Everyone The U.S. Government Owes Money To, In One Graph
If Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling soon, the U.S. government won't be able to pay its debts. Here's who the government owes money to — all the holders of U.S. Treasury debt, broken down by category and by how much government debt they hold. For more, see our story: What A U.S. Default Would Mean For Pensions, China And Social Security Update: There were two misspellings in the original version of the graphic. Thanks to the commenters who pointed this out.
On today's Planet Money: We hear and read stories of corruption every day, but finding cold hard data on the subject is so hard that MIT economics professor, Ben Olken, had to go dig up roads in Indonesia to get some. Olken and his team set out to measure the amount of raw materials that went missing when the government gave local villagers money for projects like building roads. The study not only required the researchers to dig up roads -- but also to build a few of their own. Download the podcast; or subscribe. Music: Broken Bells' "High Road." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr.