Appearance
Talk About Economies
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
| fall short of | This national conversion fell short of what advocates like Miriam wanted to see. The government fell short of its own spending goals. |
| short of | Climate catastrophe /kəˈtæstrəfi/ is the greatest threat to national security short of nuclear exchange. |
| hang on to sth | The employers had to step up their perk to attract job applicants or hang on to the employees they already had. |
| make the case for sth | How do you make the case for conversion during this moment. That complicates the cases for funding other battles, like the fight against climate changes. Your friend here has been making a strong case for why I should hire you. You have failed to make a case for us to support this project so we are unable approve your request for funding at this time. |
rationale /ˌræʃəˈnɑːl/ | The military increase in the budget as a whole do not have a strong rationale. |
| climate changes climate issue climate catastrophe /kəˈtæstrəfi/ | That complicates the cases for funding other battles that the Biden administration is waging, like the fight against climate changes. The urgency of the climate issue is maybe the strongest argument for shifting the economy away from military spending. Climate catastrophe is the greatest threat to our national security short of a nuclear exchange. There are things that can be cut, and those things need to be reinvested in preventing this climate catastrophe from coming to pass. |
| crack down on sb/sth | The Federal Trade Commision is cracking down on companies that handle sensitive location data. |
| a treasure trove of sth | Florian immediately sees they might have something bigger on their hands, a kind of treasure trove of data hiding in plain sight. Our phones contain a treasure trove of information about us - what we're watching, buying, searching for and where we are |
| a couple of years ago a variety of | Chipole's announcement caught my attention because it reminded me a lot of how companies were talking a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago, she helped launch a watchdog group that investigated mobile apps. Perry says he's been able to weather the storm for a variety of reasons. In 2020, Vice reported that the U.S. military was buying location data collected from a variety of apps. |
| call for | Their proposal calls for a new kind of automatic stabilizer - monthly cash payments. But where Claudi's plan called for an annual lump sum, Darrick's idea is to send out monthly payments. |
| a lump sum | A monetary sum paid all at once rather than in installments But where Claudi's plan called for an annual lump sum, Darrick's idea is to send out monthly payments. |
| kick in | These are benefits that kick in when a household's economic circumstances take a turn for the worse. They automatically kick in, and they ensure that resources are being directed in ways that are promoting our productivity. They didn't automatically kick in. |
| kick off | Of course, proposals for new kinds of spending tend to kick off furious debate among lawmakers about the ballooning federal deficit. kick-off meeting |
| take a turn for the worse take a turn for the better | These are benefits that kick in when a household's economic circumstances take a turn for the worse. |
| tax rebate | In previous recessions, the federal government came up with one-off policies to help stabilize households. People got tax rebates in 2008. And there were the stimulus checks in the early part of the pandemic. export tax rebate |
postmortem /ˌpoʊstˈmɔːrtəm/ | We're doing a postmortem of that business support that happened during the pandemic. |
| overdraft fees | We look at a new effort to limit overdraft fees. To be clear, the overdraft fee isn't even the interest you are paying on what is effectively a loan on top of it. The CFPB says that the majority of overdrafts are for less than $20 purchases, and they're repaid within three days. |
Walmart scams, expensive recycling, and overdraft fees
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
dynamo /ˈdaɪnəməʊ/ | |
| tied together | We're bringing you three snapshots of what's going on in today's global economy, all tied together with a theme of plastic. |
| Zip-tied, shrink-wrapped, prepared fresh for you | |
| defraud sb out of sth | We're going to look at how Walmart gift cards are being used to defrault people out of a lot of money. |
fraudster /ˈfrɔːdstə(r)/, scam /skæm/ | How much fraudsters have been using Walmart for their scams. |
| how big of | I asked Craig, how big of a problem is this? |
| in fraud proceeds, flow through | More than a billion dollars in fraud proceeds have flowed through Walmart's financial products over a 10-year period. |
| link | what's the link to plastic? |
scammers, prevalent /ˈprevələnt/ | Craig says scammers use Walmart in a few ways. One, they use Walmart's money transfer system, and they also use prepaid debit card. But the other one that is, you know, still pretty prevalent today is gift card. |
| This is the way of sth work | This is the way the gift scammers works. |
| a ring of professional scammers, get sb on the phone, scare sb in some way, be calling from. | A ring of professional scammers would get victims on the phone. They would scare them in some way. You know, we're calling from IRS. |
| right away, go to jail | You need to get this money right away, or you're going to jail, your relative is going to jail, etc. |
