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Kai Ryssdal
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09/22/2017: What’s driving the Senate’s looming deadline

Sep 22, 2017

Episodes 2411 - 2420 of 5795

  • Facebook has admitted to problems with ad metrics for the 10th time since September. Above, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The drip-drip-drip of news about Russia and the 2016 election continues today. A week or so ago, Facebook said it sold about $100,000 worth of ads to a so-called Russian “troll farm.” Today, the company announced it would show the ads to the government. Meanwhile, the company is working to improve its advertising process after ProPublica revealed users could target ads with anti-Semitic keywords. We’ll start today’s show by explaining all the fires Facebook is fighting. Then: all of Puerto Rico is still without power today, and it could take months to restore service. The utility was already $9 billion in debt. Plus: Google’s latest hardware play.

  • Senator Lindsey Graham (2nd from right), stands with Senator Bill Cassidy (left), Senator Dean Heller (second from left), and Senator Ron Johnson (right), to announce their legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare through block grants on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 13, 2017.
    JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

    Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen gave an update on the economy today, and we’ll start the show with the highlights and translated Fed-speak. Then: the latest — and likely last, but who knows anymore — Senate attempt at repealing Obamacare is the Cassidy-Graham bill. It takes the money the federal government spends on Obamacare, and gives it directly to the states to do what they want with it. It’s called a block grant, and it sounds simple enough, but it’s not. We’ll look at how they’ve worked in the past. Plus: Checking in with a family of Syrian refugees, one year later.

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  • Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen testified before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week.
    Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

    The Federal Reserve has been backstopping the American economy for almost a decade with its $4 trillion pile of bonds and mortgage-backed securities it bought up during and after the financial crisis. The idea was to keep borrowing costs low and goose the whole economy. It’s widely expected that the Fed’s going to start unwinding its balance sheet tomorrow, letting the economy work a little more normally. So what’s going to happen? Then: FEMA says fewer than 20 percent of the homes affected by Harvey carried flood insurance, and that makes recovery all the more difficult. Plus: A new study from Yale University says Americans, mostly white Americans, are just plain out of touch with how economically unequal this country is.

  • 09/18/2017: Where hate finds a home online
    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    Washington is getting all hot and bothered about health care again, but we’re gonna keep our eye on the ball and start our show with the Fed, which is meeting this week. There’s going to be a tea leaf reading, and some dot plot reading too. Then: We’ve been reporting a lot lately on hate groups and where they find homes online. Since Charlottesville, there’s been more awareness of these groups, and they’ve been expelled from a lot of services, but that hasn’t stopped other businesses from filling in the gap. Plus: In LA’s gentrifying Boyle Heights neighborhood, mariachis struggle to pay rent near a plaza named for them.

  • US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump walk to the White House in Washington, DC, on September 14, 2017, upon return from Florida following Hurricane Irma.
    NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

    Say you’re a company that has data on zillions of Americans, like a hospital, or a bank, or, you know, Equifax. Consumers have very little control over those companies, besides trusting them to keep their data safe. How hard can that be? We’ll look into it. Facebook is already in some hot water for selling ads to a Russian “troll farm.” Now a ProPublica investigation found the site’s ad-targeting tools can be used to reach racists and anti-Semites. Plus, we’ll look back at all the week’s business and economic news. Never a dull moment. Someone should put that on a hat or something.

  • WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 13: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about tax reform while meeting with Democratic and Republican members of Congress in the Cabinet Room of the White House September 13, 2017 in Washington, DC.
    Win McNamee/Getty Images

    On Air Force One today, somewhere between D.C. and Naples, Florida, President Trump took credit for the country’s economic strength and gave an update on his tax plan. We’ll check a few of his claims, in particular that the plan is “revenue neutral” with faster economic growth. Then we’ll head back to Florida, which is picking up the pieces after being battered by Hurricane Irma this week. But it’s been especially tough for Floridians to get their claims processed — because all the insurance adjusters are still in Houston. Then: you might know Manolo Blahnik the shoes, but Blahnik is also a man, and he’s the subject of a new film. We’ll talk with the director. 

