Could economic feelings become fact?

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: "Could Economic Feelings Become Fact?"
Release Date: March 12, 2025
Host: Kai Ryssdal

In this insightful episode of "Marketplace," host Kai Ryssdal delves into the nuanced interplay between economic data, consumer sentiment, and broader market trends. Through expert interviews and data analysis, the episode explores how feelings about the economy might influence actual economic outcomes. Below is a comprehensive summary of the key discussions and insights presented.

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I. Inflation and Consumer Price Index (CPI) Analysis

The episode opens with an examination of the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, highlighting a slight easing in headline inflation for February.

• CPI Overview:
  "Headline inflation in February eased a bit, 2.8% year over year. That is down from 3.1% in January. So good. Still sticky, but good."
  — Kai Ryssdal [01:12]

• Shelter Prices vs. Food at Home:
  While shelter costs remain a significant driver of inflation, food prices at home showed stability.

  "Inflation for food at home was flat in February, literally 0%."
  — David Ortega, Food Economist at Michigan State University [02:38]

  Charlotte Ambrozek from the University of Minnesota adds context to the mixed movements within food categories:

  "So much movement within categories that a lot of the bad price hikes canceled out a lot of the good price drops."
  — Charlotte Ambrozek [02:53]

• Consumer Sentiment on Grocery Prices:
  Despite stable overall food prices, consumers feel the pinch due to specific item price increases, notably eggs and beef.

  "Our preferences are what they are. They're really hard to move."
  — Charlotte Ambrozek [03:19]

II. Impact of Tariffs on Small Businesses

Transitioning to trade policies, Kai discusses the uncertainty surrounding tariffs and their implications for businesses, featuring an in-depth interview with Todd Adams, president of Sanitube.

• Tariff Uncertainty:
  Todd Adams expresses frustration with the unpredictable tariff landscape:

  "The biggest issue right now is the uncertainty. There's no guidance. We've had to really scale back any kind of expansion plans."
  — Todd Adams [05:39]

• Implementation Flaws:
  Adams critiques the previous exemption processes and the current rollout:

  "The tariffs that are being applied to material now were ordered before the election. This is something that we could have, you know, never anticipated."
  — Todd Adams [07:03]

• Economic Implications:
  The unpredictability of tariffs hampers business planning and investment, contributing to a broader sense of economic instability.

III. Worker Confidence and Labor Market Trends

The conversation shifts to labor market dynamics, emphasizing declining worker confidence despite solid job data.

• Decline in Worker Confidence:
  A new Glassdoor survey reveals a significant drop in worker confidence:

  "A bit more than 44% of workers in this economy don't feel good about how the next six months are going to be at their companies."
  — Kai Ryssdal [08:27]

• Impact on Economic Growth:
  Economists like Jed Kolko and Catherine Ann Edwards discuss how declining confidence can lead to reduced consumer spending, potentially slowing economic growth.

  "Recessions tend to tell us that they're coming. They give us lots of warnings that they're on their way and falling confidence is one of them."
  — Catherine Ann Edwards [10:57]

• Psychological Factors:
  Daniel Zhao from Glassdoor highlights the role of anxiety and uncertainty in diminishing economic confidence.

  "As economic uncertainty rises, Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, says anxiety tends to rise too, and confidence tends to fall."
  — Yaneli Espinal [10:04]

IV. Wildfire Cleanup and Environmental Concerns in Calabasas

Kai reports on the ongoing challenges of wildfire cleanup in Calabasas, touching on environmental and community health concerns.

• Cleanup Challenges:
  The protracted cleanup process has led to community frustration, especially regarding the disposal of hazardous materials.

  "They're not allowed to throw away a paint can or an energizer battery. So why are you allowed to bring homes full of burnt batteries, iPads, televisions, cars, God knows what else?"
  — Charlotte Ambrozek [13:35]

• Health Risks:
  Dr. Tanya Altman raises alarms about long-term health impacts from environmental contaminants.