| it seems weird that , a red flag | It seems weird that a government agency would demand you go to Walmart. I mean, is that not a red flag? |
| fall | Unfortunately, it seems like people do fall for these |
| middle man, parking lot | The scammers then passes to a partner or a middleman, and those end up getting passed on to a person who is literally sitting waiting in a Walmart parking lot somewhere in the United States. |
| custody, landered | They take the gift card codes and PIN. They walk into Walmart, they grab other gift cards, and then basically means , you know the chain of custody is kind of been really confused. I's been laundered. |
| get money back | Now that person can't get their money back because the gift card was used to buy another gift card. |
| reach out to | We reached out to Walmart, and they told us ... |
| to their credit | Craig says, to their credit, Walmart has finnaly stopeed allowing people to buy gift cards with their Walmart gift cards. |
| note sth, drag their feet on sth | He does note that they really dragged their feet on that one. They did it years after their competitors did it. |
| a bunch of | He said experts he talked to say there's a bunch of other things that Walmart could be doing to stop fraud |
| dump trucks, dumped into | My indicator for the week is 2,000 dump trucks. This is how many dump trucks full of plastic are dumped into our oceans and waterways every day. That is roughly 20 million tons of plastic. |
| I don't feel good about , doesn't sound | I don't feel good about the wildlife eating that, the birds or the fishes - doesn't sound good at all. |
| because of, plastic industry | I was thinking about this statistic /stəˈtɪstɪk/ today because of a story that I read this week in the Financial Times about the the plastic industry. |
| recycled plastic, newly produced plastic, viergin plastics | Financial Times reports that a few years ago, recycled plastics used to be cheaper than newly producted plastics, what are called virgin plastics. |
| be reversed | But now the situation is reversed. |
| there are few reasons for this. buildup , around the globe, combine sth with sth, a glut of | There are a few reasons for this. During the pandemic, there was a buildup of plastic manufacturing around the globe, especially from U.S. and China. And when you combine that with the slowdown in parts of the global economy, the result is a glut of this newer palstic. |
| as a result, compared to | it is a lot cheaper to buy that newer plastic compared to the recycled stuff. |
| pose a issue | This sort of poses an envrionment issue. |
| be supposed to do sth | Recycling plastic, while not a perfect solution, is at lease supposed to help with our plastic waste problem. |
| don't necessarily do sth , pass cost onto | Companies don't necessarily want to use recycled plastic because they might have to pass that more expensive cost onto their customers. |
| come from | If we really want to see a large-scale reduction in plastic waste, it has to come from some systemic change. |
| bummer | Thank you for that bummer of a story |
| no shame, in the same boat | No shame if you are because 23 million households in the U.S. are in the same boat. |
| sting | These fees - if you've had them, you know that they sting. |
| run of the money | It's this fee when you run of money on your plastic debit card, when you're justing trying to buy, like, a $12 salad or a sandwich. |
| to be clear, on top of that | To be clear, the overdraft fee isn't even the interest you are paying on what is effectively a loan on top of that. |
| CFPB , Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, repaid | The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB, says that the majority of overdrafts are for less than $20 purchase, and they're repaid within three days. |
| from sb's perspective | From the bank's perspective, this is pretty good. |
| make sense, back in the day when, from place to place, nowadays, | They may have made sense back in the day when a physical paper check might have bounced, and some bank officers somewhere might have had to stamp something and physically send some paper from place to place. You know, nowadays, it's all automated. |
| nearly nothing | It costs the bank nearly nothing to cover you for a few days. |
| junk fee harvesting machine | The director of the CFPB calls this, quote, "a massive junk fee harvesting machine" |
| banking sector | The banking sector, as you can imagine, is not happy this proposed rule. |
Demonize /ˈdiːmənaɪz/ | The American Banker Association says the CFPB is attempting to demonize bank fee. |
| fee cap | They also say that the CFPB doesn't have the legal authority to make this fee cap. |
Tumbling Chinese stocks and rapid Chipotle hiring
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
| not just, but also | Not just the U.S. economy but also the Chinese economy. |
economic trajectory /trəˈdʒektəri/ | Today we'll have indicators detailing each country's economic trajectory. |
red ink /ɪŋk/ | We're going to talk about Chipotle and a lot of red ink on the stock market terminals. |
| ticker tape | Watch your ticker tape. |
20% drop , market indices /ˈɪndɪsiːz/ | My indicator is a 20% drop. That's how much one of China's leading socket market indices has fallen over the last year. |
steadily shrinking /ʃrɪŋkɪŋ/, a deflating/dɪˈfleɪtɪŋ/ balloon, three years straight | Chinese shares have essentially been steadily shrinking, shrinking, shrinking like a deflating balloon for three years straight. |