  • Dolores Huerta speaks at press conference. 
    Courtesy of PBS Distribution

    The timeline for tax cuts and tax reform — one of the big things both Hill and White House Republicans say they want to get done this year — has been flexible, but today House Speaker Paul Ryan said we’ll see an outline the week of the 25th. Now, plenty of lawmakers are starting to talk about their vision for taxes, so let’s start with Ted Cruz: He wants to file on a postcard, with a flat tax and something called “full and immediate expensing.” What’s that mean? We’ll talk about it. Then: In the wake of Harvey and Irma, the so-called catastrophic bond market’s been on a wild ride. We’ll talk about what that means. Plus: Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez in 1962, and she coined the slogan “Si, se puede.” You might know it as “Yes, we can” from Obama’s 2008 campaign. Carlos Santana and Peter Bratt made a documentary about Huerta and her “riches to rags” story, and we’ll talk with them about it.

  • A man waits for a bus downtown on October 20, 2011 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Reading, a city that once boasted numerous industries and the nation's largest railroad company, has recently been named America's poorest city with residents over 65,000. According to new census data, 41.3 percent of people live below the poverty line in Reading. "Sweat" addresses not just the economic troubles in Reading, but also their effect on personal relationships.
 
 
    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    We say it a lot in our show: context matters. Doing the numbers doesn’t do you much good without knowing the bigger picture. To wit: The official poverty rate in this country dropped a full percentage point last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, putting 12.7 percent of Americans under the poverty line. Also, median household income rose a about 3 percent to about $59,000 a year. We’ll start out today’s show by talking about what that means. Then: We talked yesterday about all the memorials to victims of mass violence being built and financed in this country. Today, we’ll take a look at what goes into maintaining them. Plus: Globalization gets a bad rap in the States, but what about emerging economies? They’re seeing the benefits and starting to catch up.

  • People walk past a building where the roof was blown off by Hurricane Irma on September 10, 2017 in Miami, Florida.
    Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    Millions of Floridians are still out of their homes in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Much of state is without power, and early damage estimates range from $25 billion to $60 billion. We’ll look at how officials start to tally that up, and the lasting problems Floridians face. Then: Since it opened in 2011, more than 30 million people have visited New York’s 9/11 memorial. It’s maybe the highest-profile memorial to victims of mass violence in this country, but there are plenty of others and more planned in Orlando, Charleston and elsewhere. But the process of designing and financing these memorials isn’t easy. Plus, we’ll talk with San Diego, California, mayor Kevin Faulconer about NAFTA as negotiations continue.

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About the show

Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, our leading business news radio program and podcast is about providing context on the economic news of the day. Through stories, conversations and newsworthy developments, we help listeners understand the economic world around them. Marketplace makes sense of the economy for everyone, no econ degree or finance background required. Marketplace doesn’t just report on the numbers, we take it deeper, adding context to what’s happening in the stock market and how macroeconomic policy can affect you and your business. Monday through Friday, our team speaks with a wide range of industry professionals — from small business owners to Fortune 500 CEOs, Marketplace breaks down complex topics related to business and the economy without industry jargon and over-complicated explanations.

Kai Ryssdal has led the program since 2005 and has hosted the program from China, the Middle East and dozens of cities across the United States. As a leading public media voice, Kai has been a trusted broadcaster for two decades and received an Emmy for investigative journalism on a PBS FRONTLINE documentary about money in politics called “Big Sky, Big Money.” He has appeared often on CNN, CNBC and CBS news. His written work has been featured in The New York Times and The Atlantic.

Produced and distributed by American Public Media (APM) our popular business news podcasts are available worldwide on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and RSS Feeds and any place else where you get your podcasts.

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