Some bank customers are jumping to high-yield savings accounts to escape the shockingly low interest rates of personal savings accounts at big banks. So why aren't these banks raising their rates to attract more customers? Today on the show, we explore why big banks may not care about your savings account anymore.
In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, J. Warner Wallace joins in to discuss his new book, “The Truth in True Crime: What Investigating Death Teaches Us About the Meaning of Life.”
Music by Jack Bauerlein.
Executive Editor of The American Prospect David Dayen returns to Bad Faithto help decipher Kamala Harris’ economic policy. Having dodged interviews and eschewed policy proposals, we’re left reading the tea leaves — analyzing who she’s surrounded herself with, and what her surrogates have been saying on CNBC and beyond. What does it mean that her brother-in-law, Uber’s chief legal officer & an Obama DOJ alum, is a senior advisor? How does someone who fought for drivers to be classified as contract employees advise Kamala’s labor policy? Will she be an ally for the banks over the people, echoing the DOJ’s choices after the financial crash? When people close to the candidate refuse to give straight answers on whether Lina Khan will remain head of the FTC, is it because Kamala is trying to avoid ticking off donors who want her gone? Or is it because she’s trying to avoid ticking off the voters who think she’s the best thing Biden been did? Few are better equipped than Dayen to break it all down.
John and Abe talk about what goes into putting together an issue of COMMENTARY, using the July/August issue as an example. From the commissioning of articles to the editorial and production stages to the practical constraints of print and the kind of decisions that shape each issue—it's all covered. Give a listen.
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Music
Swiming by Explosions in the Sky
Walking Song by Kevin Volans and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble
I Walk on Guilded Splinters by Johnny Jenkins
Seduction by the Balanescu Quartet
Lunette by Les Baxter and Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman
Running Around by Buddy Ross
September by Giles Lamb
Notes
This episode was pieced together from a ton of little fragments but I wanted to steer folks to a couple of resources in particular: this excellent article from a few years back in the Toronto Star by Katie Daubs, and this documentary from filmmaker, Amy Nicholson, that primarily uses the Zipper as a way to talk about changes at Coney Island but has some great details from Harold Chance and his sons.
The Hindu holiday Raksha Bandhan is just around the corner – and in a new children's book called Raashi's Rakhis, actor and activist Sheetal Sheth writes about an empowered little girl, Raashi, who asks some pretty big questions about the gender roles prescribed to one of her favorite celebrations. In today's episode, Sheth speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about how she questioned her own parents as a first-generation Indian American, why she wanted to write from a place of inclusivity, and how she navigates some of the backlash she's gotten for doing so.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
Former President Donald Trump recently suggested that if elected in this year's presidential election he would want more say on decisions made by the Federal Reserve. Presidents taking a more active role in monetary policy would mark an extraordinary shift in U.S. economic institutions, and mark the end of central bank independence.
Today on the show, why the Federal Reserve insulates itself from day-to-day politics, and what it looks like when central banks are influenced by politicians.
Giving parents a wider variety of choices for their own kids means disrupting existing institutional power. But does enhancing parental choice in education "blow a hole" in state budgets? Cato’s Neal McCluskey evaluates the case of Arizona.