Alex Blumberg
Alex Blumberg is a contributing editor for NPR's Planet Money. He is also a producer for the public radio program This American Life, and an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University. He has done radio documentaries on the U.S. Navy, people who do impersonations of their mothers and teenage Steve Forbes supporters. He won first place at the 2002 Third Coast International Audio Festival for his story "Yes, There is a Baby." His story on clinical medical ethicists won the 1999 Public Radio °µºÚ±¬ÁÏ Directors Incorporated (PRNDI) award for best radio documentary.
In 2008, Blumberg collaborated with NPR economics correspondent Adam Davidson on a special This American Life episode about the housing crisis. Called "the greatest explainer ever heard" by noted journalism professor Jay Rosen, the Giant Pool of Money became the inspiration for NPR's Planet Money.
Blumberg has a B.A. from Oberlin College.
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For every dollar spent on lobbying for a 2004 corporate tax bill, companies benefited $220, a new study says. That's a return of 22,000 percent. -
The supercommittee failed. But when it comes to long-term U.S. debt, the left and right agree. A lot. -
Resource-rich countries like Libya often end up with broken economies and autocratic rulers. The trick to avoiding the resource curse: Fight basic human nature. -
If you want adults to have jobs, the best time to train them is when they're 3 years old, an economist says. -
Jonathan Coulton's songs almost never get played on the radio. He doesn't have a contract with a music label. Yet he's a one man counterargument to the idea that musicians can't make money making music. In 2010, his music brought in $500,000. -
Do economists' theories about drugs hold up in the real world? To find out, we asked "Freeway" Rick Ross, one of L.A.'s biggest crack dealers in the '80s and '90s. -
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew too big to fail. Then the mortgage giants followed the subprime lending industry into the abyss. -
How Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used ferocious lobbying and implicit government backing to grow rich and powerful. -
One reason for the military's peaceful response: the unique role it plays in the Egyptian economy. The military owns "virtually every industry in the country," according to one expert. -
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's competing reports differ more in style than in substance.
