A moment of economic peril

Make Me Smart October 6, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Whatever it takes. It takes everybody I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart. Where we make today make sense. It is Friday. October the fifth fifth. Yes. Fifth, no six.

Kimberly Adams

Now it’s six today. It’s the sixth made it to Friday. Yes. Real day. Yes. I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome, everybody to our Friday show. And thanks to everybody who is joining us on the YouTube live stream for economics on tap our weekly happy hour. And yeah, we made it through another week. Yes.

Kai Ryssdal 

We will do, yeah, no joke. We will do we always do. We’ll do some news take a break, a little bit of half full half empty. We will also before we do any of that check in with what people are drinking, I’m having water because I got things to do in a very beat up old KaiPA glass. I’m so disappointed this isn’t an actual etching. But that’s a whole different thing. What are you drinking? What do you got? You’re at the bureau right?

Kimberly Adams 

I got places to go, places to see, things to do. Yes, I am in the New York City bureau. And all by my lonesome because yay, hybrid work. But also it’s kind of late here. But yes, I am in New York. I came up here for a friend’s birthday party and luckily got to work from the office here. So I did see a bunch of people while I was here, which was really nice. And I because I’m being very careful around all the fancy studio equipment, I’m just drinking a glass of wine. And it’s my favorite. It’s 7 Deadly Zins. So red Zinfandel. So yeah, that’s what I got. Diego Flores says you should try nonalcoholic beer that there are a bunch of good options now. So you don’t have to…

Kai Ryssdal 

So I have. I have tried and I will leave the brand up because I was not a fan of it. But I tried to brand them came very highly recommended from a person whose opinion in beer I respect. And here’s the thing, I took a sip. And it was fine at the front. But then the finish was like wet cardboard and it kind of wrecked it for me. So I guess I’ll try a couple more. My other option is to go really low ABV session IPAs, you know.

Kimberly Adams

There is that.

Kai Ryssdal

Alright, I’m getting some really good recommendations on non-alcoholic beers here. So RationAle, somebody write this down and email it to me RationAle, Athletic non-alcoholic beer. And then we there’s another one Lagunitas non-alcoholic IPA, IPA. All right. Okay. All right. All right. We’re gonna try it. We’re gonna try it.

Kimberly Adams 

Let’s get to some news. Yeah, why don’t you go first?

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay, let’s do that. Okay, so mine is more like, like, theoretical than it is actual news news. There’s a piece The New York Times today, the headline of which is, “How do Americans feel about politics? Disgust isn’t a strong enough word.” So duh, right, given everything that’s going on, and all the failings of specifically Republicans in Congress. But but here’s the bigger picture. And if you listen to Marketplace this afternoon, you’ll hear me and Catherine Rampell and Linette Lopez talking about this. We are now at a perilous moment in this economy, because interest rates are high, and they are going to stay high. So I mean, the the rate the Fed controls, bond rates, which is is what decides how much the US is going to have to pay an interest that it borrows to fund all the spending that Congress is authorizing are high and are going to stay high. And more importantly, they really increased in the last 10 days, and nobody is really sure why. And so we are at a place now, where money has gotten more expensive. And for a decade or more, Congress got used to not having to worry about fiscal policy, they could borrow money basically for nothing. And it was okay. And we piled up as of the latest reading $33 trillion worth of debt. The problem is that now money costs something, money costs today 4.8% on the tenure, and when we have to keep doing that, and when those rates are gonna stay high for a long time. And there is nobody in Washington who remembers how to make fiscal policy because they haven’t had to worry about it for a very long time. That is a very big moment of economic peril. And Catherine and Linette put it better than I could. But that’s the gist of of my message this afternoon. Congress is let me, sorry not Congress, Republicans in the House of Representatives are a chaos mob. They cannot govern. And we are in a moment of economic peril. That’s my news. Flash breaking This Just In.

Kimberly Adams

I will also highly recommend that conversation and yeah, that was I hadn’t really thought about it in that context, the cost of borrowing. I’ve been thinking about how the cost of borrowing is going up. Because you know, I’ve done a couple stories recently about how small relative to overall federal spending, appropriations is and how much interest on the national debt is and how it’s outpacing In what we spend on children, and pretty soon it will outpace pace, what we spend on defense in this country and everything else. And I’d seen here and there about, you know, with the cost of borrowing going up that was going to be even more challenging that those dynamics of in terms of interest on the national debt as a share of the GDP, but I hadn’t quite layered that on top of the congressional dysfunction, which is grim, grim. So, I would like to escape to the moon. And despite you telling me many times that I’m too old to..

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t think I’ve actually, have I actually said you’re too old?