heady/ˈhedi/ times, a year into ... | They peaked in those heady times a year into the pandemic. |
meme stock era /ˈɪərə/ | Was that the meme stock era? It was the meme stock era. |
| valuation, go up | Valuations all around the world were going up. |
| Chinese publicly listed companies, way down | But now Chinese publicly listed companies are way down. |
| a sign of sth, the loss in confidence in sth | It's a sign of the loss in confidence in the economic management of the Chinese government. |
| stop checking your portfolio every day a long time ago. | If you're an investor, you probably stopped checking your portfolio everyday a long time ago. |
demoralizing /dɪˈmɒrəlaɪzɪŋ/ | It's just too demoralizing. |
| Imagine, the year | Imagine being a stock market investor and thinking, OK, well, last year was bad, but this will be the year - 2022. No, it wasn't. 2023? Also no. |
| got off to a rough start | Chinese shares have gotten off to a rough start this year as well. |
| spill over | Since China has the world's No.2 economy, if they're doing well or if they're not doing well, that spills over to other economies, including ours. |
| on its own, worry about, to the same extent | On its own, we don't need to worry about the Chinese stock market to the same extent that we do in the U.S. |
| over the last few years, be valued at , worth of economic output | In China, over the last few years, its stock market has been valued at around 60 or 70 or even 80% of a year's worth of economic output there. |
| more than double, as a share of | But in the U.S., its stock market is worth more than double that as a share of U.S. output. |
| cough, sick | So that means when the U.S. stock marekt coughs, the entire economy might be sick. |
| far less true | But that's far less true in China. |
| expand ｜ China's GDP, its total output, did expand 5.2% last year. | |
| disappointing, supercharged growth of the recent past | That's primarily /praɪˈmerəli/ driven by services, but even that 5.2% growth was seen as disappointing because it's lower than the supercharged growth of the recent past. |
| perspective | It's all a matter of perspective, really, right? |
| unfolding, youth unemployment, property market, struggling | We have talked on the show a lot about the background economic problems that are unfolding in China right now. We have youth unemployment, a property market that's really struggling. |
| consumer tech crackdown | Then there were all those consumer tech crackdowns for things like antitrust. |
| be bad for, business optimism, foreign investors | These are all bad for business optimism both in China and for foreign investors into China. |
| characterize | So how would you characterize the government's response to all of this? |
| make a reduction, the amount of the reserves | So far this month, the Chinese government has made a reduction in the amount of reserves that banks have to hold. |
| prop up | This basically, means that banks can now hold less cash, which means they can lend more and prop up the economy for now. |
| step in, in a big way | In fact, there are rumors that the government will step in, in a big way. |
| in the works | Bloomberg reported that a $278 billion package might be in the works. |
wrinkle /ˈrɪŋk(ə)l/ | I feel like this adds an interesting wrinkle to all of the trade negotiations that are going on between the U.S. and China. |
| an imbalance in economic momentum | There really does seem to be an imbalance in economic momentum between the two countries. |
As a contrast, chugging /ˈtʃʌɡɪŋ/ | As a contrast to the Chinese economy, we've got the U.S. economy, which appears to be chugging along. |
| fresh GDP data | Just this week, we got fresh GDP data showing that the economy grew over 3% annually in the last quarter of 2023. |
| Given | Given the U.S. is already a high-income country, that 3% is actually much better news for the U.S. economy |
| over what forecasters were expecting | That 3% number in the U.S. was over what forecasters were expecting. |
| credit | You can credit a solid labor market for a lot of this growth. |
| burrito season | |
| do tell | I didn't realize burritos had seasons, but do tell. |
| hit its goal | So in 2023, it said it was looking to bring on 15,000 workers, and the economy did actually hit its goal. |
| caught my attention | Chipole's announcement caught my attention because it reminded me a lot of how companies were talking a couple of years ago. |
| tight labor market, step up their perks, attract job applicants, hang on to the employees | We kept hearing about the tight labor market and how that meant that employers had to step up their perks in order to attract job applicants or hang on to the employees they already had. |
| work from home, signing bonuese | Things like more flexibility to work from home and signing bonuses. |
| in that spirit, unveil | In that spirit, Chipole has some new perks it unveiled this week as well. |
| be aimed at | The company says these are aimed at attracking younger workers because actually over 70% of its employees are Gen Z. |
| caring people, muffins | They're very caring people, so maybe some muffins for their colleagues. |
muffins, guacomole /ˌɡwækəˈməʊleɪ/ | These would be, like, muffins with guacamole. |
millenial /mɪˈleniəl/ twist | Yeah, it's a millenial twist. The guacamole feels very millenial to me. |
| quesco blanco | I bet the Gen Zers - what they're going probably more for the quesco blanco, right? |
| do a 401k match, make student loan payments | Chipotle says that it'll do a 401(k) match for employees that make student loan payments |
