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The Super Bowl wins that don’t happen
Feb 15, 2023
Episode 862

The Super Bowl wins that don’t happen

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What happens to all the unused confetti?

As the Kansas City Chiefs celebrated their Super Bowl victory Sunday, red, yellow and white confetti showered the field while the winners put on preprinted NFL Super Bowl LVII Champions gear, complete with the Chiefs’ logo. One listener called in to ask what happens to the stuff that’s premade for the team that ends up losing. We’ll get into it and answer more of your questions about the gamification of credit card spending and the benefits of being open with your co-workers about how much money you make.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

If you’ve got a question about business, tech or the economy, give us a shout. We’re at 508-U-B-SMART or email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org.

Make Me Smart February 15, 2023 transcript

Note: Marketplace podcasts are meant to be heard, with emphasis, tone and audio elements a transcript can’t capture. Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Gotta stop saying alright until I’m really ready. Here we go. Oh, I don’t even start today. Hah!

Kimberly Adams 

Hi, I’m Kimberly Adams. And I’m starting today on Make Me Smart where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

Worst part is I could have gotten away with it. I could have just stayed quiet and nobody would have known that I don’t know what I’m doing. Oh, my goodness, I’m Kai Ryssdal. This is what do you want to know Wednesday you bring the questions. We bring the answers. You can get your question on the podcast by leaving us a voicemail. At 508-U-B-SMART or you can email us if you’d like to do that to makemesmart@marketplace.org. We read them all. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, we do. All right. Our first question is about the Super Bowl. Let’s hear it.

Sammy 

Hi Kimberly and Kai. This is Sammy calling from Austin Texas. Like many Americans, I was watching Super Bowl 57 with my family recently. When the Chiefs won the game the stadium was filled with red white and yellow confetti. The new champions immediately put on custom-made hats that read Super Bowl 57 Champions with the Kansas City logo. This got me wondering … what happens to all the confetti, hats, shirts and other merchandise, which is designed to celebrate wins that don’t actually happen? Who’s buying all those custom-made Super Bowl 57 Champions hats with Eagles logos on them? Seems like a heck of a lot of confetti looking for a home. Thanks for making me smart.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, for sure you want this one or am I taking this?

Kimberly Adams 

Eh why don’t you go ahead?

Kai Ryssdal 

So this happens in every major sport, every single year, they preprint all this merchandise or whether it’s the NHL or Major League Baseball, or the NBA or whatever. And 50% of it is fundamentally useless in this country and in “in this country part” is the important part. The NFL and all those other major league sports don’t want the erroneous gear, shall we say, circulating in this country. So the NFL in particular, partners with a nonprofit called Good360. And it distributes that merchandise to other nonprofits in Africa and Asia, Eastern Europe, also the Middle East, so that people who are in need can benefit from the free clothing. And it gets it out of the American market, which is of course the market that the NFL worries most about. They do, these nonprofits say, have protocols that keep the donated items from being resold and I imagined somehow leading to some sort of unwanted or illicit profit. NFL by the way does the same thing for the AFC and the NFC championship games. Also about that confetti by the way, 3000 pounds of it… I did not know the other part. The first part of this answer I knew, the second part of this answer I did not so props to Courtney and Antonio, our production staff for looking this up. 3000 pounds of confetti, made for the Super Bowl half has one team’s colors, the Chiefs in this case, half has the Eagles colors. And the executive producer of the postgame show says that confetti is made from 98% recycled material and the confetti for the losing team is sent back to the manufacturer to make new confetti. Now does that mean that 1500 pounds of confetti gets distributed and trampled and used and then probably thrown away somewhere? Yes. But not as bad as it could have been I guess.

Kimberly Adams 

Why not just like give the confetti to the losing team and be like “use it at your own home games?”

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. Because well, I don’t think they have like confetti at NFL home games. I don’t know. I’ve only been to a couple of NFL games. I don’t know. Good question. Good question. Yeah. Speaking of questions, here’s the next one.

Chip 

Hey Kimberly and Kai. It’s a Chip from San Francisco. I was just calling with a question that I was talking about with a friend of mine recently about credit cards specifically this gamification of spending. We both recently got you know, these cars with more points, for eating or traveling and we were left wondering … what is the economics behind all that and what’s a credit card companies have to benefit from basically paying you to spend money, which seems kind of silly? So yeah, I was wondering if you could make me smart about that. Thank you. Love you all. Bye

Kimberly Adams 

Aw, I love you too.

