Don’t touch that AM dial!

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: "Don’t Touch That AM Dial!" Release Date: November 5, 2024
Host: Kai Ryssdal

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1. Economic and Political Climate Amidst the Election

In the episode titled "Don’t Touch That AM Dial!", host Kai Ryssdal delves into the pressing economic and political issues surrounding the impending election. Central to the discourse is the Republican nominee's aggressive stance on American trade policy, particularly the threat to impose tariffs of up to 100% on imports from Mexico—the United States' largest trading partner. These tariffs are not limited to consumer goods but extend significantly to American farmers, raising widespread concern within the agricultural sector.

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2. Impact of Proposed Tariffs on US Agriculture

Sabri Benishore from Marketplace introduces listeners to Josh Gackel, a third-generation farmer in North Dakota, highlighting the anxiety among farmers regarding the proposed tariffs (00:02). Gackel, who also serves as the president of the American Soybean Association, emphasizes the devastating effects of previous trade wars. Krista Swanson, lead economist for the National Corn Growers Association, draws parallels to the 2018 tariffs imposed on China, noting a nearly 20% drop in U.S. soybean prices and a significant loss of market share to competitors like Brazil and Argentina (01:37–02:05).

Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute, underscores the long-term consequences of increased global competition and the potential for future price gluts in U.S. agricultural products due to expanded farming in other countries (02:11). Elizabeth Trovall adds that retaliatory tariffs could lead to a dramatic decrease in corn exports to China—by about 83% annually—if the Republican nominee's proposal extends beyond China to other trading partners (02:30).

Notable Quote:

Krista Swanson (01:43): “We haven't completely seen it come back yet.”

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3. OPEC's Production Decisions and the Oil Market

The podcast shifts focus to the global oil market, discussing OPEC's latest decision to postpone its plan to increase oil production by the end of the year. Elizabeth Trovall explains that OPEC finds itself in a challenging position: withholding supply to keep prices stable while facing pressures from non-OPEC producers who are ramping up their output (03:21). Despite OPEC's efforts, demand remains weak in major markets such as China and the United States, leading to concerns about an oversupplied market.

Joe Delora from Rabobank predicts that an influx of supply could drive oil prices down to around $50 per barrel, which would be detrimental, especially for U.S. oil producers in regions like the Permian Basin where production costs are higher (04:31–05:02). Conversely, if OPEC maintains its current supply restrictions, oil prices may remain higher, benefiting consumers but complicating the market dynamics further.

Notable Quote:

Joe Delora (04:15): “If oil drops down to $50 a barrel, they're going to be having some difficult times continuing production and meeting their financial obligations.”

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4. Changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Stephanie Hughes reports on notable shifts within the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Intel and Dow Inc. are set to be replaced by Nvidia and Sherwin Williams, respectively. Financial expert Jeffrey Schott explains that the DJIA, being a price-weighted index, reflects changes based on stock prices rather than market capitalization. Howard Silverblatt from S&P Dow Jones Indices notes that Nvidia's inclusion strengthens the semiconductor industry's representation within the index, while Sherwin Williams better mirrors the performance of the materials sector (06:59–08:18).

Mike Harrison, an analyst at Seaport Research Partners, highlights Sherwin Williams' impressive growth and its successful penetration into the pro contractor market, which contributed to its rising stock price and subsequent inclusion in the DJIA (08:08). The episode underscores the dynamic nature of the stock market and the continuous evolution of influential companies within major indices.

Notable Quote:

Jeffrey Schott (07:09): “James Angel is a finance professor at Georgetown University. He says the Dow is meant to reflect the US Stock market and how it's doing.”

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5. AM Radio in Automobiles: The 'AM for Every Vehicle' Act

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the legislative push for the "AM for Every Vehicle" act, which aims to mandate the inclusion of AM radio receivers in all new vehicles manufactured in the United States. Henry Epp reports on the bipartisan support for the bill, which faces opposition primarily from the automotive and tech industries. The rationale behind the bill, as explained by Curtis Legat, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, is the critical role of AM radio in emergency alert systems, especially when other communication infrastructures fail (09:11–12:02).

Joe Delora interviews Michael Stam, a history professor, who provides historical context about the enduring relevance of AM radio despite the advent of FM and digital media. Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, argues against the bill, stating that it represents unnecessary government intervention in the free market and that alternative methods exist for disseminating emergency alerts (12:14–12:33).

Matthew Jordan, a media studies professor, sees the legislation as an opportunity to revitalize public-interest programming on AM stations, urging broadcasters to return to their foundational role of serving the community with valuable information (12:39).

Notable Quote:

Gary Shapiro (12:02): “This is nothing but a bailout for panicked AM radio broadcasters who, seeing their declining audiences as people shift to streaming audio, to other things that they really value.”

