JPMorgan got fooled by the ‘nickel’ rocks that it bought

Make Me Smart March 24, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal

Alright well if Charlton is driving, you know we don’t actually start till you know..

Kimberly Adams

No until he says so.

Kai Ryssdal 

Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Oh, fine. Fine! Good greif. Do I start or do you start? Hey, everybody I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to make me smart where we make today make sense. It is Friday the 24th of March.

Kimberly Adams 

Fri-Yay! Alright. I’m Kimberly Adamson, thank you for joining us everybody for economics on tap, which is our Friday show. So welcome to those who are on the YouTube live stream people following along in the fan run discord or listening later on the podcast. We’ve got drinks, we’ve got our news fixes, we’re going to take a quick break, and then we’re going to play our oh, so fun game Half full/half empty.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, so let’s. So what are you drink first of all.

Kimberly Adams 

So for anybody watching on the livestream, you might notice I’ve got some of my cherry blossom decorations up already for the year. Because I know that you are not going to be around next week when we have our cherry blossom party Kai. So I wanted to give you all the cherry blossomness this week. And so I am reprising my cocktail from last year that I did for my cherry blossom party, which is a mix of sake, St Germain and cherry blossom syrup, and I have these little tiny dehydrated cherry blossoms that I use as a garnish. And it’s lovely.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s very nice. I like that. I like that.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s tasty and it’s pink and refreshing.

Kai Ryssdal 

Is it good?

Kimberly Adams 

Mhmm. I love it. I make it often.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m having oh they changed its name. It used to be called chainsaw bunny. And now it’s called “bunny with a chainsaw.” From Oaperback brewing. It’s a double dry hopped hazy India Pale Ale 8.2% alcohol by volume, one pint in this pink can. It is quite yummy. And it’s been a week. It just feels it just feels like it’s been a long couple of weeks. And I was thinking about that today. First of all, I think it’s been long because there’s just been news, and it’s been kind of a grind. But also and yes, woe is me. But it’s been raining so much here in Los Angeles. And it’s just it’s just taking the stuffing out of us because we don’t know how to do rain. You know, we’re gonna with a couple of you know, showers every now and then. But the rain we’ve had has been truly, like disturbing and fatal to a lot of people as well. But that’s a whole different thing. But it’s been rough. For real.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I’m kind of past that phase of like making fun of the people in California for being sad about the weather because ya’ll’s weather is really legit bad. And I did an internship in London when I was in college. I was there from September to January. And I worked from about seven in the morning till about four o’clock in the afternoon. And so I think I saw the sun maybe five times the entire time I lived there. And it does a number on you to not like get sun, especially if you’re used to it. So I do feel for you. And that’s a lot of water for a system that’s been in dealing with drought for so long. So

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Although I will say sorry. Just quickly before we go to the to the chat. I will say this morning when I was running up in the hills. It was crisp. It was 39 degrees. It was cold. There was lots of water and mud, which was fun to run in. But up in the mountains around Los Angeles, snow again. It was so cool. It was so cool. It was really cool. It was really cool. Not a soul up there. Just me.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, that must have been particularly nice. That part.

Kai Ryssdal 

It was great. Oh, it was awesome. It was it was awesome. It was awesome. It was awesome. I was up on…

Kimberly Adams 

The wild flowers are going to be beautiful when they come around.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh well. Yeah. And you know what’s gonna happen? Yeah, there’s gonna be a huge rush out to the places where all those wild flowers bloom that’s for sure. Yeah. Which is great. I mean, they’re gonna be so pretty. Anyway. Okay, let’s look at the chat.

Kimberly Adams 

I saw somebody had an amazing mocktail. Wegmans ginger sparkling water with cranberry juice. I mean, it’s basic but sparkling water and juices are like a very nice vibe. An energy drink. Okay, Megan, what kind of night are you about to have? I’m getting ready to go clubbing with Michel with Michel Hartman tonight. That’s…

Kai Ryssdal 

Are you? Do you? I don’t know if you have the stamina? Do you have the stamina to handle Mitche? Because he is like a two in the morning guy.

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t know because he was like, Oh, we can meet up around 11 And I was like, Michel. I don’t know, man.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, that’s that’s that’s the the unknown truth about Michel Hartman is that he is a rager when he goes clubbing. He’s out, truly, he’s out till like two or three o’clock in the morning. It’s wild.

