CLASSIC: Were Tulips Really The Bitcoin of th...

We all know pi, right? It's one of the most famous 'irrational numbers' in history, and mathematicians are still trying to figure it out in the modern day. While this may seem arcane to some of us non-mathheads, in today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max learn these numbers were3 once ...  Show more

As the Fox sisters became global superstars for their purported ability to speak with the dead, the Spiritualism movement became both a social phenomena and a booming business. Yet along with the rise of true believers and performing psychics, an army of skeptics and investigator ...  Show more

The world experienced its first economic bubble when the Dutch went bonkers for tulips in the 1630s.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Cautionary Tales returns with a new episode on May 2nd. Both of the world’s greatest economists, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes, thought they could see into the future and make a killing on the stock market - and then both were wiped out by the Wall Street Crash. One died ...  Show more

This week’s picks from our YouTube channel feature a look at the housing bubbles that are looking increasingly shaky in a number of countries and a little tale of what happened when Instagram fact-checked a meme I posted about CBDCs. A home of one’s own is a big deal for many peo ...  Show more

Steve and Phil have described the island of Coinucopia in previous editions of the podcast. It started as a place where only coins were legal tender, and the supply of coins didn’t increase. They explained how that created deflation and inhibited growth, so the government st ...  Show more