“Make Me Smart’s” annual holiday episode

For our final episode of 2024, we’re throwing a holiday party with music, festive hats, drinks and a game. But we can’t forget about the news. The incoming Donald Trump administration is looking into the feasibility of eliminating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. We’ll get into it. And, we’ll unpack the public rage over the U.S. health care system that dominated the news this week. Plus, how much do our hosts remember about the biggest business headlines of the year?

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “Trump Advisers Seek to Shrink or Eliminate Bank Regulators” from The Wall Street Journal




• Opinion | “UnitedHealth Group C.E.O.: Brian Thompson Was Never Content With the Status Quo” from The New York Times




• “UnitedHealth Limits Access to Key Treatment for Kids With Autism” from ProPublica




• “Boeing’s year of turbulence in five charts” from Reuters




• “Why TikTok Faces a U.S. Ban, and What’s Next?” from The New York Times




• “CrowdStrike outage: We finally know what caused it – and how much it cost” from CNN Business




• “SpaceX Polaris Dawn astronauts perform historic 1st private spacewalk in orbit” from Space




• “US ties China in Paris Olympics gold medal count after Americans’ women’s hoops win” from AP News

We’ll be back with new episodes in 2025! In the meantime, you can email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.