Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

The tradition of sending cards to loved ones was in decline — until it was rescued by a new generation. But millennials have their own ideas about what sentiments they want to convey. Zachary Crockett is thinking of you on your special day.  

 

• SOURCES:
  • Mia Mercado, writer and former editor at Hallmark.
  • George White, president of Up With Paper and former president of the American Greeting Card Association.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • 34th Louie Awards - Finalists & Winners, (2022-2023).
  • "Season’s (and Other...) Greetings," by Maria Ricapito (Marie Claire, 2020).
  • "Hallmark Greeting Cards Have Adjusted to the Digital Revolution," by Trent Gillies (CNBC, 2017).
  • "Testimony of Don Hall, Jr. President and CEO of Hallmark Cards, Inc. Before a Joint Hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security and the House, Postal Service and the District of Columbia" (2010).

Economics Job Market Rumors is a website that's half a job information Wiki, where people post about what's going on inside economics departments, and half a discussion forum, where anyone with an internet connection can ask the economics hive mind whatever they want. All anonymously.

People can talk about finding work, share rumors, and just blow off steam. And that steam can get scaldingly hot. The forum has become notorious for racist and sexist posts, often attacking specific women and people from marginalized backgrounds.

Last year, economist Florian Ederer and engineer Kyle Jensen discovered a flaw in the way the site gave anonymity to its users. The flaw made it possible to identify which universities and institutions were the sources of many of the toxic posts on the site. And helped answer a longstanding question that's dogged the economics profession: was the toxicity on EJMR the work of a bunch of fringey internet trolls, or was it a symptom of a much deeper problem within economics itself?

This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and engineered by Josh Newell. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's __________.

The best part of waking up, is _______ in your cup!

Got ____?

If you can identify these brands based on tagline alone, it's possible you... are a 90s kid.

The '90s were arguably the peak moment of advertisers trying to make an impression on us that could last for decades. They got us to sing their jingles and say their slogans. These kinds of ads are called brand or image marketing. And it became a lot harder to pull off in the 21st century.

On today's show, we look back at the history of advertising, and two pretty unassuming products that totally transformed ads.

This show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed, and engineered by James Willets. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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We're celebrating 300 years of Adam Smith! On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, we'll hear a keynote from the 2023 Markets & Society conference given by Emma Rothschild, the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University. In this lecture, Emma Rothschild begins by building an understanding of Adam Smith's conception of markets. She reanalyzes Smith's "invisible hand" metaphor, challenging the traditional interpretation and suggesting that it might not primarily refer to markets or economic equilibrium but rather the economics of uncertainty and trust. Emma also discusses Frank Knight, F.A. Hayek, Smith's frustration with the frivolity of markets, the abolition of feudalism, the four bad markets, Smith's hope for the future, and more.

This lecture is part of the University of Glasgow’s Smith@300: Celebrating Adam Smith as Scholar, Educator, and Citizen supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

The introduction is given by Craig Smith.

Read more about Emma Rothschild.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Virtual Sentiments, our new podcast series from the Hayek Program is now streaming! Subscribe today and listen to season two, now releasing!

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CC Music: Twisterium

What if you could borrow money on the cheap and use it to pay for just about anything? The U.S. government can, and does, with U.S. Treasuries. But the market for Treasuries might be more fragile than we know.

In this episode, Yesha Yadav of Vanderbilt Law School explains why.

This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today we're making it available for everyone. To hear more episodes like this, and to hear Planet Money and The Indicator without sponsor messages, support the show by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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How does the blood of a 450-million-year-old arthropod help prevent lethal infections in humans? And could we exhaust the supply?  Zachary Crockett wades in.

