Hey, it's Kai. My mini-van and I, as I've said on the radio, have logged a lot of miles with Marketplace. Luckily, it's still running, you know, pretty well. But if your car doesn't drive as well as it used to, listen up. It can still help drive Marketplace. When you donate your old car or truck, we'll use the proceeds to support the great programs you hear every day. Start your vehicle donation at Marketplace.org slash vehicle. Let's see if I can do this show with this guy.
Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. It's Friday, June 12th. And I'm Sabrina Vanisher. And for Kai Rizdal, thanks for joining us on the podcast and on the YouTube live stream. It is time for our weekly happy hour episode, economics on tap. Yes. And before we get to the news and take our break and do our game and do the drinks, I have an
introduction to make I got a new cat as everybody who's watching on the live stream sees and everybody listening to the podcast can probably hear him purring. So, you know, I let my heart mend for a little while after Jasper died. And now I have, yeah, Jasper died. Sorry, Sabrina. You clearly did not know that. No, I didn't know. Okay, well, what's the, what is this one's name? This one is named R-Tak.
Oh, wait, is that from the never ending story? No, yes, it is. And Kai never would have gotten that if he were here. Okay, I can't do the show with this creature. All right, let's see if he knows how to position himself for the camera the way that Jasper did. Anyway, what are you drinking, Sabrina?
Well, it was a toss up between this very dark purple pre workout that I got from the internet and a skittles flavored energy drink, which I don't know how I don't have the courage for that right now, but the problem later. I mean, if you're going out, you may as well start the energy boost. What about you? I am having some non-alcoholic red wine. I just didn't really feel like drinking for all today, and I'm hot. And so I've also got my water. And so just chillin today.
Please stop scratching that. Hey, quit. All right. New cat. He's only six months old, but he's like as big as Jasper was. He's massive. Anyway, what's your news, Sabrina? Okay, I thought I would keep it light today. Singapore has approved a list of 20 insect species that can be imported for consumption by people, but also animals. So it's five species of cricket, three types of locust grasshoppers, seven types of beetle larva, including mealworms and giant rhino beetle larva.
And two types of mobs, silkworms for when you're feeling fancy, that's according to the IFL science website. And also honey bee larva, which apparently are eaten. Anyway, so insects are a good source of protein, and they require many fewer allegedly resources to produce pound for pound than animals or many plants. So, yeah, so people, you know, make the argument that for climate sake, we should be consuming insects. And I did actually find some cricket protein powder.
I was just going to ask that because I know you were Mr. Protein Shake guy. And I have not dared to try it. I, when I was in Mexico, I had a mealworm dish when I was in Mexico once. And wasn't a fan, but I did try it. And, you know, I, I feel like I will eventually be one of these people where as long as like I can't taste it and, and sense that it is what it is, I'll be fine with it.
Like if it's, you know, in some sort of hyper processed food and they just use it as like the binding agent or whatever, it's like fine, you know, better than animals. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's, I would agree with that. But I, but like it would have to be diluted, you know, or a topping or something like pure cricket slurry, you know, even if it's protein powder is, is a, I'm not there yet. You know, I want to be not there yet.
There, but I'm not so what about you? What is your news? Well, it's not as light. I mean, I feel like I've kind of gone out of my way to stay away from the Biden. Should he or should he? Okay, I need to remove the bell from this creature for the next show because he is happened just the time of his life over there.
Biden, the Biden will hear won't he, you know, politics stuff. But listeners of this show will recall that after the debate, I said what is going to matter is unfortunately what the donors do and what the folks down ballot in competitive races have to say. And we have been slowly hearing from the folks down ballot in the competitive races that they are extremely nervous. They are staying away from campaigning with Biden several folks have called for him to step down.
Some of his strongest supporters are the Democrats that are in reliably safe districts, whereas the others are more behind the scenes kind of the whole party is freaking out. Then when I saw the story in the New York Times today with the headline, donors to provide in Super PAC are said to withhold roughly 90 million dollars. The New York Times is reporting that there are many donors, including. Okay, I got to take you know what?
