Every single day here at Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal “does the numbers,” talking about how the stock market fared at close. When they are up, we play the happy music. Same with monthly jobs numbers and the GDP. We’ve had a few listeners write in to ask: Why? Does the economy always need to get bigger, all the time, forever? Here to help us sort through this kind of existential question and maybe even figure out some better numbers to “do” is Josh Bivens with the Economic Policy Institute. By the way: We’re still looking for your 2020 predictions! Send them to [email protected], and we’ll play some on our last episode of the year.