Kimberly Adams 

Like, I want to be like, I’m too old for this, but he’s older than me. And so I don’t have that excuse.

Kai Ryssdal 

He’s got a couple of years on you, Mitchel does. Yeah, for sure.

Kimberly Adams 

So I gotta rally. I think I might have to have an energy drink. Okay, Tami’s got a strawberry banana smoothie. I love that. Does he he really liked that?

Kai Ryssdal 

Mary Apicella or Api(che)lla I apologize. She’s having a cheerwine. Where is David Gura when you talk cheerwine? Yeah. Yeah.  Well, he’s from North Carolina. And when we did a thing in like Raleigh, Durham, probably it’s got to be… well when he was here. So it’s got to be like 8 or 10 years ago. And we had a cheerwine and I was like what the hell is this and he was like, “it’s Cheerwine. What do you mean, what is this? It’s great.” And I’m like, it’s not David but that’s a whole different thing

Kimberly Adams 

Isn’t that wild. I was hired to replace David Gura. And it occurred to me the other day.

Kai Ryssdal 

Wait really?!

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yeah, I was because when he left as the Washington reporter, they reached out to me and Dave Shaw reached out to me when I was working in Cairo, and asked me to apply for this job. And that’s how I ended up here because David Gura, left to go to television, because he’s so glamorous.

Kai Ryssdal 

Wow. Wow. Yes. Well, you know, David is David isn’t he’s a he’s a handsome looking gentleman.

Kimberly Adams 

He’s a wonderful person.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. He is a good guy. All right. Enough gossip. Shall we?

Kimberly Adams 

We got news. I’m sorry. Everyone in the chat is telling me to lean so that I can they can see Jasper. There. There’s the cat.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Love you, Kimberly but where’s the cat?

Kimberly Adams 

There. All right. What’s your news fix?

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, alright. So mine is a story that first broke a couple of days ago. And now there have been some new developments. But the gist of the story is this. It turns out London Mercantile Exchange, does all kinds of commodity trading. And a couple of days ago, it was discovered that JP Morgan, which has on its books, $2 million worth of nickel, as being stored in a London Mercantile Exchange warehouse was actually literally bags of rocks. It’s a crazy story. So let me give you that 60 primer on commodities trading. So when when big banks and traders and investors trade commodities, they don’t actually obviously trade the commodity itself, right. When you buy a barrel of oil or an oil future, you’re not actually taking physical delivery of of the oil, right? It’s there in a ship somewhere or in a tanker or in the case of a metal, those metals are kept in warehouses. And what happens is you trade as the market goes, and there’s just a logbook entry that says, “Okay, this $2 million worth of nickel or these bags of nickel now belong to JP Morgan.” And if JP Morgan sells it, it’s like, okay, now it belongs to BlackRock, and if they sell it, now, it belongs to you know, Bill Ackman or whatever. So, what happened is, this is literally what happened. Somebody was walking through the London Mercantile Exchange warehouse, stumbled on this bag, and said, “Wait, that doesn’t feel like nickel that feels like rocks.” They opened the bag, and part of this cache of $2 million worth of nickel that JP Morgan thought it had, was rocks. It’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. That has nothing to do with anything in the news today. There’s no banking thing. There’s no Fed thing. There’s no Janet Yellen. There’s nothing. It’s just JP Morgan had $2 million where the rocks.