Excuse me. It's a nice song beyond said it's a nice little jingle, jingle song in the background. All right. Oh, he's so cute. Now go play. It was just driving me nuts. Okay. Yeah. All right. So as the New York Times is reporting, it said that the frozen contributions include multiple eight figure commitments according to people who spoke to the New York Times under with anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
The decision to withhold such enormous sums of money is one of the most concrete examples of the fallout from Mr. Biden's poor debate performance at the end of June. And then the Washington Post had this story about that big fundraiser they did in Hollywood with that basically pre-saged or predicated, I should say that predicated the George Clooney op-ed calling for him to step down.
And I think that it is it's interesting to see all of this stuff coming out now because one of the interesting things about the reporting is all of these people who are coming forward and saying, I saw it, but I didn't want to say anything. And everyone is now like, oh, because we all saw it and didn't say anything that allowed the situation to get much worse than it may have been had somebody had everybody said something sooner.
Anyway, I think what happens with the money is going to continue to be very interesting. Yeah, you know, it's also interesting because you know in another world, right, you know, if the alignment of the money was opposed to say some upswelling of support he had in his base, this would be a terrible acrimonious conflict over the role of money in politics, right.
But in this case, I think if anything, there's alignment most likely between the base and the high powered donors and that's just going to be very interesting to watch go down. I think the bases divided I think there's a mix of people who would love to see another candidate but are afraid that the disruption might make it easier for Trump to win. Oh, Jason, Parenger points out something from the NATO press conference that Biden did last was it last night. Yeah, it was last night.
And then, I think that girl, Asma, he'll be over at NPR asked the question that I think is was on so many people's minds, but she was the first I've heard ask it. And she asked Biden, she said, when you were running, you said you were going to be a bridge candidate to open the door for a new generation of leaders.
And he said, what happened was basically Trump. He said, you know, I'm the only one who can beat him and this that and the other. But yeah, that I had forgotten about that part of the campaign when he was originally running. He never promised to be a one term president, but he certainly implied it at the time. Anyway, this is way too much politics for our show. Let us take a break and then we're going to play around a half full half empty and that will come right after lovely little music.
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All right, we are back. It is time to play half full half empty. We have another special guest today marketplace tech producer Daniel Shin. Take it away. Daniel. Hello. I'm here to incite non political discourse starting with the first headline here. Our Kristen Schrob and Bloomberg's Amanda Moll discuss this week retailers adopting more digital price tags in their stores so they can update their product prices in real time.
Are you have fuller half empty on digital price tags cluttering the shelves. I thought that was a really interesting interview and there was, you know, the person who Kristen interviewed was talking about how and they used to work in like a store or something how they like print out the sheets of the sale prices and have to go around and put the stickers on in the olden days.
And in that it saves people paper and time I'm half full but in that I also know it's probably going to help sort of more quickly drive up prices of some things. I'm a little skeptical so I'm still going to go half full I think it's going to save people some time and some stickies. Yeah, I'm going to go half full only because of the sort of exhilaration of new technology and full you know fully asking like asking whether we can before whether we should just going on that.
No, no, I mean this is totally going to open the road to like search pricing like very, very tailored pricing that is very tailored to supply and demand much more so than now which I mean I guess the thing I'm curious about is I have no doubt that this will allow price increases very rapidly. What I do not know is if they will be as easy to come down as they are to go up digitally. We said, oh this was about prices. What is it it goes up like a rocket falls like a feather or something like that.
Yeah, that sounds right. All right, what's the next one? All right, next headline here are Kaley Wells reported on how more kids want skincare products typically for adults. We're talking anti-aging creams, gels, face masks and we're talking about kids who are like 10 years old. Are you half full or half empty on what they're calling the Sephora kids phenomenon all the way empty so empty. They don't have nothing to what they have.
How do you de age a 10 year old that that no can we have some nice things please like also. Yes, I would like the younger people to stay where they are so that my efforts to look younger. I don't want to move in goalpost here. Well, I'm empty more so because some of these products are like damaging to children's skin. They are designed for aging skin and when you put that on like children face, it can harm it.
I mean, I get so sad when I see these 20 year olds on social media with all these Botox fillers. I like to enjoy your saggy skin and wrinkles in your 30s and 40s because that's not sustainable friends. Anyway, so yeah. Yes, I would also like to amend my earlier comments to reflect my concern for the youth. The children as opposed to the completely self-serving person. That's fine too. What's the next one?
