Marketplace All-in-One

As the economy recovers amid the COVID pandemic, the job market has become wildly unpredictable. Unfortunately, plenty of experts say the volatility is here to stay. The House of Representatives is expected to vote today on President Biden’s social spending and infrastructure bills. We speak to Smith College president Kathleen McCartney about her school’s move to go “no loan” in an effort to mitigate the issues of student debt.

From the BBC World Service: That credibility question is one many investors are asking today after the U.K. central bank shocked global markets yesterday when it opted to keep interest rates at an historic low amid rising inflation. Plus, ocean conservation in Belize is a key part of a $553 million “blue bond” debt restructuring deal.

It’s been about six months since China started banned cryptocurrency mining. That’s the extremely energy-intensive process where computers run complex math problems to get rewarded with cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin. Until recently, China was the epicenter of this activity, partly because the electricity needed to run all those computers is relatively cheap there. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Jennifer Pak, Marketplace’s China correspondent, to check in on where things stand after the ban.

In a new securities filing, Exxon says some of its oil and gas reserves may face impairment, which means they will likely have to stay in the ground because of climate change. On the show today, we’ll discuss why this is big deal. Plus, the incoming New York City mayor wants to get paid in bitcoin, Hawaii is welcoming back tourists and tacos in space!

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Read the transcript here.

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Zillow announced this week that it’s winding down its house-flipping business. As an ibuyer, Zillow’s real estate technology made instant offers on houses, then the company fixed them up and resold them. But Zillow underestimated the rapid rise in home prices and failed to anticipate that those gains would moderate — resulting in a $400 million loss last quarter and offering a cautionary tale to other ibuying companies. Also on the show today: California’s farmers get supply chain headaches, the complicated relationship a young woman has with her family’s wealth and why some in the U.K. are camping out in churches.

Matthew Chow spent his adult life trying to build a close relationship with his estranged father. But just when he felt like he made real progress, his father passed away. In the will he found a secret his father had kept buried for decades — one that sent Matthew on a monthslong journey that  changed how he thought about not only his father, but the very idea of family.

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The Fed has talked about tapering for a while in regards to economic stimulus, and now it’s going to happen. We spoke to Karen Petrou of Federal Financial Analytics about it. Diane Swonk offers up some insight for our discussion about the markets on the eve of Friday’s jobs report. Airbnb is set to announce its earnings, and it’s also trying to make efforts to get on the good side of communities. We take a closer look at how the cap and trade system deals with carbon emissions.

Global energy shortages and fuel price hikes will likely hit and hurt the U.S. when demand for energy rises this winter. This has led to “energy shock” that comes as the world continues to map out a way to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. According to Vijay Vaitheeswaran, global energy and climate innovation editor at The Economist, the energy shock is also a teachable moment that shows us how much more needs to be done to plan out a stable transition. We spoke to Vaitheeswaran for a deeper dive. The Federal Reserve is beginning to wind down its bond-buying program, which it started to support the economy during the pandemic. We get into what that means and why it’s happening now.

From the BBC World Service: The Swiss bank will expand its banking services for wealthy clients and scale back its investment banking, which has faced scandals including fraudulent loans and corporate espionage. Plus, fresh data shows global emissions have almost completely bounced back to pre-pandemic levels. And, why people in the west African country of The Gambia can’t sell their solar power, frustrating attempts to move away from fossil fuels as a source of energy.

Author Jeanette Winterson has been reading and writing about artificial intelligence and its relationship to humans for years. Her new book, a collection of essays called “12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next,” explores these themes. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Winterson, who said she wrote the book because she wanted to understand the implications that AI has for humans — the good and the bad, especially when it comes to AI and robotics. And in that space, Winterson said, a lot of the investment is going toward the good.