| a boost, pay down their student loan debt | It's, like, a boost to workers who are paying down their student loan debt. |
mental health program, a licensed counselor /ˈkaʊnsələ(r)/ | The company also has a new mental health program that includes six free sessions with a licensed counselor. |
| speak to the challenge | Chipole says these kinds of perks speak to the challenges that Gen Zers are facing. |
| bright spot, headlines about layoffs in media and tech. | I feel like this is a bright spot in labor market news in a week where we've seen a lot of headlines about layoffs in media and tech. |
| a laid off employer, hot labor market | I guess if you're a laid off employer of eBay or the LA Times, you're probably not feeling the hot labor market that Chipotle is. |
| layoffs cold comfort for sb | Layoffs are still at historically low levels, but that is probably cold comfort for anyone who has losts a job recently. |
| a heavy month for layoffs | It's also worth noting that January tends to be a heavy month for layoffs. |
| right after, staffed up , seasonal demand | It's right after the holidays when a lot of companies have staffed up to meet seasonal demand, and now they're adjusting again. |
close their fiscal/ˈfɪsk(ə)l/ year , the right size for | It's also when a lot of businesses have closed their fiscal year, and so they're just getting their business to the right size for the year ahead. |
in a hiring mood /muːd/ than a firing mood. | It's only January, right? So we'll see where the year goes, and maybe more companies will be in hiring mood than a firing mood. |
| with , a good start for the year | With the economy growing at such a healthy rate, I mean, it's a good start for the year. |
How to transform a war economy for peacetime
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
| in policy circles | In policy circles, there is this concept called the peace dividend. |
| The idea is, give way to, free up | The idea is that when wartime gives way to peacetime, all of this money gets freed up. |
| on the domestic policy wish list | A government can stop spending on tanks and fighter jets, and then it can redirect that money towards social services, housing and other things on the deomestic policy wish list. |
| within grasp | The last time a peace dividend seemed to be within grasp was after the end of the Cold War. |
| military spending, fall to, half of waht it was | Military spending fell during the '90s to below 3% of GDP. That is about half of what it was during the 1980s, when it was more like 6% of GDP. |
| from personal experience, the cutbacks in defense | All of you know, from personal experience, how much American industry has been changed by the cutbacks in denfense. |
| A Westinghouse Electric factory in Maryland, be reinvested in the domestic economy | In 1993, president Bill Clinton visited a Westinghouse Electric factory in Maryland to talk about how military spending could be reinvested in the domestic economy. |
| soldier-statesman, Dwight Eisenhower, resourceful American makers of plowshares , reverse the process | The soldier-statesman Dwight Eisenhower once observed that the resourceful American makers of plowshares could, with time, and as required, make swords as well. Our challenge is now to reverse the process. |
| a challenge, elude | But this process was a challenge, and the peace divident has eluded the U.S. economy ever since. |
| wrap up our series on the defense industry | Today wraps up our series/ˈsɪəriːz/ on the defence industry. |
| be used effectively | If the peace dividend exists, how can it be used effectively? |
| give sb a chance | We look at how the state of California gave the peace dividend a chance after the Cold War. |
| in order to do sth, spending cuts | In order to convert militrary dollars into peacetime dollars, policymakers need two things - spending cuts and a plan. |
| according to, a progressive think tank, peacetime economic conversion, ever since, the Berlin Wall came down | That's according to Miriam Pemberton.She'a an associate fellow at the Institute ` |
| /ˈɪnstɪtjuːt/` For Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, and she's been studing what's called peacetime economic conversion ever since the Berlin Wall came down. | |
the first condition, the other condition , Pentagon /ˈpentəɡən/ /ˈpentəɡɑːn/ | The first condition is you got to have those cuts in the Pentagon budget. And the other condition is you really need to shift your industrial policy in the direction of the transition that you want to promote. |
materialized /məˈtɪərɪəˌlaɪz/, come up with | In the early 90s, when those big cuts to the U.S. military budget materialized, the Clinton administration /ədˌmɪnɪˈstreɪʃ(ə)n/ did come up with a kind of plan to reinvest that money. |
| put, displaced defense workers, fall short of | The government put over $15 billion into programs for job training for dispalced defense workers and developing civilian uses for military techonology, but this national conversion fell short of what advocates/ˈædvəkeɪts/ like Miriam/ˈmɪriəm/ wanted to see. |
| what happend in ... was .... take up the slack | What happened in the post-Cold War period was we had substantial defense cuts but really insufficient focus on kind of big projects to take up the slack in the economy that's left when that's created by these defense cuts. |
Clinton-era/ˈɪərə/, go toward, reduce the deficit/ˈdefɪsɪt/ | Her think tank says most of the Clinton-era peace dividend went toward reducing the deficit - not spending on social needs or job creation. |
