The Orphans Army is a group of former Hershey School students who are upset with the school's spending. They want to see more money spent on orphans, rather than just taking in as many kids as it can take. John Sutter: When you have $12 billion, that school should have 5,000 kids in it. The Deed says "School shall grow as the income will permit," and if they were going to keep growing, they'd need to educate 24,000 children per year.
Our lives are controlled by the invisible hand from the grave. Trillions of dollars of the economy are devoted to executing the wishes of people who died long ago, rather than satisfying the desires of the living. We follow the story of the Hershey fortune to show how a 19th century industrialist constructed the oddest business structure to ensure that his wishes would be fulfilled hundreds of years after his death. The story raises questions about why we give the dead so much power over our lives, and what this says about how we find meaning in our own lives given foreknowledge of our mortality. Guest voices include Ray Madoff, Jim Mcmahon, Bob Fernandez, Joe Berning, Carole Hite, James Stacey Taylor, Barbara Baum Levenbook, Russ Shaffer-Landau, and Samuel Scheffler.
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