Kai Ryssdal 

Thanks Chip

Kimberly Adams 

I too, have played this game of trying to do the points thing and I remember one year I use rewards points to get gift cards that I used as Christmas gifts for all of my nieces and nephews and I was very proud of myself that year. But what Chip is talking about specifically are these popular rewards and cashback programs that yes, in some instances do give you points and when those points add up, you can get cash back or you can get, you can use it to get stuff like gift cards, or sometimes even actual items. And in other instances, the, it’s not just the point, you can also get a cashback, like a tiny percentage back of whatever is spent on a transaction, usually like 1-5%. The very first credit card company to introduce this concept was good old Discover in 1986. But here’s the big thing, the money that you’re getting back, or the stuff that you are getting are those gift cards that I was getting, they are not free, right? You end up paying for it in a variety of different ways. The money comes from customers, via fees, higher interest rates on the credit cards. The credit card companies are basically betting that by incentivizing you with these rewards, you will spend more money on the credit card, and that you’re going to spend more in fees and interest rates, than you’re going to get back in cash rewards or points, or whatever. And/or that if you spend the money, you might miss a payment, and then you’ll really get hit with the fees or something like that. So they’re basically taking a bet that they’re going to make more money off of you by incentivizing you with these programs than you will make off of them. Now let’s just say you are the model consumer, right? And you are racking up all these points and buying all your stuff on the credit card, but then you pay it down to zero at the end of the month. So they get nothing from you on interest, they only get a little bit from you in whatever the annual fee is, and you come out on top right. So then you think that that means you’re getting it all for free? Well, yeah, you are. But that money still has to come from somewhere, which means it just comes from people who can’t pay their bills off every month. It means the people who are paying those late fees and those higher interest rates, and all those other fees that come along with credit cards are effectively subsidizing all of your rewards. So that, that’s happening. Also merchants are paying the bill for those cash rewards program through what are called interchange fees. These are fees that merchants pay when they accept credit card payments. Sometimes you’ll go shopping, and you’ll see a small businesses say, you know “minimum purchase required for a credit card” or “please, cash is preferred,” or “we’re adding an additional fee for credit cards.” It’s because they’re trying to recoup some of these interchange fees, and according and so like, there are a lot more places at least here in DC where they are basically begging people not to use credit cards, or they’re only wanting people to use debit cards, because the fees tend to be a little bit lower. But getting back to the whole credit card debt in general thing, according to the latest quarterly report from TransUnion, which is one of these big three credit reporting agencies, total credit card debt got to a record $930.6 billion at the end of 2022, which was an 18.5 percent spike from a year earlier. That comes from CNBC. Long story short, use your credit card responsibly. If you are going to try to use some of these rewards points, and some of these cashbackoffers, please do your best to you know, pay that off before your billing date is up. But you know, also be mindful like this, this does come from somewhere so not to make anybody feel badly about their gift cards and, you know, free vacations or whatever, but somebody is footing the bill for that. And that free money is might seem like a good deal, but it’s not quite as generous as you might think.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Ain’t no free money for sure. That’s the big one

Kimberly Adams 

No such thing.

Kai Ryssdal 

You bet.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right. Next up, we got an email from Paul in Seattle. And that email says, “What does the COVID National Emergency cover? Does it mean medical care cost is covered? Does this go away when the emergency is declared over? What else will change?”

Kai Ryssdal 

So there are a lot of things that are going to change, not all of which we’re going to be able to answer in the next 45 seconds to a minute, right? So there’s ample opportunities for a deep dive on this one. But in in a very big nutshell here’s what’s happening. President Biden is going to end the public health emergency on May the 11th. And most particularly, that means that extra money that’s been out there for pandemic or programs is not going to go away. Here are some of the things that might happen: universal access to COVID tests and vaccines will come to an end, the government’s not going to pay for those anymore; general costs for testing vaccines and COVID medications will go up, but that does very much depend on how you are insured; Americans could lose Medicaid insurance because one COVID provision, called “Medicaid continuous enrollment” prevented states from kicking people off Medicaid even if they were no longer eligible during this public health emergency for what I hope are obvious reasons, right? When that emergency end states are going to check eligibility again, and they could if they so choose, right, because Medicaid is a joint federal and state program, they could enforce eligibility requirements. The Biden administration figures that 15 million Americans or more might be affected for that by that. So that’s sort of a big deal. Here’s another medical care thing that’s become really popular during the pandemic, I personally have taken part in this and used it to my advantage, telehealth. That’s probably going to stay right? But if you’re on Medicare, expanded telehealth access is going to probably end. Congress can make it permanent, Congress can change all of these things, if it is of a mind to, but there are lots of things that are going to change. And I’ll tell you what, and I’m going to give Courtney and Antonio a little bit of work here. We’re gonna put some resources on the show page. I’m sure the White House has like a fact sheet on what’s going to change. CDC probably as well, Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, probably as well. Just to check and see what’s going to happen because honestly, COVID is still a thing. There was there was a great piece in The Atlantic today by Jen Senior about long COVID, by the way. A-mazing. Anyway, do some research, because because medical care in this country is expensive. And lots of stuff is going to change.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, the telehealth thing is so interesting, because that’s been a huge boon for the mental healthcare field. Because one of the other things that that emergency declaration did was it kind of eased some of the restrictions around licensing requirements for that kind of stuff. And so it’ll be very interesting to see if that’s allowed, because allowed a lot of mental health providers to practice across state. So you have places like New York and other big cities where there are a ton of mental health care providers, but the need is much greater in sort of rural areas, and then allowed sometimes people to practice in different places. And that was really helpful for a lot of folks.