  "As a pediatrician, I am concerned that in years to come we are going to see more cases of cancer and tumors and autoimmune issues and illnesses and diseases just from the environmental exposure of these contaminants."
  — Charlotte Ambrozek [14:14]

• Community Response:
  Residents and local officials express their distress over the landfill's proximity to schools and parks, leading to protests despite legal allowances for waste disposal.

  "This is not a NIMBY issue. This is a knot in anybody's backyard."
  — Ricky Volpe [14:35]

V. Clean Energy Transition and Battery Storage Developments

The episode explores advancements in battery storage as a cornerstone of the clean energy transition, discussing technological progress and economic factors.

• Growth in Battery Capacity:
  The United States has significantly increased energy storage capacity, crucial for managing renewable energy sources.

  "Last year, according to the Energy Information Administration, the United States made pretty good progress on the energy storage front, increasing capacity by 66%."
  — Kai Ryssdal [20:18]

• Economic Viability:
  Joshua Rhodes notes the decline in battery costs, making storage solutions more accessible.

  "The costs associated with batteries have come down, thanks to all the demand for them in EVs, laptops, smartphones, and storage systems."
  — Joshua Rhodes [22:08]

• Government Incentives and Market Stability:
  Allison Feeney discusses the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and potential tariff implications on the battery market.

  "Even if the IRA phases out earlier or goes away entirely, we'll still see strong storage installs, but they just won't be probably as high."
  — Charlotte Ambrozek [22:29]

VI. The Rise of Prebiotic Sodas and Changing Consumer Preferences

Laura Cooper from the Wall Street Journal provides an engaging segment on the burgeoning market for prebiotic sodas, highlighting consumer trends and major players' responses.

• Understanding Prebiotic Sodas:
  Laura explains the difference between prebiotic and probiotic beverages, emphasizing their appeal to health-conscious consumers.

  "Prebiotic is feeding what's already inside your body."
  — Laura Cooper [24:09]

• Market Growth and Investment:
  The surge in popularity has attracted significant investment, with companies like Olipop reaching valuations of $1.8 billion.

  "Olipop announced a valuation last week with a new round of investment puts that company at like $1.8 billion."
  — Laura Cooper [26:47]

• Major Beverage Companies Entering the Space:
  Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are expanding their product lines to include prebiotic options, aiming to capture the Gen Z market.

  "Coca Cola already put out their first prebiotic soda... PepsiCo plans to enter this space as well."
  — Laura Cooper [25:03]

VII. Foreign Exchange Market Trends

In a brief detour, Kai touches on the significant depreciation of the euro against the dollar over a short period, linking it to tariff-induced market volatility.

• Euro-Dollar Exchange Rate:
  The euro has weakened against the dollar by five cents within seven and a half weeks.

  "On Inauguration Day, one euro would have cost you a dollar and four cents. Today it's $1.09."
  — Kai Ryssdal [27:47]

• Economic Implications:
  A weaker dollar benefits American exporters by making their goods cheaper overseas but increases costs for importers and consumers.

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Conclusion

This episode of "Marketplace" skillfully weaves together various facets of the economy, illustrating how consumer perceptions and confidence can shape actual economic realities. From inflation's intricate dynamics and the precarious state of small businesses amid tariff uncertainties to the evolving landscape of worker confidence and innovative shifts in consumer products like prebiotic sodas, the discussions provide a comprehensive view of the current economic climate. Additionally, environmental concerns and advancements in clean energy underscore the multifaceted challenges and opportunities facing the economy today.

Listeners gain valuable insights into how economic sentiments can influence tangible outcomes, emphasizing the importance of understanding both data and the underlying human emotions that drive market behaviors.

Transcript

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Yaneli Espinal]

Hello listeners. Our goal at Marketplace is to raise the economic intelligence of the country. And that goes for teens and young adults, too. The newest season of Financially Inclined, hosted by Yaneli Espinal, tackles topics like how to align your values with your money decisions, the skill of negotiating, and what you can get out of internships. Financially Inclined is presented in partnership with Greenlight, the debit card and money app for teens. Greenlight helps teens learn to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. Tune in to Financially Inclined wherever you find your podcasts.