| fall short of , in other words | The group also says that the government fell short of its own spending goals. In other words, it really didn't have much of a plan. |
| is sth even possible? | So is this concept of a peacetime economic conversion even possible? |
| There's a very good example of it in ... | There's a very good example of it in California after the Cold War. |
| back then, the heart of ... industry, aerospace industry | Back then, California was the heart of the American aerospace/ˈeərəʊspeɪs/ industry. |
| By one estimate , represented a quarter of | By one estimate, in the late 80s, California represented a quarter of all the aerospace jobs in the U.S. |
| live in | A lot of these workers lived in the Los Angeles area. |
the first operational stealth /stelθ/ aircraft | They worked at places like Lockheed Martin, which produced the first operational stealth aircraft at a facility in Burbank, Calif. |
machinists /məˈʃiːnɪst/ | Don Nakamoto worked for the union that represented the Lockheed machinists. |
| back then, make $25 an hour with a lot of benefits. | Even back then, a machinist was making $25 an hour with a lot of benefits. |
| $50,000 a year for a blue-collar job , top of the industry | $50,000 a year for a blue-collar job was a pretty high, and top of the industry. |
| be well paid, rightfully so | They were very well paid - and rightfully so. |
| wind down, make cuts | As the Cold War wound down, Lochheed started making cuts. |
| step one | That's step one in the peacetime convertion process. |
relocate jobs from ... to .., southern/ˈsʌðən/ states | The company began relocating jobs from California to Southern states, like Georgia. |
| close sth altogether | And then, in 1990, it closed its Burbank facility altogether. |
| lose their job, get laid off | Don remembers around 9,000 Lockheed workers were losing their jobs in that period, and thousands more people at other aerospace comapnies get laid off, too. |
| hollow-out , put sb in a really tough spot, displaced workers | Don says the hollowing-out of the aerospace industry put these displaced workers in a really tough spot. |
| take minimun-wage jobs in retail or fast food | He remembers some of them taking minumun-wage jobs in retail or fast food. |
| They were in a situation where .. | They were in a situation where that was kind of disadvantage to have such specialize skill. |
| be compensated really well | When they were employed, they were compensated really well. But then those skills don't translate to the normal workforce as well. |
| laid-off workers | These laid-off workers needed somewhere to land. |
| adopt a new requirement for sb to do sth | The California state government adopted a new requirement for car companies to make zero-emission vehicles. |
| mandate , an opportunity to do sth, jump start a brand-new industry | One California congressman saw this mandate as an opportunity to jumpstart a brand-new industry making electric cars. |
| green technology, displaced aerospace workers | It would be a way to redirect spending from aerospace to green technology, and it would also provide job opportunities for displaced aerospace workers in this new kind of advanced manufacturing. |
consortium/kənˈsɔːtiəm/ /kənˈsɔːrʃiəm/, come together | A consortium came together consisting of public agencies, private companies, including aerospace contractors. |
| secure funding, set up | The group secured funding from the federal and state governments, and in 1992, it set up shop right in Lockheed's old Burbank facility. |
| one of the first | We had people that develop one of the first electric vehicles, one of the first navigation systems and one of the first heated and cooled seats. |
| flagship project, ultimately | Both Don and Miriam say that CALSTART's flagship project, th electric car, was ultimately a little too early for its time. |
| it take years before ..., take off | It would take years before the EV really took off. |
| decisive plan,be met with | The California project demonstrates what can happen when military spending cuts are met with a decisive plan for how to adapt the economy. |
| within grasp | The period just after the Cold War is basically the last time the peace dividend was really within grasp. |
| the attacks of September 11, 2001 | After the attacks of September 11, 2001, American military spending started rising again. |
| with | Today, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the U.S. is spending more than even on defense. |
| complicate the case for, waging | That complicates the cases for funding other battles that the Biden administration is waging, like the fight against climate changes. |
| the urgency of the climate issue, the strongest argument for shifting the economy away from military spending. | Miriam told me that the urgency of the climate issue is maybe the strongest arugment for shifting the economy away from military spending. |
be involved in, Iraq/ɪˈrɑːk/ , Afghanistan/æfˈɡænɪstɑːn/ | I think of how long the U.S. was involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then now we have the war in Ukraine. We've got what's happening in the Middle East. |
climate catastrophe /kəˈtæstrəfi/, short of, nuclear change | And the other thing I would say is climate catastrophe is the greatest threat to our national security short of a nuclear exchange. |
| climate catastrophe, coming to pass | There are things that can be cut, and those things need to be reinvested in preventing this climate catastrophe from coming to pass. |