Kimberly Adams 

They literally got left holding the bag.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s so wild. It’s so they got left holding the bag. Very good. It’s so wild.  I’m really proud of myself for that.  It’s amazing. You should be you should be. It’s a good one. Anyway, we’ll put the story on the show page. It’s it’s so great. And then actually what we should do, Courtney, if you’re listening, you shouldn’t be listening, because it’s your job. You know, let me just point that out. Find the Matt Levine column from Bloomberg, where he explains all this stuff. And it’s great and everybody should read it because it really helps you understand how commodity trading works. Like when I say oil is $75 today on on the Chicago Merc. Nobody’s actually paying 75 bucks and getting a barrel of oil. Right? It’s all ledger’s and movements of of digits and ones and zeros, right? It’s not the commodity moving around. Although, in the beginning of the pandemic, we had negative values for oil and we could actually talk about that later. But it’s crazy how it works. And now JP Morgan is stuck holding the bag of $2 million worth of rocks. I love it so much. I love it so much.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, boy, I wish that mine was as entertaining and fun. But it’s not. It’s the news. So the House passed today, a piece of GOP sponsored legislation, which is they’re calling sort of the “Parents Bill of Rights Act” right? This law, this sorry, this bill is not going to become a law. There’s no way it’s making it to the Senate. President Biden is not going to sign it. There’s no way it goes anywhere beyond the house, right. So why does it matter? Because tons of things get brought up in Congress that don’t make it anywhere. Members of Congress file bills, and they have press conferences, we know it’s not going to go anywhere. And so a lot of times we ignore this stuff. And there’s not much attention being given to this piece of legislation. Because again, it’s not going to get passed. It’s still important to pay attention to what is passing our representative bodies of government, because it does represent, in the House of Representatives, what the people have sent their representatives to do. And they are voting on things that represent a big chunk of America, and what folks are willing to support. And, I’ll talk about what’s in the bill in a little bit. But also, even if these bills don’t get passed into law federally, they can often provide a model legislation for states. And many states are pursuing these things where similar legislation will pass. And we can expect to hear about this legislation in campaign ads later on, where you’ll hear someone say, “you know, we supported parents rights to do x and x. And we supported the parents Bill of Rights, and so and so voted against parents being able to know what’s going on in the schools.” So these things do matter, even if they don’t become law. So what’s in the parents Bill of Rights Act? So I’m reading from The Hill, which has sort of the bullet points. It increases transparency in school curriculum in that it basically requires school districts to lay out what their lesson plans are going to be what their curriculum looks like, in a way that’s accessible to parents. Meaning that basically anybody could probably go online, including activist groups, and people who want to dictate what’s in school curricula can go online, to sorry, there’s a lot of a action happening outside of window.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s like a ship’s whistled, going off back there.

Kimberly Adams  

No, that’s a ship’s whistle, a ship’s horn and a firetruck

Kai Ryssdal 

Was it, was it really a ship’s horn?

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, it was also a ship’s horn. It was both of those things together. Anyway, so it increases the visibility of what’s in a school curriculum, making it more easily accessible, but also making it easier for outside groups to see what schools are teaching. It requires a notification to parents of schools, transgender student policies, schools have to reveal what accommodations they would make for LGBTQ students. And you know, a bunch of other things just sort of putting things that parents can already find out about their schools, but kind of making it more publicly available, which might make it a little bit more available to people who are not parents. Anyway, obviously, the Democrats are very opposed. And it’s a you know, salvo in the culture wars, but I think it’s easy to ignore legislation that we know isn’t going to become law, but it’s still important to keep an eye on what’s going on. So that’s, that’s what I got.

Kai Ryssdal 

that’s exactly right. That’s a super important point, right? It’s really easy to say, Oh, it’ll never pass and then just dismiss it. But there are people who vote for this stuff. You know, and that should be noted. That are representing their constituencies. You know? Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Alright. That is the news. Quick break we’ll be back. Half full half empty. I did not see Drew downtown today, so I don’t know who’s in charge.

Kimberly Adams 

Alright, this is half full/half empty, where we go through some news that came up this week, including I guess bags of nickels, or lack thereof. And we’re going to tell you how we feel about them. Half full, being that we’re feeling a little bit more positive, half empty, meaning we don’t. And on the last question we’re going to be asking for some audience participation from those following along with the YouTube live stream. Our wonderful Drew Jostad is indeed out today. And so instead we have the also wonderful, and who I miss very dearly since I’m not on the tech show anymore, Marketplace Tech producer Daniel Shin. Hey, Daniel.

Daniel Shin 

Hi, you, two.

Kai Ryssdal 

I saw Daniel in the office today. And I was like, What are you doing here, man? That’s weird. And now here it is. All right. Well, there we go. There we go.

Daniel Shin 

Yeah, I mean, it’s a serious segment. And I’m here to do serious business with you two.

Kimberly Adams 

Because you have a very serious voice

Kai Ryssdal  

(Imitating Daniel’s deep, bass voice) Because this is my serious radio voice.

Daniel Shin 

That’s right. That’s right. Well, we might as well just kick it off with the first headline. Here we go. Legacy legacy blue checkmarks are starting to disappear on Twitter.