[Kai Ryssdal]

How long do you suppose we can go today without saying that word? From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angeles. I'm Ky Rysdal. It is Wednesday today, the 12th of March. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We begin on this Wednesday with an old reliable a data point familiar to most of us and untouched so far by the new dynamics of this economy. We got the latest consumer price index this morning. Headline inflation in February eased a bit, 2.8% year over year. That is down from 3.1% in January. So good. Still sticky, but good. The specific category most sticky and stubborn is shelter price increases. There were enough all by their lonesomes to account for nearly half of that monthly CPI increase. Meanwhile, another essential category, food at home. To the statisticians among you, mostly, that's what you buy at the grocery store came in lower than the historical average. And that too is good. But why does a trip to the supermarket still feel so bad? Marketplace's Kristen Schwab starts us off.

[David Ortega]

Inflation for food at home was flat in February, literally 0%. David Ortega is a food economist at Michigan State University.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

So there was no change in grocery prices. But there's a lot of movements within categories.

[David Ortega]

So much movement within categories that a lot of the bad price hikes canceled out a lot of the good price drops. In February, beef was up nearly two and a half percent. And of course, the biggie eggs were up nearly ten and a half percent. Meanwhile, lots of categories were down. Bacon fell more than 2%. Fruits and vegetables fell half a percent.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

From a data perspective, you know it's good news.

[David Ortega]

Good news, because if you're a little flexible with your grocery list, you can stick to your budget, maybe skip ground beef and go for chicken. But doing that kind of math does not make consumers feel good, says Charlotte Ambrozek, a food economist at the University of Minnesota. Our preferences are what they are. They're really hard to move. That's especially true for lower cost, higher value items like eggs. Two things matter. The price of eggs matters, but the.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

Price of the thing that I'm substituting also matters.

[David Ortega]

An alternative like breakfast sausage might be too big of a price leap. And for bakers, there isn't really a perfect substitute for eggs at all. And after years of high prices and grocery cart negotiations, people are tired, says Ricky Volpe, an agricultural economist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

[Ricky Volpe]

I think consumer sentiment right now for food prices remains pretty negative.

[David Ortega]

Remember, between 2020 and 2024, food prices rose by nearly 24%.

[Kai Ryssdal]

And I think a lot of consumers.

[Ricky Volpe]

Continue to wait for food prices to come down. It's worth pointing out they almost never do.

[David Ortega]

And that just feels bad, even if people's wages are keeping up. I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace on Wall street today.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Buying the dip is the phrase you're looking for. We will have the details when we do the numbers. Well, look at us. We made it 4 minutes and 55, 56, 57 seconds into the program today without saying the T word. Tariffs are on. They're off tomorrow. They could be higher than they were yesterday. Honestly, it's anybody's guess. In the Great trade war of 2017, businesses could apply for tariff exemptions for specific imports this go round, as far as we know, those exemptions don't exist. So past experience isn't proving all that useful. And anyway, as it turns out, this time is really different.

[Todd Adams]