Why the FTC is cracking down on location data brokers
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
| market for | The market for location data is this multibillion-dollar industry. |
| be concerned with sth | The FTC is particularly concerned with data liked to places like medical facilities. |
| go after, via mobile apps, without user's knowledge or direct consent | The agency is going after companies that it believes are collecting this information via mobile apps, often without user's knowledge or direct consent. |
| reach its first settlement with sb , people's whereabouts | Last month, the FTC reached its first settlement with what's called a location data broker. This is a company that collects and sells digital information about people's whereabouts. |
| back in , gatthered | Back in 2022, we covered how mobile location data is gathered, sold and used. |
precise geolocation /ˌdʒiːəʊləʊˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/ data, longitude/ˈlɒŋɡɪtjuːd/ /ˈlɑːndʒɪtuːd/ and latitude /ˈlætɪtjuːd/ | Precise geolocation data is really your longtitude and your latitude, so exactly where you are. Like, you are in your living room in your apartment. |
| a couple of , launch a watchdog group | A couple of years ago, she helped launch a watchdog group that investigated mobile apps. |
investigative /ɪnˈvestɪɡətɪv/ journalism/ˈdʒɜːnəlɪz(ə)m/, come out | This was also when more investigative journalism were coming out about the industy. |
| a variety of | In 2020, Vice reported that the U.S. military was buying location data collected from a variety of apps. |
| what happens is that, turn around, repurpose | Usually what happens is that apps are collecting information about you. The apps then turn around and sell that information to data brokers, third parties who then package that data, repurpose it and then sell it to anyone that wanted to buy the data. |
epidemiologist/ˌepɪˌdiːmiˈɒlədʒɪst/, the spread of infectious/ɪnˈfekʃəs/ diseases, in a population, real eastate company, analyze/ˈænəlaɪz/ foot traffic patterns | Location data can be helpful. Like, say, an epidemiologist wants to track the spread of infectious diseases in a population, or a real estate company might want to analyze foot traffic patterns when deciding where to open a store. |
| would work without knowing, think of, ride-sharing | There are apps that simply wouldn't work without knowing their user's location. Think of navigation and mapping apps or ride-sharing apps like Lyft and Uber. |
nefarious/nɪˈfeəriəs/ and bad, exploited /ɪkˈsplɔɪtɪd/ individuals | So it's not all nefarious and bad, but unfortunately, the way that it's been used today has exploited individuals because this information is really sensitive. |
high-profile, a Catholic/ˈkæθlɪk/ priest, resigned, claimed | One high-profile example involved a Catholic priest. He resigend after a news site claimed to have linked his phone with data showing that he had visited gay bars and used the location-based dating app Grindr. |
under renewed scrutiny, be overturned, menstruation /ˌmenstruˈeɪʃn/ tracking app | Location data came under renewed scrutiny after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Three House lawmakers launched an investigation into menstrucation tracking apps and other companies that handle data, including location. |
| how does sth get from ... | How does location data get from an app to a data broker to comapnies that are paying for this information? |
| have no idea that, be collected in the first place | Lena says that often the app developers have no idea that this data is being collected in the first place. |
make spaghetti /spəˈɡeti/, simmer /ˈsɪmə(r)/ a complex bolognaise sauce on the stove/stəʊv/, a jar of pre-made sauce, get dinner on the table in 15 minutes | So think about making spaghett. You could spend hours simmering a complex bolognaise on the stove. Or you could buy a jar of pre-made sauce and get dinner on the table in 15 minutes. |
pre-made, jarred pasta /ˈpæstə/ sauces of the mobile app industry, pre-made software, taking credit card payments, sending instant messages | So SDKs are these pre-made, jarred pasta sauces of the mobile app industry. They contain pre-made software for functions like taking credit card payments or sending instant messages. |
| avoid sth altogether, for this very reason | Some developers choose to avoid SDKs altogether for this very reason, developers like Brian Mueller. |
| be sick of, vanilla | I'm sick of these vanilla weather apps. |
| spice up | If you want a weather app kind of spicing up your life, CARROT Weather might be your thing. |
| be greeted with | Every time you open this app, you are greeted with a rude message. |
| self-flagellation | I don't know why people would want this in their life, but maybe, I don't know, self-flagellation is a thing. |
personality, acerbic /əˈsɜːbɪk/, border on, homicidal /ˌhɒmɪˈsaɪdl/ | I have learned that CARROT's personality is pretty acerbic, and it's sometimes bordering on homicidal. |
| one thing that sb doesn't do, despite being xxx | But one thing that CARROT does not do, despite being a weather app, is collect and store precise location data. |
| sell ads, expose sb's data to sb | He also doesn't sell ads because he didn't want to expose his customer's data to third-party advertising companies. |
| send an assassin after you, market stuff to you | I remember joking that CARROT wants your location data so that she can use it to, like, send an assasian after you, not give it to someone else to market stuff to you. |