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, you have you said, “we’re too old.” Which included me.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m sorry. Well, yeah we, okay, well, all right, fine. Sorry.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, but according to The New York Times, maybe in your lifetime, people will live on the moon and then Mars. And it is a big look at this partnership that NASA is doing with universities and private industries, to start 3D printing houses on the moon eventually using, you know, stuff on the surface of the moon, and that it is not, NASA is aiming to have houses for yes astronauts and researchers, but also civilians, although I guess a civilian living on the moon would still be an astronaut. Anyway, scientists and civilians to live on the moon by 2040. And so yeah, and of course, lots of people say that that timeline is way too ambitious. And you know, where you’re gonna see how these Artemis missions continue to go. But it was a really interesting article, looking at the science and the research going into it, and dealing with Moon Dust, which is real toxic and difficult to deal with how they’re planning to, you know, build landing pads on the moon and move stuff back and forth. And anyway, it’s just a cool read. And, you know, I love this stuff. But every time I, you know, think every time I get excited about it, also echoing in the back of my head is is that poem, you know, “Whitey on the Moon”? Have you ever heard that poem?

Kai Ryssdal

I have not, no.

Kimberly Adams

It is sort of a black activist poem about all of the social ills that we ignore, while focused on outer space exploration. It was written around the time of the Apollo moon landing. And this idea that congratulations, a white person has landed on the moon, but at the same time, all of that money that is being directed towards that is not being directed at all of the social ills in the country that really need investment. And so like, yes, love space. I’m so excited about it. But that’s always sort of echoing in the back of my head. Right. Thank you. Somebody in the chat said it was Gil Scott-Heron, who wrote that poem. And yeah, it’s a, it’s something. So that’s one of my news pieces. Do you believe that we can be on the moon now, Kai?

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, I, you know, somebody points out in the chat that John Glenn was 77 when he went up for the second time in the space shuttle. So you know, there’s hope.

Kimberly Adams 

Hope, okay, news item number two is the company that makes the abortion pill, which I always mispronounce, but mifepristone.

Kai Ryssdal

Mifepristone.

Kimberly Adams

Mifepristone, thank you, has released with their permission, names of some independent pharmacies across the country that have actually started distributing this medication under the new loosened guidelines from the FDA that allows pharmacies to distribute it. Some of the big ones, CVS, and Walgreens said that they will start distributing it in certain places, but only after they, you know, go through some additional approvals. But this, there are a lot more pharmacy, pharmacies that plan on doing this. But putting these these names out, these pharmacies are doing it at risk to themselves because people who are very opposed to the abortion pill, say that they’re going to be targeting them for boycotts and for protests and things like that. And it’s, it’s another moment in this debate of how sort of the regulatory state is running up against the Supreme Court, which is probably going to be reviewing this in the next year or so, the FDA’s ability to, you know, allow this to be sold at pharmacies and that there’s just so many fronts where abortion is still being fought out. And some of it is just like grinding regulation, and paperwork and all of these different pharmacies trying to figure out whether or not it is worth the individual risk to carry it where they are including some of these pharmacies in places where there are extreme restrictions on abortion. And I just wanted to note it. It’s a moment. And yeah, that’s my news. Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal

There you go. There you go.

Kimberly Adams

Okay. Um, yes. Let’s see, we now need to take a quick break. But before we go, we have some news, because it is a time of year where we ask you, I know it’s additional news on top of the news that we did earlier. Go ahead and laugh at me. It’s fine.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh I chuckled, I giggled. Come one.

Kimberly Adams

It’s okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

It was a good turn, it was  news on top of the news. It was fine.

Kimberly Adams 

News on top of the news. All right, because we asked you for your support, and y’all came through. So thank you very much, we actually reached and passed our fundraising goal. So thank you very much to everyone. More than 2,000 Marketplace investors stepped up to support us over the last couple of weeks power in numbers. And we’re incredibly grateful for our community of listeners and your generosity. I know that you all have a lot of choices of where you can put your dollars for support. And we’re grateful that you that you give it to us. So thank you, and we did it. Yay.

Kai Ryssdal 

We did it. And what that means is that we’re going to do a virtual trivia night date TBD. If you’re not yet an investor five bucks or more will get you in the door of this thing. Go to marketplace.org/givesmart. And again, thanks a lot for helping us out this time. We’ll be wrapping up thank you.

Kai Ryssdal 

Drew Jostad. Half full, half empty. Ready? Go.

Drew Jostad 

All right, are you half full or half empty on modern furniture?

Kimberly Adams 

So this is from that interview you did with

Kai Ryssdal

I don’t even know the story.

Kimberly Adams

Yes, you did. It’s The Washington Post story, you interviewed The Washington Post reporter.

