Elections are more expensive than ever, but are campaign donations going to the races where they’ll make the most impact? Today, we talk to the startup co-founder of Oath who believes there’s a smarter way to allocate individual donations.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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Should money and class figure more prominently in how we identify ourselves? Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi thinks yes. Today on the show, a conversation with Mona, author of the forthcoming book Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez. 

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The United States national debt is running at more than $40 trillion dollars. It’s a potential crisis in the making, but President Donald Trump suggested it can all be solved just by inflating the debt away. Today, we dig into the nitty gritty on how and when inflating the national debt could work.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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Oracle, the multinational tech giant has taken on a lot of loans to build up its AI capacity. But Oracle’s investors are not happy with this piling debt load. We explain why Oracle is such a pivotal player — and potentially weak link — in the AI-fueled economy.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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Is AI coming for our jobs? Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes AI could wipe out many white-collar jobs in the next few years. While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argues AI will reshape existing roles and create even more jobs than we have now. So which future are we really facing: a job-pocalypse or a jobs transformation?

For answers, join The Indicator's Adrian Ma for "Ask An Economist.” This is a virtual event and live Q&A featuring two economists who've studied this issue: Daron Acemoglu, a Nobel Prize-winning professor at MIT, and Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at Stanford and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. We’ll also invite you to ask questions and share your thoughts!

It's Wednesday, October 28th, at 3:00pm ET, noon PT. This is a Zoom event exclusively for NPR+ and other qualifying supporters. For registration and event details, you can listen to this audio message or check out npr.org/askaneconomist. 

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This week’s indicators: Why is inflation so super (derogatory)? How did Bumble go from dating app doldrums to a stock market sweetheart?; And oh, bother! Could Winnie the Pooh be moving home to England from New York City?

Fact checking by Leyla Doss.

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–Retiree benefits bump, credit repayment slump, and a dating app in the dumps
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The 2026 midterm elections are fast approaching, and it’s gearing up to be the most expensive election in American history. So how did we get here, where every election feels more expensive than the last? 

Today on the show, we’re exploring what’s causing the flood of money into our politics. 

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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A labyrinthine rebate process. Shrinking cereal boxes. Mystery rental car charges. Cockroaches?! We share listener tales of Consumer Rage and unpack the economic forces driving that ANGER.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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This year's Nobel Prize for Economics went to American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford! Their research focused on macroeconomic models and economic shocks.

But … How did we get a Nobel Prize in economics, or as it’s actually called, the more long-winded “Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel”? And why did nearly 70 years pass between the first Nobel Prizes and a Nobel recognition for economics? 

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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Nearly 30 million bison once roamed North America, from modern Canada to Mexico. In the late 1800s, white settlers and the U.S. military annihilated the population of bison, bringing these creatures to the brink of extinction. The consequences for the people who relied on the bison were dire — and still being felt today. In an episode that first aired in August 2023, we spoke to one economist who reveals the shocking numbers about the destruction of the bison, and one member of the Blackfeet Nation who is trying to bring them back.

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez. This episode originally aired Aug. 21, 2023.

Your Next Listen –Blood, oil, and the Osage Nation: The battle over headrights
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This week our top indicators include changes to the funding model for SNAP, private equity’s influence on youth baseball and Meta’s attempt to find flaws in its brand new AI assistant. 

Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.

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