Jacob Goldstein

Note: This episode contains explicit language.

In that photo up there, the man on the right is handing an envelope of cash to the man on the left, in exchange for secret information. It is a photo of insider trading as it happens. Today on the show: the man on the left explains everything — what he did, how he did it, and why. Though he's still struggling with that last one.

Also, when someone trades on insider information, they probably are going to make a lot of money. But who loses that money? We try to solve that brain teaser.

It's Janet Yellen's last week running the Federal Reserve.

On today's show, we focus on a single speech Yellen gave last year.

In the speech, Yellen lays out one of the most baffling mysteries in the American economy right now.

Also, the speech reveals a certain boldness that Yellen brought to the job. Superficially, it looks like one more speech about monetary policy. But look a little deeper and you see Yellen is asking some radical questions.

When the Canadian government said it would legalize recreational marijuana in the summer of 2018, some people thought: I am going to have an amazing party. Others worried about what to tell their kids.

James Tebrake had a different thought: "We have one chance to collect as much information as possible about a very interesting and important issue."

That issue: What happens to a country's economy when a popular drug goes from being illegal to being legal?

This morning, the federal government released the JOLTS report. (The name is an acronym for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.)

The has a bunch of useful data points about the jobs market. But, more than that, it implies a really dynamic, exciting way of looking at the job market.

Among its insights: Workers are getting more power relative to employers. Also, quitting is awesome.

Bonus: Our guest, Nick Bunker, tells the JOLTS story in graphs.

This episode originally ran in 2012.

We're in a gym full of high school students. The gym is at the headquarters of the New York Federal Reserve, just a few blocks from Wall Street. The students are here for the High School Fed Challenge.

Warning: This episode has explicit language, for unavoidable and soon-to-be obvious reasons.

Growing up in California, Simon Tam had some tough moments. He was Chinese-American, and in middle school, kids called him all kinds of racial slurs.

Those moments stuck with him.

Simon grew up, and eventually started a band that was beginning to take off. He decided on a band name that said something about being Asian. Something that asserted an identity. He picked "The Slants," as a way to own a stereotype and turn it into something completely different.

Here is a thing we hear approximately every day: The world is changing faster than ever before. Robert Gordon doesn't buy it.

He's an economist who has spent decades studying technological change and economic growth in America. He argues that, contrary to popular belief, the world is not changing faster than ever before. In fact, it's not even changing as fast as it was 100 years ago.