My name is Todd Adams and I'm the president of sanitube. And we are a manufacturer of stainless steel tube valves and fittings for the food, beverage and dairy market. And we're based in Lakeland, Florida. Last time, in 2017, the exemption process was flawed from the beginning. We participated because we had to, but it was random who was selected for exemptions. It was random who could contest an exemption. And people who shouldn't have gotten exemptions got them, and people who should have were denied. So I'm okay with the fact that we no longer have the exemption process. The biggest issue right now is the uncertainty. There's no guidance. We've had to really scale back any kind of expansion plans. You know, we, we had some initiatives already underway early this year that we were excited about. But unfortunately, the. The capital required for that is now being allocated to a reserve account for tariffs. We don't know if tomorrow there will be an announcement that we're now looking at 300% tariffs. You know, these are not unreasonable numbers I'm throwing out based on the rhetoric I'm hearing. We just don't know. We want to see a game plan rolled out. We want to know that they will be stable for the next six months to a year, because that's how long our cash conversion cycle is. When I order material from China, it's six months in advance before it reaches the United States. So the tariffs that are being applied to material now were ordered before the election. This is something that we could have, you know, never anticipated. You know, the, the Chinese factories were paid long ago. So the way these tariffs were implemented, it was designed to tax American companies. China had nothing to do with the payments that went out to U.S. customs that I made just last week. You know, that is the third gripe is the rollout of these tariffs. And the timeline has been just unforgiving. For the initial 10% tariffs, there was an allowance for material that was already on the water as of February 1st, but if it didn't arrive stateside by, I think it was March 7, you don't get that allowance, and you do have to pay the 10%. And unfortunately, we have no control over, you know, storms in the Pacific Ocean. We have no control over congestion in the Panama Canal, especially when there's a mad rush to get to the United States before March 7th. So a lot of shipments didn't make it. And, you know, we lose. We have to pay the 10%. And it just sounds a lot like a game because how does that affect China? It doesn't affect them at all. They're not paying for that. That's just a game that the US Customs is playing with US Importers.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Ain't none of this a game. Todd Adams, the president of Sanitube stainless steel tube valves and fittings. What they do in Lakeland, Florida. We were telling you yesterday about how small business owners are feeling given all the chaos in this economy right now. Most specifically, how a lot of small business owners are more hesitant in their hiring of late today. The flip side of the employer employee coin. A new survey from Glassdoor finds worker confidence dropped in February to the lowest it's been in nine years. A bit more than 44% of workers in this economy don't feel good about how the next six months are going to be at their companies. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has that one.

[Yaneli Espinal]

The hard economic data we've gotten recently, like the latest jobs report, shows the labor market is still solid.

[Kelly Wells]

But of course a jobs report is looking backward.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Some of the forward looking measures are.

[Kelly Wells]

The stock market as well as various confidence surveys.

[Yaneli Espinal]

Jed Kolko is an economist who focuses on the labor market. He says those forward looking measures are not so solid and it's worth paying attention to how consumers, employees and business leaders are feeling because how people feel can affect how they act.

[Kai Ryssdal]

People who might be worried that they.

[Kelly Wells]

Could lose their job might cut back on spending even before it happens. That, in turn can slow economic growth.

[Yaneli Espinal]

As economic uncertainty rises, Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, says anxiety tends to rise too, and confidence tends to fall.

[David Ortega]

Everybody hates uncertainty these days.

[Yaneli Espinal]

Glassdoor found people are increasingly worried about their own job security, especially those who work in government.

[David Ortega]

There are a lot of workers who are seeing headlines about layoffs and are worried about it affecting them.

[Yaneli Espinal]

And he says people aren't just concerned about being laid off themselves.

[David Ortega]

We also see a lot of workers who talk about the downstream impacts of layoffs, so feeling the pressure to pick up work that somebody was let go would have done. And so there's a lot of people who are talking about layoffs in the context of overwork, stress and burnout.

[Yaneli Espinal]

None of this is a great sign for the economy, according to labor economist Catherine Ann Edwards.

[David Ortega]

Recessions tend to tell us that they're coming. They give us lots of warnings that.

[Yaneli Espinal]

They'Re on their way and falling confidence is one of them, she says. When we start seeing those warnings, policymakers.

[David Ortega]

Have the chance to adjust what they are telegraphing in order to try and prevent that recession from taking hold. What's most troubling about the economy right now is that the messaging coming from the White House has already been sometimes painful things have to happen.

[Yaneli Espinal]

Instead of trying to make people confident again. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

[Kai Ryssdal]

I was driving through Altadena the other day, the westernmost part of where the Eaton fire burned. And amid the dozens and dozens of burned out lots, I saw exactly two that had had all their debris removed. Point being, as we sit here more than two months on cleaning up after one of the biggest wildfires in recent memory. Takes a while. The first phase was hauling off truckloads of hazardous household stuff, the propane tanks and the batteries and the paint cans and whatnot. All of that went to landfills specifically designated for hazardous waste. Part two involves removing everything else. And that stuff isn't going very far at all. It's staying right in Los Angeles county, some of it ending up hundreds of yards from homes and parks and schools, which is not, as you might have guessed, especially popular with the people who live in those homes that are near those parks and schools. Marketplace Kelly Wells reports now from Calabasas.