 

• SOURCE:
  • Dina Fine Maron, senior wildlife crime investigative reporter at National Geographic.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "When the Horseshoe Crabs Are Gone, We’ll Be in Trouble," by Deborah Cramer (The New York Times, 2023).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood Is Vital to Modern Medicine. A New Lab-Made Alternative Could Save the Species," by Kristoffer Whitney, Jolie Crunelle, and The Conversation (Fortune, 2023).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood Saves Lives. Can We Protect These Animals From Ourselves?" by Dina Fine Maron (National Geographic, 2022).
  • "For Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs, Love Is a Battlefield," by Dina Fine Maron (National Geographic, 2022).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood: The Miracle Vaccine Ingredient That's Saved Millions of Lives," by Katie Pavid (Natural History Museum, 2020).
  • "The Role of Horseshoe Crabs in the Biomedical Industry and Recent Trends Impacting Species Sustainability," by Jordan Krisfalusi-Gannon, Anthony L. Dellinger, et al. (Frontiers in Marine Science, 2018).
  • "Video: Horseshoe Crabs Mate in Annual Beach 'Orgy,'" by Heather Duner MacAdam (National Geographic, 2014).
  • "Crash: A Tale of Two Species," S26.E7 of Nature (2011).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Baby Blue Blood Drive," by Radiolab (2020).

Remember pagers? They were huge in the 80s — these little devices that could receive short messages. Sir Mix-A-Lot even had a song about them! But then cell phones came along, and pagers more or less became obsolete.

Except there's one group of people who still carry pagers: medical doctors. At a surprisingly large number of hospitals, the pager remains the backbone of communication. Need to ask a doctor a question? Page them. Need to summon a doctor to an emergency? Page them. And then... wait for them to call you back.

Almost everyone agrees that pagers are a clunky and error-prone way for doctors to communicate. So why do so many hospitals still rely on them?On today's show: A story about two doctors who hatched a plan to finally rid their hospital of pagers. And the surprising lessons they learned about why some obsolete technologies can be so hard to replace.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Nick Fountain. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Today on the show, we have two episodes from our daily podcast, The Indicator, about things we spend a lot of time thinking about this time of year: food and drink.

First up, we explore how changes in economic conditions led to one of the U.K.'s iconic (and affordable) staple foods becoming a luxury.

Then, the story of one Indigenous woman whose small business went head-to-head with Coca-Cola over a trademark dispute.

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How did love stories about vampires, cowboys, and wealthy dukes become the highest-grossing fiction genre in the world? Zachary Crockett gets swept away. 

 

SOURCES:

• Delaney Diamond, romance novelist.
• Danielle Flores, high school math teacher and avid romance novel reader.
• Brenda Hiatt, romance novelist.
• Diane Moggy, vice president of editorial at Harlequin.

RESOURCES:

• "Even as Overall Book Sales Are Declining, Romance Novels Are on the Rise," by Elena Burnett, Sarah Handel, and Juana Summers (All Things Considered, 2023).
• "Key Takeaways from the Authors Guild’s 2023 Author Income Survey," press release by the Authors Guild (2023).
• "How Amazon Turned Everyone Into a Romance Writer (and Created an Antitrust Headache)," by Ann Kjellberg (Observer, 2022).
• "Vivian Stephens Helped Turn Romance Writing Into a Billion-Dollar Industry. Then She Got Pushed Out," by Mimi Swartz (Texas Monthly, 2020).
• "A Brief History of the Romance Novel," by Amanda Pagan (New York Public Library Blog, 2019).
• "How Harlequin Became the Most Famous Name in Romance," by Kelly Faircloth (Jezebel, 2015).
• "Fifty Shades of Amish: A Strange Genre of the Romance Novel," by Leah McGrath Goodman (Newsweek, 2015).

Would you say that you and your family are better off or worse off, financially, than you were a year ago? Do you think in 12 months we'll have good times, financially, or bad? Generally speaking, do you think now is a good time or a bad time to buy a house?

These are the kinds of questions baked into the Consumer Sentiment Index. And while the economy has been humming along surprisingly well lately, sentiment has stayed surprisingly low.

Today on the show: We are really bummed about the economy, despite the fact that unemployment and inflation are down. So, what gives? We talk to a former Fed economist trying to get to the heart of this paradox, and travel to Michigan to check in on the place where they check the vibes of the economy.

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