| prompt sb to do sth, take a hard look at the tradeoffs between | But the conversation around how sensitive personal information gets used is prompting people like Brian to take a hard look at the tradeoffs between privacy, convenince and , in his case, making a living as an app developer. |
| there are so many cases out there where xxx , contribute to | There are so many cases out there where location data can be used to really hurt people, and that's the kind of stuff that I don't want to contrubute. |
| step in | Government regulators are also stepping in. |
| What we're trying to do with this xxx case is ..., nail down, be revealed to sb | What we're trying to do with this X-Mode case is really nail down those locations where it's very clear that consumers are injured when this data is reavealed to others who consumers don't know about. |
| medical and reproductive health clinics, houses of worship, domestic abuse shelters. | Those locations include medical and reproductive health clinics, houses of worship and domestic abuse shelters. |
| allege that | The FTC alleges that X-Mode sold data that could potentially reveal people's visit to those sensitive places. |
| final approval | The terms of the FTC settlement still need final approval. |
| provsion | That's a provision that we're really excited about, and we are really hope that it sends a strong message to this marketplace. |
| undetered, ban sb from doing sth | Meanwhile, the FTC is undetered. Two weeks ago, the agency took similar action agaist a second company and banned it from selling location data. |
The Indicator:Could cash payments ease recessions?
| Phrases | Sentence |
|---|---|
| When there's a ..., the ususal tendency of sb, to scramble, a flurry of | When there's a recession, the usual tendency for policymakers is to scramble. There's a flurry of tax cuts or emergency aid for families and businesses. |
| depend on, the whims of sb, deadlock, in the meantime | These moves to stabilize the economy often depend on the whims of politicians. There is debate. There's sometimes deadlock. In the meantime, people are hurting. |
| along with, at least for now. move in cycles, downturn at some point | Last week's healthy jobs numbers, along with other positive economic data, indicate we've avoided a recession, at least for now. But we know economies move in cycles, and there will be another downturn at some point. |
| is a good moment to consider if there is ... , combat the next recession, provide relief without all the scrambling | So for some economist, now is a good moment to consider if there is a better way to combat the next recession, some kind of way to provide relief without all the scrambling. |
| his proposal for dong sth , through economic slumps, it involves that | Today on the show, we talk to an economist about his proposal for helping households through economic slumps. It involves the government automatically sending people cash, potentially $400 billion of it. |
| school spirit | The day we talked to him, he was showing some school spirit for the opposite coast. |
| sweatshirt, throw sb off | You're wearing a University of California sweatshirt today. So you are threw me off briefly. But you're based on the East Coast. |
| There it is, the first thing | There it is. It's the first thing my closet. |
| count on | You can count on an economist to maximize the effieiency of their morning routine, I got to say. |
| span topics like, economic security, racial wealth gap | Darrik's work span topics like economic security and the racial health gap. |
| As long as , automatic stabilizer, be front and center | As long as I've been thinking about economies, the concept of automatic stabilizer /ˈsteɪbəlaɪzə(r)/ has been front and center. |
| in times of | An automatic stabilizer - this is a kind of policy that's designed to provide relief in times of stress. |
| advanced economies | These programs are generally smaller in the U.S. compared with other advanced economies. |
| in the social safety net | But there are examples of automatic stabilizers here, expecially in the social safety net. |
| kick in, take a turn for the worse | Take unemployment insurance and food stamps, otherwise known as SNAP. These are benefits that kick in when a household's economic circumstances take a turn for the worse. |
| go down, so does sth | And another example in the U.S. is just individual income tax because if somebody's income goes down, so does the tax bill. |
What makes ... unique is that, build into, get derailed , political bickering /ˈbɪkərɪŋ/ | what makes an automatic stabilizer unique is that it's already built into a government's budget. The president or Congress don't have to take special action to spend more or tax less, and that means less risks of these benefits getting derailed by political bickering. |
| kick in, promot our productivity, severe | They automatically kick in, and they ensure that resources are being directed in ways that are promoting our productivity, that are limiting the risk of recession and that ensure that the duration of a recession is not as severe as it otherwise might be. |
| come up with, one-off policies, tax rebates, stimulus checks | In previous recessions, the federal government came up with one-off policies to help stabilize households. people got tax rebates in 2008. Those are part of the George W.Bush administration's response to the global financial crisis. And there were the stimulus checks in the early part of the pandemic. |