[Kelly Wells]

Dozens of protesters are standing in a line at the entrance of the Calabasas landfill, about 30 miles from downtown LA, blocking trucks from carting in garbage. You might hear Calabasas and think really wealthy like the Kardashians. And to be fair, Courtney is among the protesters today. But on this side of town, the sea of mid century tract homes is more upper middle class. The median home sale price of $1.2 million isn't much higher than the county average of nearly 900,000. They're mad because LA county selected this landfill to receive the ash and dirt that was left over from the LA wildfires after the household hazardous materials got clear. That's the job of the Army Corps of Engineers, which didn't respond to a request for comment. Louisiana County Sanitation Department told me in a statement that all the toxic stuff gets separated out of the debris headed here.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

They cannot guarantee that it's non hazardous.

[Laura Cooper]

And our argument is there's no way.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

To sort through the ash.

[Kelly Wells]

Resident Kelly Martino says this is a local municipal landfill. It's not designed to receive hazardous waste.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

At this landfill, you're not even allowed to throw away a paint can or an energizer battery. So why are you allowed to bring homes full of burnt batteries, iPads, televisions, cars, God knows what else?

[Kelly Wells]

When you're sorting through ash and dirt, finding all of the toxic stuff is a tall order. Some of it might still be in there. Asbestos, lead, PFAS, arsenic, mercury, Calabasas. Dr. Tanya Altman is with the American Academy of Pediatrics.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

What I'm concerned about as a pediatrician is that in years to come we are going to see more cases of cancer and tumors and autoimmune issues and illnesses and diseases just from the environmental exposure of these contaminants.

[Kelly Wells]

Thousands of residents live within a mile of this landfill. Dallas Lawrence leads the local school board.

[Ricky Volpe]

It's in the immediate vicinity of five schools. It's 100 yards away from a park used by kids every single day. This is not a knot in my backyard, a NIMBY issue. This is a knot in anybody's backyard.

[Kelly Wells]

And until a couple weeks ago, this waste wasn't supposed to come here because it was coming from too far away. But the LA County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to allow it. The board also expanded the landfill's operating hours and the number of tons of waste it can take every day. The bordering city of Calabasas filed for a preliminary restraining order to stop the trucks, but the court denied it because legally, under current circumstances, the county is allowed to send this waste to landfills where it wouldn't normally go. Here's Calabasas Mayor Peter Kraut.

[Todd Adams]

The ordinance in 2020 was specifically designed to allow for an expedited cleanup in the event of an emergency declared by the governor.

[Kelly Wells]

It's also happened before. The landfill took in debris from the last major wildfire, the woolsey fire in 2018. There are upsides to doing things this way. This landfill is closer to some of the fire devastated areas than the alternatives, which means truck trips are shorter, so the cleanup goes faster and doesn't require as much diesel fuel. The state can stop it at any time if there's a threat to public health. But until then, you know, I feel cheated.

[Todd Adams]

I feel blindsided.

[Kelly Wells]

Kraut says the city of Calabasas didn't know this was coming until the day the public found out. Now his hands are tied.

[Sponsor Voice]

The Palisades homeowners are entitled to a speedy cleanup.

[Todd Adams]

What I don't want to see is speedy cleanup and a health hazard brought.

[Sponsor Voice]

Into the city of Calabasas.

[Kelly Wells]

After about an hour, police arrived and broke up the protest. On the last day of February, the landfill received its first loads of debris. Calabasas and its residents have filed lawsuits to try and stop it. But while they wait for the courts, the trucks keep coming in. Calabasas, California I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Coming up.

