What happens to your health data when it leaves your doctor’s office? In this episode of Interconnected, we uncover the hidden world of data brokers and algorithms shaping your health insurance premiums, often without your knowledge. Through the story of Maya—a composite character built from real experiences—we explore how apps, pharmacies, and loyalty programs collect your personal health information and feed it into an unregulated marketplace. Learn how data flows from your fitness tracker to brokers, insurers, and even employers, creating risk profiles that can affect everything from costs to opportunities. We ask the big questions: Who profits from your data? Why is it so hard to opt out? And what changes when we truly see how this system works?

Keywords: health data privacy, data brokers, health insurance, HIPAA, algorithmic bias, health data exploitation, insurance premiums, health surveillance, financial systems, personal data

A master's degree for entry-level jobs. Five years of experience for roles that didn't exist five years ago. Certifications, skills, portfolios—and it's still not enough. This isn't about you not being qualified. It's credential inflation: a broken system where degree requirements exploded while entry-level salaries stagnated.

We trace how this happened: why employers demand degrees they don't need, how résumé screening algorithms locked these requirements in place, and how student loan securitization created a $1.7 trillion debt market that profits from credential inflation. We follow universities expanding graduate programs that cost six figures but lead to jobs paying $41,000 a year. Then we find something unexpected: some companies hire without degree requirements—and they're faster, cheaper, and find better people.

So why isn't everyone doing it?

An investigation into the hidden economics of hiring, student debt, and why the job market broke—and what it would take to fix it.

Childcare costs more than rent. A toddler teacher earns $11 an hour—and can't afford to enroll her own daughter. A manufacturer loses skilled workers every time a preschool closes. This isn't a childcare problem. It's a trap. We trace how the childcare crisis became a closed system: Low wages drive 300% annual turnover among early childhood educators. High turnover destroys quality. Declining quality pressures parents to pay more, but tuition hikes force centers to cut hours or close entirely. When centers close, women exit the workforce—costing employers $12.7 billion annually in lost productivity.

Then the external pressures hit: Federal Reserve interest rate hikes stall childcare construction. Immigration backlogs remove one in five workers from the sector. Zoning laws push centers to industrial zones where parents won't drive. State tuition caps intended to help families instead tripled rural center closures in nine months.

But some cities and employers found the leverage points. Multnomah County raised educator wages to $18/hour—turnover dropped 27%. Denver's "Right-to-Care" ordinance created 400 new slots in nine months by opening underused spaces. One CFO called childcare "uptime insurance" and cut absenteeism 24% by subsidizing it directly.

An investigation into the hidden economics of childcare, workforce participation, and why working parents can't win—and the three pressure points that could break the trap open.

You got a 4% raise. Rent went up 8%. Groceries cost 12% more. Your paycheck grew, but you're poorer. This is the real wage trap.

We trace how nominal wage gains disguise purchasing power loss. A worker earning $50,000 gets a $2,000 raise—but inflation runs at 6%, meaning real wages decline 2%. Housing costs jumped 30% in three years while wage growth averaged 3.5% annually. The gap compounds.

Then the systemic forces: Federal Reserve interest rate hikes slow wage growth to control inflation, but corporate pricing power keeps prices high. Housing supply constraints drive shelter costs faster than income gains. The wage-price spiral means every raise triggers price increases that erase the gain.

But some approaches work: indexed wage contracts that adjust to real inflation, union bargaining for cost-of-living adjustments, policy interventions targeting housing supply.

An investigation into why raises feel like pay cuts, how inflation erodes purchasing power, and what it takes to actually get ahead.

Ever clicked 'Pay in 4'? You've unknowingly activated a hidden financial system. This episode of Interconnected goes behind the pastel banners of Buy-Now-Pay-Later services like Afterpay, Klarna, and Affirm to reveal a multi-billion dollar machine that converts your late-night shopping into securitized debt.

Discover how 'interest-free' convenience creates invisible risk for you, the economy, and the regulators who are "flying blind." You'll never see that checkout button the same way again.

That viral fashion trend you saw on TikTok last week? By the time it hits your feed, it’s already on its way to a landfill.

This episode of Interconnected traces the invisible journey of a single piece of clothing—from a hypnotic six-second video to a mountain of brand-new, unworn textile waste in the Atacama Desert. We uncover the hidden machinery that connects your casual scroll to factory floors, revealing how algorithms, high-speed finance, and global logistics have created a system that turns digital attention into physical matter at terrifying speed.

This isn't just a story about fashion; it's about a world where clothing has become code. Discover the feedback loop that treats human attention as a manufacturing input and physical matter as disposable. We unravel the code behind the clothing to ask: can a system this fast ever be sustainable, or is it time for a fundamental redesign?

Was the marriage between American Christianity and free-market capitalism a match made in heaven? Or was it arranged in a corporate boardroom?

In this episode, we investigate the engineered origins of today's most powerful political alliance. We reveal how, in response to the New Deal, business leaders began a decades-long campaign to frame capitalism as God's plan. Learn how their strategy led to "under God" in the Pledge, stigmatized labor unions as un-Christian, and fundamentally altered the course of American faith and politics.

Before you can understand modern America, you need to hear this story.

Have you ever watched a friend or family member flip their opinion on a major issue, seemingly overnight? It’s not just hypocrisy; it’s a system at work.

This episode begins with a single kitchen-table argument and pulls back to reveal the hidden machinery that shapes what we believe. We uncover the neuroscience of "identity-protective cognition"—how your brain's deep-seated need for belonging can override facts. Then, we map the digital and political platforms that have learned to weaponize this instinct, creating a powerful feedback loop of moral outrage that leads to real-world consequences, from a deadlocked Congress to consumer boycotts.

But we don't stop at the problem. We also explore surprising and hopeful reforms—like Citizens' Assemblies and ranked-choice voting—designed to quiet the tribal noise and foster common ground. This is the story of how we can reclaim our thinking from the machine.