Kimberly Adams 

I saw this go by today that like after… there was a date attached to add that what after April something if you don’t pay the money, you don’t get your check mark anymore,

Daniel Shin 

Specifically, April 1. April Fool’s Day

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that? Oh, my God. He’s trolling us. I don’t know. But for like $84 a year, you can buy your blue checkmark. And give Elon Musk money. I’m just so completely half empty. Well, I’m, I’m just I’m just sorry. This is not being very coherent. Twitter right now bums me out. It used to be so useful. And also, so hang on a minute. It used to be super useful as a source for breaking news. Used to be super fun for me to engage with listeners and other people and Twitter friends that I’ve had. There’s also just a whole spectrum of the population for whom it was a cesspool and violent and gross and I can’t not acknowledge that. But now, two things. Number one, it’s worse cesspool-wise because there’s more Anti-Semitism, more misogyny and more violence. But also, it’s way less useful. And Elon Musk is a jerk. So I’m half empty.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m gonna go half empty. And Zack Ruffin also points out in the chat that they’re also adding a feature to make it possible to hide your blue checkmark if you bought one. Which I think is so fascinating. Because if you want to still have all the perks of the blue checkmark, but not have it known that you are paying money to Elon Musk, you can hide the fact. Or that you bought your popularity. Like it that that has so many layers of metaphor, I can’t even get into it. I’m all the way empty, although as useless as Twitter has recently become, I recently saw an ad on Twitter that almost inspired me to buy something. It was this t shirt.

Kai Ryssdal 

Really?

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, it was like I was so close to purchasing this thing. It was like a long sleeve t shirt. And it had two crows sitting on like a power line. And it said “attempted murder.”

Kai Ryssdal 

A murder of crows and they couldn’t quite get there because it was only two. That’s very good. That’s… I like that.

Kimberly Adams 

Isn’t it? Isn’t it? I almost bought it. I almost bought it. Okay. Anyway, so I’m empty. All the way empty. All right, excellent.

Kai Ryssdal 

All the way.

Daniel Shin 

All right. Next headline Are you half full or half empty on $130 moderna COVID vaccines?

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, so I obviously did a story on this. Well not obviously, people may not have heard it. I did a story on this earlier in the week that Maderna has announced what the list price is likely going to be for the COVID vaccine once the national COVID-19 emergency ends in May, and it’s $130. And there was a hearing this week where the Senate Health Committee, what is that health something?

Daniel Shin 

Health, Education Labor and Pensions yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, yes, yes. Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee headed by Bernie Sanders just ripped into Moderna. And they’re like the federal government and US taxpayers helped pay for the development of this vaccine. How dare you charge us all this money? And you know, most people are not going to pay the $130. Insurance companies will pay it, the federal government will pay it, or a discounted version because everybody negotiates. But I mean, I’m gonna go half empty on our for profit health care system in general, because it doesn’t have to be this way.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I’m half empty. It’s just it’s what Kimberly said, it does not have to be this way.

Daniel Shin 

All right. Next one. Are you half full or half empty on restaurant subscriptions?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know what that is.

Daniel Shin 

So essentially, it’s like a subscription program for your favorite restaurant, let’s say. And this is a germane example. Subway, you know? In case you… they’ve offered something called the “footlong pass.”

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’ve hmmm

Kimberly Adams 

I mean movie theatres have had versions of this for a while.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I…. look, I think if that’s your thing, yes, I’m half-full. If that’s your thing, you should be able to subscribe and get some… one imagines, you get a discount for subscribing right? Giving people your money in advance. And then and then, you know, being able to enjoy discount, yes, I’m half-full. I think that’s fine.

Kimberly Adams 

I feel like I have to be half full because I actually own one of these things. I recently purchased a restaurant subscription randomly. I didn’t…. a friend of mine who works for the LA Times told me about this because we both live in the neighborhood. And there’s this restaurant chain that has a couple of restaurants in the neighborhood. And if you buy the subscription pass, you get reservations at any point, if you call with at least half an hour notice. And often it’s hard to get reservations. And when you go, you get a free appetizer. And so if you go more than like four or five times in a year, it’s worth it. And you can get your reservation, like very quickly. So I’m half-full, but I also like, I want to believe it’s because restaurants are trying to stabilize their income a little bit and I want to like help out local restaurants. But on the other hand, it’s sort of another one of these ways that we tier society with different perks for if you can afford it, and if not, you’re just kind of screwed, so don’t love it. So I’m only gonna go half-full.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I’ll go with what Kimberly said. I think that’s right. Half-full. I’m doing a lot of agreeing with Kimberly today just

Kimberly Adams 

That’s always the best way to be Kai. Always. Daniel can tell you.

