Make Me Smart

California theme parks and sports stadiums could reopen with limited attendance as early as next month. Between that and the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, is it too early to let ourselves get excited for baseball season and a trip to Disneyland? We’ll discuss. But first, a bit more on Johnson & Johnson hesitancy and an update on the Texas power grid situation. Plus, as always, another round of Half Full/Half Empty.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Thanks to everyone who joined us today for Economics on Tap, our live happy hour on YouTube. We do it every Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern. Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications so you don’t miss the next one.

There’s a new COVID-19 vaccine rolling out, from Johnson & Johnson. Maybe you’ve heard it’s less effective than the two-shot regimens from Pfizer and Moderna. That’s technically true, but there’s more to that number. Today we’ll spend a little time talking about what you should worry about and what you shouldn’t about the vaccines. Plus: the results of a long experiment in universal basic income.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“The Latest Case of Vaccine Alarmism” from The New York Times

“In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers” also from The New York Times

“After third large quake near New Zealand, tsunami concerns from South Pacific to Central America” from The Washington Post

“In Iceland, 18,000 Earthquakes Over Days Signal Possible Eruption on the Horizon” from The New York Times

“Stockton’s Basic-Income Experiment Pays Off” from The Atlantic

“Mothers Are Regaining Jobs, Even While Shouldering Pandemic Burdens at Home” from The New York Times

Join us live on YouTube Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

You have to answer that one for yourself. But as the streaming market gets even more crowded with Paramount+ arriving tomorrow, we have a listener who wants to know what will happen to Netflix — how long does the first-mover advantage last? Plus, your questions about the COVID relief bill, consumer spending and electric cars.

Here’s everything we talked about on the show today:

“What’s in the House’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan” from The Washington Post

“Senate Democrats still finishing their Covid relief bill as vote timing creeps toward the weekend” from CNN

“Auto industry wants more government support for electric vehicles” from CNBC

“We’re buying a lot more stuff these days” from Marketplace

“Netflix broke subscriber records in 2020. Will it slow down?” from the LA Times

If current labor trends hold, the company of the future won’t have any employees outside of the C-suite. That’s the focus of our documentary podcast “The Uncertain Hour.” This season is about jobs and how the idea of “employment” as we once knew it is disappearing, replaced by temp, subcontracted or gig workers. But what made companies fall out of love with employees? Producer Peter Balonon-Rosen is here to talk us though it.

For a year now, the national pastime has been baking bread, watching Netflix and muting/unmuting in Zoom. If you’re lucky, anyway. The major sports teams would tell you they’re a balm in “these unprecedented times” but the numbers don’t really bear that out. On today’s show, we’ll talk about the interesting Jemele Hill piece in The Atlantic, “America Didn’t Need Sports After All.” Plus: When does a cyberattack become a war crime?

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Some COVID death analysis on the TL

“America didn’t need sports after all” from The Atlantic

“China Appears to Warn India: Push Too Hard and the Lights Could Go Out” from The New York Times

“Biden works to unify Senate Democrats on $1.9 trillion relief bill” from The Washington Post

“First vaccine to fully immunize against malaria builds on pandemic-driven RNA tech” from the Academic Times

Social studies and civics education guidance from The Washington Post

After watching some of the news out of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, Kai Ryssdal thinks he has a pretty good idea of where the Republican Party and the U.S. government are headed in the next few years. Today, we’ll kick the tires on that prediction and talk a bit more about the SEC and Elon Musk. The “S” stands for “stonks.” Plus, like we do every Friday, a round of “Half Full/Half Empty.”

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“3 key takeaways from Friday’s CPAC event: Speakers stand behind Trump” from ABC News

“U.S. SEC suspends trading in 15 securities due to ‘questionable’ social media activity” from Reuters

Some other “questionable activity”

“Fed and Treasury chart path back to ‘full employment’” from “Marketplace”

“California can enforce its net neutrality law, judge rules” from “Marketplace Morning Report”

“Wearable tech shows promise for early COVID-19 detection” from “Marketplace”

“Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets” from The Verge

Thanks to everyone who joined us live on YouTube! We tape our Friday episode there every week at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern. Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

As the Senate pulls the minimum wage hike out of the COVID-19 relief bill (a ruling that came down just after we taped), let’s talk about two very different pay stories. First, Costco says it will pay employees at least $16 an hour— how long before the market laps Congress? Then, former CEO Adam Neumann — remember him? — is still getting paid off of the mess at WeWork. It’s bananapants, folks. Plus: Dunkin’ is getting avocado toast, because apparently it’s 2015, and TikTok had deepfake Tom Cruise, because apparently it’s 2115.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“Costco raises minimum wage for employees to $16 an hour” from NPR

“WeWork’s Adam Neumann to Get Extra $50 Million Payout in SoftBank Settlement” from The Wall Street Journal

“Dunkin’ just added avocado toast to its menu — about 5 years after the trend peaked” from Insider

Tom Cruise deepfakes

“The joy of vax: The people giving the shots are seeing hope, and it’s contagious” from The Washington Post

Our recent episode on the economic effects of a $15 minimum wage

Join us live on YouTube Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

Texans are being hit with massive electric bills after last week’s winter storm knocked out much of the state’s grid, which is primarily powered by natural gas. You might not know that many of the data centers mining for cryptocurrency in this country also run on natural gas. On today’s Whadda Ya Wanna Know Wednesday, we’re digging into Texas’ unregulated energy market and Bitcoin’s carbon footprint. Plus your questions about stock trading and stonktails.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“Can Texans protect themselves from their sky-high energy bills?” from Marketplace

“Texas Electric Bills Were $28 Billion Higher Under Deregulation” from The Wall Street Journal

“GameStop Mania Highlights Shift to Dark Trading” from The Wall Street Journal

“Tesla’s $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase clashes with its environmental aspirations” from The Verge

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on her Bitcoin doubts

A couple pieces on Bitcoin and natural gas

“We try your “GameStonk”-inspired cocktails” from “Make Me Smart”

Millions of Texans spent last week without power, boiling water, dealing with burst pipes and collapsed roofs as a “once-in-a-lifetime” winter storm battered the state and infrastructure failed. Climate change is an existential crisis, and it’s already at our doorstep. And for all the money that’s gone toward trying to slow down or reverse that change, relatively little has gone toward adapting to it. On today’s show, we’ll hear from our reporter Andy Uhler and Jay Koh, who runs a private equity firm focused on climate adaptation.

It’s not the absolute worst worst-case, but 500,000 dead from COVID-19 is more than what some experts painted as the worst-case scenario back when the pandemic started, and about a third of the way to the death toll if the country had taken no action at all. Today, we’ll do the numbers. Plus: The bond market gains and NASA’s new Martian probe.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“US surpasses 500,000 COVID deaths” from USA Today

Some looks at COVID modeling from The New York Times and New York Magazine

President Biden’s moment of silence at the White House today

“Technology Stocks Drop Amid Rising Bond Yields” from the Wall Street Journal

Zoom etiquette

“Watch new dramatic videos from NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars” from The Verge