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry. I was thinking like Danish modern, or you know, deco modern. Sorry. It was an interview I did about how furniture made these days just doesn’t last. That basically, we’re just buying C-R-A-P instead of the really good stuff that our parents and grandparents bought because it’s cheaper and it gets to us delivered to our front door. Interestingly enough, in that interview with a reporter from The Washington Post, whose name I sadly forget, I learned that IKEA now Ikea furniture that you put together at home can be found in vintage furniture stores from like the 1980s. So I thought that was very interesting. Generally, I mean, look, I’ve got IKEA cabinets and, and, you know modern furniture in my house. So I guess I’m okay because we got to live and not everything can be as expensive, I guess.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I grew up in a house full of antiques. And so I have just sort of a nostalgic connection to old furniture. And so, like in my house, it’s a mix of all of these antiques pieces that I either got from my family or that I got off of, you know, I have a dining room table, it’s this beautiful antique table that somebody gave away for free on Craigslist. But then I also have my fair share of Ikea furniture. And you know it, the frustration I often have with furniture is that it is literally cheaper to get something new, than to fix what you have. And there are so few people who can fix what you have. I have this lamp, I want to get rewired. And then it’s not really furniture. But it’s like a lamp from the 1950s. Super cool. Got it at like a thrift store, needs rewiring, and I can’t find anybody to rewire the lamp in this particular way that it needs to be. And it’s like, there’s not a lot of people skill. So anyway, I am going to go half empty on modern furniture because I liked the old stuff.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s fair. Totally fair. Totally fair, Drew, what else?

Drew Jostad 

Half full or half empty on YouTube obituaries?

Kai Ryssdal 

Man, so this is another interview I did this was kind of disturbing. So there are people out there and look. So it’s about obituary scraping. So it’s not a new phenomenon. But the idea of putting it on YouTube is people who take obituaries and read them onto a YouTube video. And through doing that a bunch of times aggregate enough clicks and views to generate income out of it. And it’s really disturbing. It’s kind of gross. I’m completely empty. And no.

Kimberly Adams

Yeah, I’m completely empty as well. That was a real grim story. And the nod to how AI is going to be, generative AI is gonna be influencing this in the future was additionally grim. So all the way empty.

Kai Ryssdal

Totally.

Drew Jostad 

All right, are you half full or half empty on having a fridge that you can’t stick magnets to?

Kimberly Adams 

I have seen this, like the classism, the classism. Why do people want to steal the joy of tacky magnets on the fridge? Come on. So anyway, there’s this cool Wall Street Journal article about how basically the home appliance industry has decided that magnets like fridge magnets are low class and they’re putting all these non-magnetic surfaces on fridges and I definitely like the clean kitchen aesthetic look, but I have many magnets on my fridge, which is a very old fridge that was in my apartment when I bought it and will stay there until it dies on its last legs. But like you know, I have fond memories of like seeing my artwork on the fridge growing up or I brought you know magnets back for family members from my travels and it’s like a little thing that doesn’t take up tchotchke space on a shelf. And you can kind of rotate them out so I like I like the design of no magnets but I don’t like the emotion of it. So I’m gonna go half empty.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally agree with what Kimberly said. We redid our kitchen 10 years ago and of course we got the you know, non-magnetic kind because that’s what look nice. Looks nice is. And all the stuff that we had on there is now like in a box somewhere in the in the space over the garage. So yeah, I’m with Kimberly 1,000%

Drew Jostad 

I love this quote from a fridge marketing executive, “magnets on the fridge would take away from the premium look.”

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, please, get a life. Come on man.

Kimberly Adams 

And so what? Do you premium wealthy people, if that exists not have kid artwork they want to display? Anyway.

Drew Jostad 

Anyway, Costco is selling gold online and cannot keep it in stock. Are you half full or half empty on buying gold bars from Costco?

Kimberly Adams 

Did they ask Senator Menendez?

Drew Jostad

Good one

Kai Ryssdal

Oh, snap. Wow. Wow.

Kimberly Adams 

Sorry, it was right there. It was right there. Um I don’t know. physical gold as an investment vehicle tends, a lot of the I read an article a while back, I’ll have to dig it up. And maybe we can put it in the show notes about how predatory that particular industry is. And I worry a bit about, you know, people getting into gold collecting and then that being sort of like the gateway into falling into some of these more predatory things. So I’m gonna go half empty.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I’m half empty for that. But also, as was pointed out somewhere else on public radio, and I don’t remember where I heard it, it would be better for your investment portfolio, instead of buying gold bars at Costco, you just bought Costco shares, because they have outperformed gold like, hugely the last decade. So you know, wow. Yeah. Yeah, obviously, consult your own financial advisor. Just disclaimer, just saying.