Daniel Shin 

Don’t I know it? Yeah, for sure. All right, next one. You might need to Google it. There’s a visual element here. You may have seen it. But are you half full or half empty on the new “we love New York City” NYC logo.

Kimberly Adams 

I’ve seen it. Half-empty.

Kai Ryssdal 

Are you? Wow, that was pretty quick. Okay, explain. Wait, let me back up for a minute. So alright. So so for those who are not familiar and who were not, you know, of the 1970s in New York, there was an ad, a branding campaign for New York, New York City which was (sings) “I love New York. I love New York.” Anyway, it was “I” the letter “I” and a heart. And then underneath it “NY.” And it was like courier like 42 font right? Whatever it was just giant. I love New York right? And so now they have come out again. And it’s it’s like a “we love NYC” is that what it is Daniel right?

Daniel Shin 

That’s right.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, so it’s it’s we heart NYC on the bottom. And I I don’t hate it but you Miss Adams were very visceral about this.

Kimberly Adams 

So number one nostalgia. There was nothing wrong with the old one. It was lovely. It was wonderful. It’s the stamps and it’s like all the things. And also it doesn’t look as nice to me from like the graphic perspective. I get that you can you can do more with it. So you know you could do we love fill in the blank this we love fill in the blank that and play off of that brand to make it a bit more inclusive. But I I feel like the I Love New York was something you could put on your T shirt. But then we love NYC, who is the We? Are we doing a royal we now and that’s kind of pretentious. And then NYC is very different than NY and it kind of limits who is actually included. Because you’re just talking about New York City. What about the outlying suburbs? What about the rest of the state? Maybe I love upstate New York who knows. It’s just limiting. That’s all

Kai Ryssdal 

What’s what’s yes to all of that. But it’s very interesting that you are so visceral about this. And you’re from Missouri

Kimberly Adams 

Because we don’t have anything like… that’s not true. We have a lot of like

Kai Ryssdal 

“Show me!” “Show me!” Come one.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah we’re the show me stat because we don’t believe anything anybody says to us. That doesn’t look very good in a typeface, though, you know?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. All right.

Kimberly Adams 

Sorry. YAmir in the chat says, “Will no one think of Poughkeepsie.” I mean, like, the arch is cool. But the arch like it’s an arch. You go up in it once, and it’s like, Oh, you look at fields.

Kai Ryssdal 

You are you’re gonna get excommunicated from the Missouri.

Kimberly Adams 

No, everybody from Missouri knows that the arch is like the arch. It’s nice. You look at it, you go up in it once, it moves a little bit too much for your comfort, you go right back down and then you’re done. Yeah, it moves around at the top by the way, if you go up into the arch. And you can feel it moving in the wind. And that’s that’s not a great feeling.

Kai Ryssdal 

Kimberly Adams laying it all out here on a Friday afternoon. After after, what is it? Cherry blossom cocktail.

Kimberly Adams 

Tim says that the City Museum is better than the arch, which I will agree. The City Museum is pretty… Yeah. Pretty, pretty great. All right. Are we on the last question now?

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry, last one, right? So we’re doing if you’re on the YouTube livestream, we’re doing a poll as we always do. I will of course not be able to figure out how to tell the score or whatever. So Mel is going to have to Slack it to me but Kimberly and I will fill some time while y’all figure out how you feel about it. Daniel, let’s hit the let’s hit that last number shall we?

Daniel Shin 

Number five, final one. Are you half full or half empty on AI writing movie scripts?

Kimberly Adams 

It’s so funny, because we were having a discussion about AI and chat GPT earlier today. Yeah. I mean, all we’re doing as we heard from Stephanie Hughes today is sequels anyway, so I guess all the content is there for the AI to figure out exactly how things are gonna go. By the way, I’m being validated in the chat on all my St. Louis points about the arch and everything. So just saying.

Kai Ryssdal 

Really? What? How many St. Louis people can we possibly have on this chat?

