Marketplace All-in-One

What do a burning shed, a beautiful above-ground bunker and an island of misfits all have in common? They are all places we visit on our hunt for solutions.

This episode, we find out what it will take to stay in the places we love. We play around at a research lab where scientists are figuring out how to make our homes and buildings more resilient to the elements. Then, we leave the lab to see what it looks like to implement safer building methods and materials in real life; first, at a plastic surgeon’s impressive home — 18 feet above sea level. Then, we head south to explore an island where living with the water is a way of life.

Good luck trying to escape political news this week. Election coverage is everywhere — on the airwaves and online. And every election cycle seems to reveal more and more about the growing, pivotal and sometimes controversial role of social media. Like in the run-up to elections and, like now, during the aftermath. Campaigns can use social media to boost voter turnout and build community, but others use it to try to mislead voters. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams spoke with Pinar Yildirim, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies media, technology and information economics. She explained why the technology underlying these platforms can amplify misinformation and conspiracy theories.

School board races have become some of the most contentious elections of the 2022 midterms. These used to be mostly local affairs, with candidates typically raising less than $1,000 from friends and family. But now it’s not uncommon for big national political action committees to sink tens of thousands into a single race. It’s a trend that goes back more than a decade and has been supercharged by culture war issues and the pandemic.

Today, we talk with Rebecca Jacobsen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, about the implications of outside money in school board elections for education policy and local democracy.

In the News Fix, we’ll discuss what’s being done to address voter intimidation at the polls. Plus, two cryptocurrency giants are joining forces.

Then, we’ll hear from a listener who wonders if the universe is sending us an Election Day message, and a mathematician who has thought a lot about “How Not to Be Wrong” answers the “Make Me Smart” question.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

We want to hear your answer to the “Make Me Smart” question. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART. You can also email [email protected].

It can be overwhelming to take stock of everything — and everyone — lost during the pandemic. But how do you quantify the time lost? For millennials, the sequestered years are ones traditionally marked by major life events, like marriage or having children. Today, we’ll tally the costs. Plus, small-business owners feel cautious about the economy, AMC Theatres strikes a deal with Zoom and trade schools see enrollment spikes.

First, it’s Election Day, and we discuss the possible impact of a recession with Jeffery Cleveland of Payden & Rygel. More people are taking on second jobs for a variety of reasons, according to government data. The European Union is turning up the economic heat on Hungary.

At the COP27 climate change summit in Egypt, the White House has an idea to help developing countries with financing. There’s also debate about the role of natural gas. Elsewhere, the Indian Child Welfare Act faces a massive legal test before the Supreme Court.

From the BBC World Service: Poorer nations need more than $2 trillion dollars each year for the next eight years to tackle the impact of a changing climate, according to a U.N.-backed report. Plus, Britain is in the midst of its worst ever outbreak of bird flu, creating a nightmare before Christmas for poultry farmers and their customers.

People see and absorb a lot of election information — and misinformation — on the web. But we are not all getting the same information about politics and policymakers, and certainly not from the same sources. So understanding where people gather and communicate online can be crucial to understanding the political polarization in the United States, especially when some people are migrating to newer platforms that cater to specific political beliefs or content moderation rules. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams spoke with Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University, who studies online communities and speech. Klonick says people decide where they “live” online these days based on the rules of the platform.

Twitter is supposed to be the digital version of the public square. But what happens when the richest person in the world buys it and tells you how to vote? We’ll talk about why that’s troubling and whether Twitter is turning into the next Truth Social. Plus, young Latinas in Texas are using their quinceañeras to get their communities to the polls. And, after years of complaints, Airbnb is finally doing something about those pesky hidden fees.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

If you’ve got a question for the hosts or your own answer to the “Make Me Smart” question, call 508-U-B-SMART and leave us a voicemail. You can email [email protected].

Tech giants Twitter, Stripe and Lyft slashed jobs last week, and Meta will reportedly follow suit. It’s a reversal of the sector’s pandemic hiring spree and could be an indicator of wider cuts across the economy. Plus, conservative groups spend big on school board elections, Florida’s cultural institutions try to recover after Hurricane Ian, and a Supreme Court case threatens the Indian Child Welfare Act.