamer," "Year 4001," "Soul Swirl," "Sure Thing," "Alpha Zulu," and "Sold On You"

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Sarah Gonzalez

Sarah Gonzalez is a host and reporter with Planet Money, NPR's award-winning podcast that finds creative, entertaining ways to make sense of the big, complicated forces that move our economy. She joined the team in April 2018.

Marianne McCune

Marianne McCune is a reporter and producer for Embedded: Buffalo Extreme who has more than two decades of experience making award-winning audio stories. She has produced narrative podcast series for New York Magazine (Cover Story), helped start, produce and edit long-form narrative shows for NPR and public radio affiliates (Rough Translation; United States of Anxiety, Season Four), reported locally and internationally (NPR News, NPR's Planet Money and WNYC News) and produced groundbreaking narrative audio tours (SF MOMA, Detour). She is also the founder of Radio Rookies, a narrative youth radio series, that is still thriving at WNYC.

James Sneed

James Sneed began his career at NPR as Planet Money's Winter 2020 intern. Previous to that, Sneed worked at KBOO Community Radio and attended the Transom Story Workshop. His other professional experience includes Open Signal Media Center, KSMoCA and MASS MoCA. Currently, Sneed is an associate producer with Planet Money where he has produced stories about a comic book character from the public domain, the business of Black joy and the Christmas tree market — as well as reported on the racial wealth gap, the NCAA at the Supreme Court and why the New York Mets don't always Mets everything up... necessarily.