Kimberly Adams 

Or Missouri people. I mean, apparently enough to validate me.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, well, I guess that settles that. I know better than argue on this point. Sorry. What was the question? Oh, AI in movies. Sorry. So look, as Kimberly said, Stephanie used to think they’re all sequels now anyway. And really, you don’t have to be AI. You can just be some some freshman English composition major. And you could take a script from Iron Man 1,2,3 and 4 and write Iron Man 5. Alright, so let me get really dorky here. There was a great interview on The Daily with A.O Scott, and the host who shall not be named who repeats all the questions and phrases them so that he repeats back to you what the person who’s interviewing just said. Anyway, Tony Scott had a whole… It was it was why he’s giving up his slot as the film critic in the New York Times. And one of the things he said was, “they’re all basically the same movie.” It’s Marvel 1,2,3,4,5. It’s Iron Man 1,2,3,4,5. It’s Fantastic Four for its whatever you do, and there’s no there’s no magic left in it anymore. And so I guess, I guess if that’s the way Hollywood’s going because it’s making gazillion dollars, then why not have AI write the script? Sorry, that was a little bit ranty. But yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

I am gonna go. Are we answering now. How many votes do we have? We have 172 votes? I think that’s enough time. Yeah, let’s close it up. I’m gonna go half full just because of some larger thoughts I’ve been having about AI and Chat GPT, which is that I’m hoping it forces a leveling up. Because if indeed, Chat GPT can write your standard sequel movie that’s so formulaic, because they are formulaic, then maybe the movies that will actually start to be made are the ones that actually are creative, that do require the human mind to stretch itself and come up with something new and different. Just like you know, we don’t spend all of our time figuring out how to type, you know, a perfectly formatted piece of paper, you know, essay on a piece of paper, because our margins and our font and our spellcheck is all done. We instead spend our time on the words right? In theory. And so maybe if we’re not spending our time doing the formulaic stuff, then maybe it will force us, or allow us to spend our time doing something a bit more creative. And that’s my fingers crossed hope not that it takes over the world and condooms us all to death, condemns us all the death. Condooms I actually kind of like, condooms.

Kai Ryssdal 

I was just gonna say, I think your fingers crossed thing is is very important to note because Hollywood of course is a business and Hollywood is gonna go for what works and what works is formulaic Marvel 1,2,3,4,5. Right?

Kimberly Adams 

I’m sorry, Tim says you’re being awfully charitable to our robot overlords Kimberly.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Kimberly Adams 

No, Tony, who, if it’s Tony, who’s doing the Marketplace account in the chat, I think condooms needs to be spelled c-o-n-d-o-o-m-s, like doom at the end. Although it’s close to something else. Nevermind. Okay. Is that it? Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

We’re done. We’re done. Jayk hit it. My goodness. All right. So we are done back next week. Thanks, of course to Daniel Shin for filling in and for all y’all for listening and do this on a Friday afternoon at 3:59pm. Oh my God, we’ve gone a long time. Anyway. If you’ve got questions you want us to answer for what do you want to know Wednesday related to the economy, business, tech, culture, whatever is on your mind, what Kimberly and I are thinking about. Anything. You know how to do that.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, you can leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or you can email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org They’re calling Daniel the voice of God.

Kai Ryssdal 

I know right? I should have known because Charlton wasn’t in today. And Drew wasn’t in today. I should have known something was up. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Today’s episode was engineered by Jayk Cherry. Drew Jostad, who is taking the day off, wrote the theme music to Half-Full/Half-Empty. Antonio Barreras is our intern.

Kimberly Adams 

And Mel Rosenberg was running the chat and helps with the spelling on condooms. And the team behind our Friday game is

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh wait. Oh wait.

Kimberly Adams 

What? We’re not going to make the end so what were you’re gonna say,

Kai Ryssdal 

Susanna Romek says we didn’t talk about how the audience voted. I think it was like 72 to something something something right? It was you guys. Oh here it is so.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes I’m so sorry. So it is 82% half empty about AI writing movie scripts. And 17% Half full so I clearly lose and you win.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, well, there we go. And all the rest of the credits, whatever. You know, they don’t care.

Kimberly Adams 

No it’s important. Mel Rosenberg and Emily McCune and Antoinette Brock are behind the Friday game Half full half empty. Marissa Cabrera is our acting Senior Producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the Executive Director of Digital. We love giving credit, everybody gets their flowers.