Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/americans-appear-ready-go-shopping-again
Summary: Consumer reports conclude Americans are ready to spend again. The market is on the rise, especially as the recession fades.
Original Air Date: September 25, 2014
Length: 1 minute 28 seconds
Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/new-financial-innovation-housing-market
Summary: Large investors have started buying houses–in the past few years, they have bought almost 200,000 new homes. The strategy was to buy low, and set the rent high. Interestingly enough, housing prices have appreciated, and rental prices have stayed the same, which results in not as big of a profit for the investors. This has created what they call rental-backed securities.
Original Air Date: October 13, 2014
Length: 2 minutes 52 seconds
I’ll be presenting
audioecon.com at the St. Louis Fed Annual Professor’s Conference on Friday November 7th, 2014. Comments on how you use audioecon.com or ways I could make the site more helpful to you are welcome! Leave your comments here!
Conference webpage: www.stlouisfed.org/education_resources/events/index.cfm?id=558
Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/boom-and-bust-story-crop-called-guar
Summary: Guar is a small bean, and it had a recent rise and fall in the marketplace. Besides being an additive to thicken many foods, it’s also used in fracking. When fracking took off, the price of guar rose. As the price increased, Texas farmers started growing a lot of it, until Pakistan and India–which grow 98% of the guar combined–caught up to the demand. As a result, oil companies stopped hoarding it, and the prices dropped. The Texas farmers were left without buyers, and caused a chain reaction of bankruptcy.
Original Air Date: October 9, 2014
Length: 2 minutes 47 seconds
Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/what-could-slow-uss-surging-oil-output-low-prices
Summary: The oil the United States has been pumping has been getting less and less profitable. In North America, oil comes from fracking shale, and after the first initial output, oil companies have to drill deeper and deeper to get to the oil, causing it to be more expensive to access. However, the price of oil is dropping worldwide, and that could mean that the United States could be out of the oil industry, simply because it costs too much to produce.
Original Air Date: October 10, 2014
Length: 2 minutes
Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/stock-market-has-been-and-always-will-be-volatile
Summary: Many people are worried about the stock markets, especially with everything going on in the world (Germany’s bad news, Ebola, etc). However, the stock market is a volatile place–and, according to Quincy Crosby, a financial market strategist at Prudential Financial, it’s meant to be that way.
Original Air Date: October 10, 2014
Length: 2 minutes 11 seconds
Link: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/your-money/get-rich-giving-lattes-not-so-fast
Summary: There’s a theory in the personal finance industry known as the Latte Factor, which says give up the coffee drink and invest the money instead, and you’ll have enough to retire on. However, that theory doesn’t factor into the equation inflation and taxes, and is now being proven wrong.
Original Air Date: October 10, 2014
Length: 2 minutes 19 seconds
Link: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/08/terry_anderson.html
Summary:Terry Anderson, distinguished Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute talks about free-market environmentalism and property rights that can protect natural resources. One of the main points of his book Free Market Environmentalism which is currently being revised for its third addition, revolves around the idea of what makes market successful and how can the success of the free market model be applied to the protection of the environment.
Original Air Date: August 18, 2014
Length: 63 min
Summary: A discussion of the factors impacting supply and demand of pork. Includes consideration of behavior of retailers and consumers in respond to changes in the market. Considers influences and impacts of related goods.
Original Air Date: August 26, 2014
Length: 4 minutes 22 seconds
Discussion Prompt: In this podcast, what factors are driving the increase in the price of meat? How does this relate to supply/demand factors that we are studying? Can you give two specific examples of other factors of demand or supply that might impact the price of meat? For each example, name the ‘factor of demand/supply’ and give a specific example.
Follow-up Prompt: Review the posts of your peers, comment on the accuracy of their suggestions and try to add more examples and expand on their ideas.
Link: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/08/daphne_koller_o.html
Summary: Host Russ Roberts of Econtalk interviews Daphne Koller of Coursera about the rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) and the impact online learning will have on universities and learning in general.
Original Air Date: August 25, 2014
Length: 63 min
audioecon 