[Laura Cooper]

This is a soda that contains dietary fibers that feed bacteria already living in your system.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Soda that's healthy. Ish. First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials down 82 points today. 2. 10% finished at 41,350. Nasdaq added 212. That's up 1.2%. Closed at 17,648s and P 500 found 27 points. A half percent. 55 and 99. On a relatively calm day, intel accumulated 4.6% today after Reuters reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC is trying to put together a joint venture to take over operating Intel's chip factories. Get this. TSMC has reportedly pitched joining that combine to Nvidia, which added 6.4% today. Advanced Micro Devices, which rang up 4.2%. Broadcom which picked up 2.2% and Qualcomm which dipped 2/10 of 1%. That would be quite the conglomerates no bonds down Yield on the 10 year T note up 4.31%.

[Ricky Volpe]

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[Kai Ryssdal]

This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Ryssdal you want to have a clean energy transition, which the assumption is we do want to have. You're going to have to have batteries. Lots and lots of big, big batteries. Sun don't shine all the time, right? Wind Same. And it turns out that last year, according to the Energy Information Administration, the United States made pretty good progress on the energy storage front, increasing capacity by 66%. Almost twice as much could be added to the grid in 2025 as marketplaces Henry app reports.

[Michael Craig]

A battery storage system isn't much to look at, says Michael Craig at the University of Michigan.

[Todd Adams]

It's just, you know, a large, unremarkable.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

Set of rectangular structures hanging around.

[Michael Craig]

But inside those unremarkable rectangles are lithium ion batteries. Seth Feaster at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says they have something pretty remarkable the ability to time shift power, meaning store up power generated at times when demand for electricity is low and then push it out into the grid when demand is high. A lot of these battery systems are up and running in Texas, feaster says. The other morning at say, 5:00am the.

[Ricky Volpe]

Market power price in Texas was below $20. But once you hit about 6:30, 7:00 as demand increases, power prices jump.

[Michael Craig]

So a power company could have charged its batteries on the cheap at 5am.

[Ricky Volpe]

And then gotten two or three or four times that price for that power.

[David Ortega]

During the morning period of peak demand.

[Michael Craig]

And the costs associated with batteries have come down, says Joshua Rhodes at the University of Texas at Austin. Thanks to all the demand for them in EVs, laptops, smartphones and storage systems.

[David Ortega]

The price of lithium has gone down by like 80%.

[Kai Ryssdal]

The cost of batteries to install, you.

[David Ortega]

Know, have gone down by a factor.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Of two or three.

[Michael Craig]

Battery storage has also benefited from government incentives, including a tax credit in the Biden Era Inflation Reduction Act. The GOP Congress could repeal it, but, says Allison Feeney at Wood mackenzie, even.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

If the IRA phases out earlier or goes away entirely, we'll still see strong storage installs, but they just won't be probably is high.

[Michael Craig]

They could stay strong, she says, because demand for electricity is likely to increase and battery storage is, for now, a cheaper way to meet that demand. But there's one more wild card on the price side, feeney says. You guessed it. Tariffs. I'm Henry Epp for Marketplace.

[Kai Ryssdal]

You walk down the soda aisle of your local Piggly Wiggly. There are choices galore. The old standbys, of course. Legacy sodas, if you will. And now something new. Gut Pops apparently are the new new thing for Those trying to cut back on sugar, maybe, or just trying to be a little bit healthier. Laura Cooper wrote in the Wall Street Journal the other day about this shakeup of the soda market. Thanks for coming on.

[Laura Cooper]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Gut pop. What is this?

[Laura Cooper]

So gut pop, you've probably seen it in the supermarket, maybe walked by it, didn't know what it was. But they're prebiotic sodas. So like Olipop and Poppy. A lot of people know Poppy from their two super bowl commercials this year and last year. And yeah, it's really taken up all. Gen Z really enjoys it.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Well, we'll get to Gen Z in a minute. And clearly I must have just spaced out during those super bowl commercials because I have no memory of them. What are they supposed to do, this prebiotic thing, just to get the biology out of the way.

