Fellow-BRICS road: a club expands

08/25/23 • 24 min

2 Listeners

The alliance was always based more on common fortunes than common interests. We ask what to make of the six new members, and whether the bloc’s motley nature undermines its purpose. Regulation has struggled in an era when children can become “influencers”, but it is starting to catch up (9:36). And remembering Bindeshwar Pathak, who realised India’s future depended on toilets (16:28).

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Money Talks: Counting the cost of education

Is a college degree worth it? That question hangs over millions of would-be students, as they prepare to apply to university. It is one that many graduates might be mulling over as they have to start paying off their college debts once more. America’s pandemic-era moratorium on student debt payments comes to an end in September.

On this week’s podcast, hosts Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird examine whether college is still worth the time and the money. Constantine Yannelis from the Chicago Booth School of Business explains how the US economy will be impacted when up to 45 million Americans are confronted with their student debt payments once more. And Michael Itzkowitz, who was appointed to the US Department of Education by former President Obama, reveals how often students fail to earn a return on their investment in education.

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Next Episode

Checks and Balance: A novel approach

We take a break from the news this week to convene the first ever Checks and Balance Book Club. All summer we’ve been reading three works, picked by the team, from the canon of American literature. In this episode, we’ll present our analysis, hear what listeners thought, and work out what it means to be a Great American Novel. Plus, a very special quiz.

If you want to read along, the books we discuss are “The Age of Innocence” by Edith Wharton, “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner and “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. For more reading recommendations, The Economist has published a longer list of Great American Novels, collated from suggestions from our correspondents.

John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard, Idrees Kahloon and Jon Fasman.

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