Should America Be Run by … Trader Joe’s? – The daily blog of behavioral and cognitive economics

Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner, and I’d like to thank you for the overwhelming response to our most recent episode, which was called “Ten Myths About the U.S. Tax System.” There were a lot of good suggestions for follow-up episodes, and we’ll certainly keep those in mind. One of the joys of making this show is going after stories that simply seem interesting and worthwhile, without any set agenda to follow; you never know which episodes are going to strike a chord like this one did. Today, we’ve gone into the archive to play you another episode that struck a chord when it was first published. It’s called “Should America Be Run by… Trader Joe’s?” We’ve updated facts and figures as necessary. I should note that Trader Joe’s did not participate in the making of this episode; their executives don’t tend to give interviews — although we did receive a note from then-C.E.O. Dan Bane after we first published this episode, in 2018. ….[READ]