Drew Jostad 

What’s next? I got one last question.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes. Okay. All right. Well, let’s talk all right. Yes, everybody in the YouTube chat who is able to log in to the chat to do this thing, get ready to vote, and we will vamp.

Drew Jostad 

Okay, I have sorry,

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just reading the chat. Everybody thinks I’ve got gold bars in those Costco boxes behind me in the shed. Believe me when I tell you, that’s not what’s in there. I should do an unboxing of those boxes one day. You guys will be really disappointed. Anyway, Drew go ahead.

Drew Jostad 

I have a topic and then I can maybe give a couple of data points on this one, the question is, are you half full or half empty on self-checkout?

Kimberly Adams

I saw this story, go ahead give the data points.

Drew Jostad

And from the story in Business Insider, I have a couple of things to mention one, okay. Kroger operates a store in Tennessee, that’s self-checkout only with staff available for if for assistance as needed. But also, industry estimates grain of salt, maybe suggest as much as a 30 to 60% rise in inventory losses, depending on how many self-checkout stations a store has. And also multiple retailers are really realizing that maybe self-checkout requires as much labor and supervision, maintenance and IT support as it might be saving them in checkout clerk hours.

Kai Ryssdal

Super interesting.

Kimberly Adams 

I remember, yeah, so this piece was very interesting, because, you know, this is technology that has been around for quite a while and was, as I recall, one of the very front facing public facing examples of automation, taking jobs that everybody could see, like, oh, my gosh, you know, the grocery store checkout clerk who you talk to, they’re gonna all lose their jobs, and many did, for sure. But not all of them. And this article is sort of laying out how people often scan for one thing, even when they may be walking away with something else or scanning one item and taking two and also, even if you’re just like, you know, buying wine or whatever, they have to check your ID. And so like, how much time does it actually save, I mean, I can speak from my experience in my own local grocery store, I think it does save time, because lots of people just want one or two things that aren’t complicated, and they zoom through. And especially with like, you know, the checkout on your, when you pay with your phone or tap to pay or something like that. It really moves the people who are in and out, in and out very quickly. And if I have a lot of stuff, especially like a lot of fruits and vegetables in need weighing and stuff, I’ll just go to the regular checkout line. What bothers me is when there’s not when there aren’t staffed regular checkout lines, because then that slows down the self-checkout lines for everybody else. That’s fine. What are your thoughts?

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally. So what are you half full or half empty?

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t want to we have to wait until the poll. And then I’ll say it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh right, sorry. Oh, well, then I just better stop. Well, I mean, we got 180 votes in the polls. So let’s close the poll. Right. Okay.

Kimberly Adams 

Let’s close the poll. I am, half. So let’s see, what was the question, though? Is just on self-checkout in general?

Drew Jostad

Yeah.

Kimberly Adams

I’m half full on self-checkout. But it probably does need a revisiting. And I think that’s what a lot of these retailers are doing. Walmart, you know, looking differently at the whole thing, Kroger looking differently. I think we still need and probably always will need some type of human interaction to get us out of the grocery store.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. So it’s a labor story. Obviously, it’s a shrinkage story, the theft story, all that jazz. I personally like them because I can zip on through right. But if I’ve got a lot of stuff, just like Kimberly said, I’m going to the to the regular checkout lane with an actual human being. But there are more of them coming because companies will continue to do this for as long as the equation works somewhat in their favor. And I think now and for a long time it’s going to so I’m half full on personal I’m half empty on what it means for the labor force. How about that? How’s that for wishy washy?

Kimberly Adams 

I love it. Yeah, you like it, I love it. All right. That is it for us today. And thanks again, everybody for really coming through on the fundraiser and bringing us over that goal. It means a lot. But if you have a question or a comment that you would like to share, if you want to give us your deepest feelings and emotions about self-checkouts, feel free. Our email is makemesmart@marketplace.org. You can also call us at 508-U-B-SMART.

Kai Ryssdal

Make Me Smart one was produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Juan Carlos Torodo. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi. Drew Jostad wrote the theme music for our game half full and half empty. Actually, you know, it’s just a slash but anyway.

Kimberly Adams 

The team behind half full, half empty is Emily Macune and Antoinette Brock who did a wonderful job teaching me finally how to use the green screen on Tik Tok the other day, god bless Antoinette. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and on demand.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh my god, are you on Tik Tok, do I have to get on Tik Tok?

Kimberly Adams 

All you have to do is you know die and pay taxes. Which a lot of people don’t anyway, I forgot to give the poll results. So we have to stay on to give the poll results. Apologies, everyone. So let’s see half full was 56% on half full on, on self checkouts half full 56%, half empty 43% with 185 votes. Thank you everyone who participated.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s good. I’ll take that. That’s awesome. There we go. All right now we’re going.