| require sb approval | Those one-off measures required congressional approval. |
| that's where xxx comes in. | And that's where Darrick's proposal comes in. |
| get sent out, in times of recession, be adjusted by income | These payments would get sent out in times of recession, and they would be adjusted by income. |
| That would make sb different from sth... , universal basic income | That would make these payments different from something like a universal basic income, which is the same for everybody |
| temporary, be paid out | And the momny would be temporary. It would only be paid out during a recession. |
| be targeted in a way that | This program is targeted in such a way that those that need the most get the most. |
have the cadence to ensure that, a periodic payment, to meet your subsistence/səbˈsɪstəns/ needs | It also has the cadence to ensure that, like income, there's an understanding, a guarantee, a psychological benefit to know that there's a flow that's comming your way - a periodic payment to make sure that you'll be able to meet your subsistence needs. |
| outline an idea, came up with, detecting whether a recession is underway based on unemployment data. | Economist Claudia Sahm outlined a similar idea. She came up with something called the Sahm rule. That's a way of detecting whether a recession is underway based on unemployment data. |
| go out to sb, get triggered | And Claudia explained how cash payment should go out to households when the Sahm rule gets triggered. |
| as fast as they can , be noticeable | They should happen as fast as they can in a recession. They should be noticeable. Send them $1,000 or more and that that money out. |
| call for, an annual lump sum, send out monthly payments, a regular source of support | But where Claudia's plan called for an annual lump sum, Darrick's idea is to send out monthly payments. The rationale is that a regular source of support helps families plan better. |
| people on lower income, spend more on sussistence, spend the money instead of saving it, account for | Darrick says that people on a lower income spend more on subsistence, so the people who get these regular payments would be more likely to spend that monthly insted of saving it. And that's what policymakers want in a recession because consumer spending accounts for nearly three-quarters of GDP. |
economic sovereignty/ˈsɒvrənti/ and insecurity /ˌɪnsɪˈkjʊərəti/ | We need to recognize that there are multiple dimensions of economic sovereignty and insecurity. |
| a periodic flow of resources, count on in a steady way | And income is a flow concept. Income recognized that your bills are periodic. So the concept of income requires that there's a periodic flow of resources coming your way that you can count on in a steady state, steady way. |
| be targeted by , for eligible adults | Another key component of Darrick's proposal is that the payments are targeted by income. They would only go to families making $78,000 a year or less. The average benefit for eligible adults would add up to about $3,500 a year. |
| lower-income households, all eligible households, be on longer in effect | The payments increase for lower-income households, and payments for all eligible households would stop once the recession indicator was no longer in effect. |
according to, give ab a boost in sth, a disproportionate /ˌdɪsprəˈpɔːʃənət/number of, Black and Hispanic /hɪˈspænɪk/ families, be pronounced/prəˈnaʊnst/ for sb | According to proposal, the program would give the average family a 3- to 4% boost in income, and because a disproportionate number of Black and Hispanic families are low income, they benefits would be more pronounced for them. The average Black family would see its income go up at least 6%. |
| a point of reckoning, be devoid of our conception of race, who is deserving and undeserving | A point of reckoning is every public policy, every structure in America that's related to our economies and politics is not devoid of our coneption of race, who is deserving and undeserving. |
| go into effect in an automatic way, anti-racist | So having the program go into effect in an automatic way, that's anti-racist. |
discretion /dɪˈskreʃn/ of deciding, at the point of | It avoids the discretion of deciding who is deserving and undeserving at the point of delivery of the payment. |
| envision, amount to | Darrick and his colleagues envision this program amounting to a maximum of about $430 billion a year. |
| pay for | Darrick says there is a number of ways that the government could pay for this program, like taxes or borrowing money. |
kick off furious/ˈfjʊəriəs/ debate among lawmakers, about the ballooning federal deficit/ˈdefɪsɪt/ | Of course, proposals for new kinds of spending tend to kick off furious debate among lawmakers about the ballooning federal deficit. |
| study the impact of sth on sth, it concluded that, contribute to sth, point out that,keep sth from sth | And last year, the Government Accountability Office did study the impact of automatic stabilizers on the budget. And it concluded that those automatic benefits did contribute to deficits in recent years, but it also pointed out that programs keep the economy from getting worse during recessions. |
| turn on | So Darrick just needs someone in the government to turn on that economic slow cooker. |
do a postmortem /ˌpoʊstˈmɔːrtəm/ of sth | We're doing a postmortem of that business support that happened during the pandemic. |