Kai Ryssdal 

Let’s let’s go ahead and give the “call to mind” shout out. I mean, there’s you guys do a lot of work

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, I will totally get the “call to mind” shout out. We have our mental health program from APM, Called To Mind and we did an entire episode, entire show, on telehealth and virtual mental health care during the pandemic. And we have a bunch of resources on that show page as well. And yeah, I hope you listen. We worked really hard on it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay, last question for today.

Adriana 

I my name is Adriana calling from San Antonio. Do you think that people should be sharing their salary with others in the hope of eliminating gendered base pay? Or do you think that that’s just possibly creating a toxic culture? Thank you so much and have a blessed day.

Kimberly Adams 

Thank you. I’ll give you my personal opinion. And then I’ll say what the research shows. I think that it’s a good idea to share your salary. I mean, we definitely like had a moment here at marketplace where all the reporters were like, “You know what, let’s just do this, let’s just all put it on the table.” And it was really illuminating. And it helped us all, you know, talk to each other a bit better about you know, what we what we were doing what we were trying to do, and in general, while talking about how much you make can feel uncomfortable. Reema has a whole thing about it on This Is Uncomfortable. There are a lot of benefits to being open about pay with your co workers, especially for women and people of color. And you know, we’ve gone into this before, but in case it needs to be said out loud, women and people of color are paid less on average than white men and women are more likely to ask for lower pay and receive fewer raises. And then on top of that, when women do ask for raises, we tend to get more pushback when we do. Open discussion about salary can help workers figure out if they’re being underpaid, or how much of a raise they should ask for. And everybody benefits from pay transparency. If you know what your colleague is being paid, you’re in a better position to negotiate regardless of your gender or race or if you’re just starting out in a field. And you can get a sense of what other people in the field are making. It can, you know, put you in a good place. You know, to start out knowing what to ask for. And even for companies it can help out a lot because you know it can eliminate some of the secrecy around it when you can just be like, “Hey, this is what it is.” You know, this is the range that we’re working in. Also, there are a lot of new pay transparency laws that are requiring employers to post that salary range on job postings. It’s intended to help solve pay inequity. However, a lot of employers are trying to get around that by posting ridiculously large ranges that are effectively useless or they’re just ignoring it in some cases, like companies that have jobs that could be done remotely in some of the places with pay transparency laws, but they’re just still choosing not to post that range. But it is super important to note that if you do choose to talk to your colleagues about your pay, it is illegal for your employer to retaliate no matter where you are. No matter what your boss says, you can totally talk to your colleagues about how much money you’re all making. So there you go.

Kai Ryssdal 

So yes to everything Kimberly said, and I would just about Adriana’ss point of “does discussing salaries create a toxic culture,” I think it’s actually the other way around. I think the secrecy around salaries, is what creates or helps to create, can lead to a toxic culture, right? There’s a lot that goes into a toxic culture in an office but, but salary discrepancies and secrecy around them is certainly one of those factors. For sure. Well, and

Kimberly Adams 

it can create a toxic work culture when you’re talking about, you know, pay and pay disparities, if the company then chooses not to do anything about it, or if the people who are benefiting from the system kind of entrench it or you know, don’t, you know, participate in efforts to make things more equitable so yeah. If you find out that all the women or the people of color in your office are making half of what their white, male peers are and all the dudes are just like “Too bad for you” then yeah, you’re gonna have a toxic workplace culture, but ideally that’s not what happens

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, we end on that day it’s what do you want to know Wednesday? If you’ve got a question for us about business or tech or the economy or you know anything, we’ll take any question you know, might not make it on the pod but we’re always interested in knowing what you guys think. You know how to get a hold of us 508-827-6278. 508-U-B-SMART or makem smart@marketplace.org

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Antonio Barreras. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Torrado.

Kai Ryssdal 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our acting senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On Demand.

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