Who's the New Guy?

Hello, and welcome to NPR's Planet Money. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and the Planet Money crew just hired me to be your new blogger.

Until very recently, I wrote the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog. I came to Planet Money because I think the project is genius: Using a fresh, smart sensibility to explain complex economic ideas in simple terms.

I'll be writing a lot about the biggies — the recession, China, Bernanke, etc. — in a way I hope you'll find both approachable and illuminating. There will be some random, quirky blog items to keep things lively. And I'll be digging into Planet Money's Question of the Year: Why are poor countries poor and rich countries rich?

The blog should always be a work in progress; please let me know what you want to read about, who you want me to interview and what you think about what I'm writing.

A little more about me: I've worked as a reporter at the Miami Herald and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, a backcountry instructor for juvenile delinquents in Montana, and a producer at an Internet startup in San Francisco. I live in Brooklyn with my wife. We rent.