All right, next headline. The Atlantic saw Hill Desai had written something about how she landed a reservation in a very popular high end restaurant by using a premium credit card because apparently more restaurants are reserving tables for people with specific premium cards like the Amix Platinum or the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Are you half full or half empty on using fancy credit cards to get a fancy restaurant reservation.
I feel like I should offer a disclaimer here that I have absolutely done this. Really? I use my fancy credit card to get a reservation at a restaurant here in DC where like it was usually like to get regular reservations yet to book like two or three months out. How did you do it? You were just like, you were on the phone or something? I have an Amix. No, the credit card has a number that you call that has a concierge service and they call the restaurant and they make the booking for you.
I was able to get it within a couple of days as opposed to a couple of months. I felt a little guilty about it but my uncle really loved it because he really wanted to try the restaurant. I'm empty. I'm empty. It gives me the Ick. I don't think it's nice. There are also apps I think are prognos. I think the thing is an app. It's called Dorsha where you can like even if the restaurant is like totally sold out, there are no openings. You will get an opening.
But this is for like super rich people and you have to have like a huge enormous minimum to spend to go do it. I don't know. I mean, this I'm going to say I'm have full on this because because restaurants are having such a hard time. This is some new revenue stream for them than great. However, if I find myself unable to get a seat at a restaurant because everyone has called their concierge credit card service, then I may change my tune.
I was saying in the discord that it's not different than being at an exclusive club or doing fast pass at an amusement park. And I don't know. I think I just really dislike how many spaces in our economy. There are such clear delineations between the haves and the hapnotts. And even when you're trying to spend your money to do something nice for yourself, you're reminded that you're still not spending enough money. So there's that. All right, that's kind of grand. Let's move on.
All right, next topic is from Bloomberg highlighting a recent copyright case where a social media influencer sued another influencer for ripping off their style and accusing them of copyright and dress infringement. Are you have fuller half empty on potentially copyrighting social media aesthetics and vibes. Copying the vibes. That's a messy IP thing. I'm I'm have full on it because I just want I let the release the influencers to battle themselves. I just want to pop the popcorn and watch.
I would also like to know if they won. All right, it's it's kind of petty, but yeah, I'm half full for that exact same reason I want to watch this go down. All right, was do we have a poll now? Yes, by the way, there's no results on that case yet. But last one, the poll topic, Amazon has launched its own generative AI shopping assistant for prime day or are you have fuller half empty? On AI shopping assistance.
Hmm. That's that's interesting because from my perspective, from what I've seen so far, Amazon does everything except let you comparison shop. And the main thing that I would want to ask an AI is what is the cheapest version of this product that I can get because you can't really, really do a sort like that with Amazon, right? You know, they'll give you sponsor people who sponsor them.
And like what is the cheapest version that is still a real version and not a knockoff that is actually well reviewed and Amazon already doesn't make that easy. They promote what they want to sell, whether it's their own branded product or the people who have paid for better positioning on the page. And so I don't know that I'd be more confident that this version of it would do any better as opposed to more effectively route me to the product they want me to buy.
Yeah, that's it. I mean, it might be it will be cool to see, right? I mean, I'm very interested to see how it works and what it's like. I'm just, you know, I'm just a little I'm just curious as to whether it will answer the question that that I will have. Honestly, honestly, honestly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, well, that should be we had 135 votes. Let's go ahead and close out the poll. Obviously, I think we're both pretty half empty about it.
And so as every most everybody else, half empty 77% have full 22% with a grand total of 140 votes. All right. Okay. That is it for us today. We're going to be back on Monday until then you can send us your comments, your questions and suggestions. We are at 508 UB Smart and you can email us at makemesmart at marketplace.org. Makemesmart is produced by Courtney Bergseeker and today's episode was engineered by Charlton Thorpe.
The team behind our Friday game is Emily McHughan, Jamila Huxble and Antoinette Brock. Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer, Bridget Vodner is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital and on demand. People said they wanted to say goodbye to the kitten. Say bye to our checks. The planet is heating up, sea levels are rising and if you're feeling overwhelmed by it all, you're not alone.
There are things we can do to make a difference. That's why we're answering your burning questions on this season of how we survive, a podcast for marketplace. Whether you want to reduce your homes, carbon footprint, eat a climate friendly diet or you just want to ease your dread about climate change, how we survive can help you navigate our changing planet. Listen to how we survive wherever you get your podcasts.