Marketplace All-in-One

From the BBC World Service: At the G20 summit in Indonesia, President Joe Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping are sitting down for the first time since Biden became president. Mozambique has begun exporting liquefied natural gas for the first time ever. And Sri Lanka’s government has unveiled a new budget which raises taxes and cuts spending as the country continues to suffer from one of its worst ever economic crises.

The National Labor Relations Board is a federal agency tasked with making sure workers can organize to improve their working conditions, wages or form a union. But the NLRB says some employers are using technology to prevent or discourage workers from doing just that. The agency released a public memo on Oct. 31 saying it plans to protect employees from “intrusive or abusive electronic monitoring and automated management,” practices the NLRB says are increasingly happening as the technology gets better and companies seek more oversight of their workers, especially with more people working remotely. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams spoke with Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the agency and author of the memo, about some of the new surveillance methods that concern her.

Rich countries, like the United States, are the biggest emitters of gases that drive climate change. Should they pay developing countries for climate damage? Kai and guest host Andy Uhler recap the COP27 summit and the debate over climate reparations. Plus, NASA thought it had collected all the artifacts from the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, until now. And, we’ll play a round of Half Full/Half Empty!

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When Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he borrowed billions. Now, the banks that helped finance that purchase are trying to offload those loans, but potential buyers are offering a sharply lower price of 60 cents on the dollar. Investors are wary of the risk after Musk’s first weeks as Twitter CEO. Also in today’s episode, a look back at this week’s economic data, a review of Amazon’s cost-cutting strategy and a warning for buyers in the crypto-sphere.

Christopher Low of FHN Financial helps us look beyond the good feelings behind recent market activity. The BBC reports on how China will start to loosen some strict zero-COVID regulations. Also, we check in on the COP27 climate summit. Art critic Blake Gopnik discusses the billion-dollar auction of the collection of Paul Allen.

That surge is expected to continue into today. Arizona voters took a big step toward transparency in election financing. Also, we discuss what a U.S. government with divided power could economically mean for Democrats.

From the BBC World Service: Hong Kong’s tech-heavy Hang Seng surged nearly 8% on Friday, with market rallies in Shanghai and Tokyo. Plus, Singles Day in China – the biggest shopping day of the year – saw estimated sales nearly 5% lower than last year. Also, U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen is in India to try to bolster trade ties. And, a film 90 years in the making is finally hitting the silver screen.

Quantum computers are considered by many to be the next big thing in technology. The promise – in theory – is they could complete extremely complex calculations very quickly by harnessing what Einstein called the “spooky” nature of quantum mechanics. So while regular computers work with bits that are either 1’s or 0’s, quantum computers use “qubits” that can store combinations of 1’s and 0’s at the same time. This week, IBM announced it has developed the largest quantum processor in the world. It’s called Osprey and IBM says it has triple the processing power of its previous versions – a potentially huge leap. Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour recently explored the multi-billion dollar race to develop quantum computers. He explained why some of the world’s biggest companies and governments are competing against each other.

Earlier this week, we told you about two cryptocurrency giants joining forces. Well, that deal fell apart, and now a major crypto exchange is in big trouble. Kimberly and guest host Andy Uhler talk about the fallout from FTX’s collapse. Plus, we’ll check in on El Salvador’s bitcoin investments. Then, the hosts’ attempt to make us smile fails, but they later redeem themselves.

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Join us tomorrow for Economics on Tap. The YouTube livestream starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern. We’ll have news, drinks, a game and more.

October’s consumer price index contains a glimmer of hope. Though prices are still on the rise, inflation may finally be starting to moderate. On today’s show, what to make of one month’s worth of mildly good news. Also on the program: a computer chip oversupply, a pulse check of the real estate market and a lab trying to disaster-proof buildings.