[Laura Cooper]

Yeah. So obviously I'm not a doctor, but I spoke to a lot of smart people, dietitians and doctors, gastroenterologists about this. And so essentially, prebiotic versus probiotic. Probiotic, you might know, kombucha, yogurt, things of that nature. Prebiotic is, you know, so this is a soda that contains dietary fibers that feed bacteria already living in your system. System. And probiotic puts more microbes into your. Into your system. So this is, this is feeding what's already inside your body. And when you think about prebiotic soda and any perceived health benefits you could get from that digestive health, people are all in on trying it. So, you know, as opposed to maybe having just a regular Coca Cola or a Pepsi, people are. They're still having those just like, not as often. They'll have multiple of these a day.

[Kai Ryssdal]

These things are going to cost me two and a half bucks a piece. Did I read that right?

[Laura Cooper]

It really depends where you're buying them. But yeah, you know, soda also is. Is around. It depends what you're buying. But similar pricing. But yeah, no, it's really disrupting. There's actually something at Walmart called modern soda. And this falls under that. Just that aisle where they would all live together, all these different drinks.

[Kai Ryssdal]

I'm definitely going to have to look for them next time I'm in the grocery store. I mentioned Coke and Pepsi. The biggies clearly see this and they say, we got to get in on this.

[Laura Cooper]

Oh, 100%. I mean, coca Cola already put out their first prebiotic soda. It should be on shelves. I haven't seen it yet, but I wrote about it back in. I guess that was February. And essentially it is called simply Pop and it's their prebiotic soda. I tried the strawberry at a conference, very strawberry. It has a lot of juice in it. It also has just things that are different from Olipop and Poppy. I believe it's vitamin C for one and zinc. So people are trying to make sure that along with the prebiotic fiber that's in this drink, Coca Cola tested and wanted to add other, you know, perceived benefits like vitamin C and zinc. So PepsiCo, I believe, plans to enter this space as well. It is definitely, you know, it's picking up steam with Gen Z and as you. Gen Z is a share of the market everyone wants to get a piece of.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Yeah. Hey, do you drink these things on the regular or.

[Laura Cooper]

No, I drink soda. I have drank these. I just don't drink a ton of them, but I've tried them all, especially in the, in reporting this, I, I've drank a lot of them and spoken to a lot of people who are just huge fiends of this.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Yeah, a word about the magnitude here. You point out that the, the co founder and CEO of Olipop announced a valuation last week with a new round of investment. Puts that company at like $1.8 billion, which is, I mean, that's not B nuts.

[Laura Cooper]

Yeah, yeah. Last month they raised money, I believe it was, it was raised with JP Morgan in the lead. So, you know, it's. It's not. This is a big business, is it? You know, Coca Cola, Pepsi business. Unclear. But it's definitely picking up steam and getting a following. And I think that all the big guys are aware that they want to be involved with this. I wouldn't if Keurig Dr. Pepper was also interested.

[Kai Ryssdal]

All right, well, now I gotta try it. Laura Cooper at the Wall Street Journal. Beverages, tobacco and cannabis. Thanks, Laura.

[Laura Cooper]

Thanks so much.

[Kai Ryssdal]

This final note on the way out today, a brief, a very brief, I promise detour into the foreign exchange market. On Inauguration Day, one euro would have cost you a dollar and four cents. Today it's $1.09. So in what, seven, seven and a half weeks, the dollar euro trade has weakened on the dollar side, a full nickel in a market where currency traders often make profits on tenths of a penny in swings. If you're thinking tariffs and chaos as the proximate cause, you would be right. A weaker dollar, of course, is good for American exporters. Their stuff is cheaper over overseas. Bad for importers, though, and thus consumers who are now paying more. Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Justin Dueler, Drew Jostad, Gary O'keefe Charlton Thorpe, Juan Carlos Tirado, and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production. And I'm Kyle Rysdal. We will see you tomorrow, Everybody. This is APM.

[Charlotte Ambrozek]

Consumer confidence had its sharpest monthly decline since 2021, which means we're all in our feels about money. And while uncertainty is the only constant these days, it's also a great reason to get serious about understanding personal finance. I'm Janelie Espinal, host of Financially Inclined, a podcast from Marketplace that makes learning about money simple. Learn about practical skills like negotiating job offers, dealing with money and friendship and love, entrepreneurship and student loans. Get serious about your money and build a life you've always dreamed of. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.