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6. Climate Change and National Security: Navy SEALs and Scripps Oceanography

In an on-location segment, Kai Ryssdal joins Lucien Perry, a Marine technician, and researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to explore the impacts of climate change on military operations. The team conducts monthly surveys of the coastline near the Naval Amphibious Spacecraft Coronado base in San Diego to monitor sea level rise and coastal erosion. Using advanced laser mapping technology, they collect detailed data essential for predicting and mitigating the effects of climate change on naval infrastructure (16:07–24:48).

Jim Crane, a professor of oceanography, discusses the long-term projections of sea level rise—predicting an additional foot by 2050—and its implications for the base's sustainability. Krista Swanson from the Navy Region Southwest Fleet emphasizes the Navy's commitment to maintaining its mission near the water despite the challenges posed by environmental changes, highlighting the strategic importance of proactive planning and infrastructure adaptation (19:08–24:48).

The segment vividly illustrates the intersection of environmental science and national security, showcasing the tangible steps being taken to preserve critical military assets in the face of escalating climate threats.

Notable Quote:

Krista Swanson (23:03): “We have to take that data, work with our headquarters, work with DOD and kind of figure out how we look at buildings, how we look at infrastructure, where we look at building.”

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7. Rising Age of Homebuyers: Implications for the Housing Market

Concluding the episode, Kai Ryssdal presents concerning data from the National Association of Realtors' annual State of the Market report. The average age of homebuyers in the United States has risen to 56 years old, up from 49 the previous year. This demographic shift suggests that younger individuals are increasingly being priced out of the housing market, raising alarms about affordability and accessibility for future generations (24:48–end).

The report highlights broader economic disparities and the challenges faced by younger demographics in achieving homeownership, a cornerstone of the American Dream. This trend may have long-term implications for economic mobility, urban development, and societal equity.

Notable Quote:

Kai Ryssdal (24:48): “The average age of home buyers in the United states is now 56 years old. That's up from 49 just last year. Reading between the lines here, it means younger homebuyers are just being priced out.”

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Conclusion

"Don’t Touch That AM Dial!" offers a comprehensive exploration of critical economic policies, global oil dynamics, stock market fluctuations, legislative debates on media infrastructure, the intersection of climate change with national security, and alarming trends in the housing market. Through insightful interviews and on-the-ground reporting, Marketplace provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of how these diverse issues interconnect and impact the everyday economy.

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For more detailed reporting and in-depth analysis, tune into the full episode of Marketplace.

Transcript

[Kai Rysdal]

A touch on the politics of this economy. We'll do some oil and then a day at the beach. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angeles. I'm Kyle rysdal. Monday, today, November 4th. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Well, here we are. Almost made it. Gonna be a big deal. I speak of course, of the Fed meeting Wednesday and Thursday. Pushed back a day because there's something else on the calendar for tomorrow. I guess among the many things hanging in the political balance in this election is American trade policy. Just today, the Republican nominee threatened to impose tariffs of up to 100% on everything we import from Mexico, which last year was not for nothing, our biggest trading partner. But tariffs like that or the 20% tariffs on all imports across the board that the Republican nominee has also proposed don't hit only traditional consumer and wholesale goods. American farmers are going to feel them, too. Marketplace's Sabri Benishore starts us off.

[Sabri Benishore]

Josh Gackel is a third generation farmer in North Dakota.

[Krista Swanson]

I farm with my dad and my brother farm about 5,000 acres of soybeans.

[Sabri Benishore]

Corn and Gackel is also president of the American Soybean Association. The harvest is wrapping up now. Not wrapped up is his anxiety around tariffs.

[Krista Swanson]

Just look back to what happened in 2018, the first round of the trade war and the tariffs with China.

[Sabri Benishore]

China, one of the top importers of US Agricultural products, retaliated with tariffs of its own and bought corn and soybeans from elsewhere.

[Krista Swanson]

There was almost overnight a drop in the Chicago market for soybeans.

[Sabri Benishore]

U.S. soybean prices fell almost 20% and competitors like Brazil and Argentina gained market share.

[Krista Swanson]

We haven't completely seen it come back yet.

[Sabri Benishore]

Competitors to US Agriculture not only gained customers, they increased their land devoted to farming.

[Jeffrey Schott]

When that land area comes into production, we've seen it continue to stay in production.

[Sabri Benishore]

Krista Swanson is lead economist for the National Corn Growers Association. More production in other countries means more competition and possible price killing gluts in the future.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

So it becomes a long term impact.

[Sabri Benishore]

With the new 60% tariffs former President Trump is proposing for China. Swanson estimates that if China retaliates, corn and soybean exports would crash.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

Corn exports to China could decrease by.

[Jeffrey Schott]

About 2.2 million metric tons annually, or 83%.

[Sabri Benishore]

But Trump's new proposed tariffs would go far beyond just China, extending to most trading partners. And US Farm exports in particular are a favorite target for retaliation because they.

[Kai Rysdal]

Hit sensitive political constituencies.

[Sabri Benishore]

Jeffrey Schott is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. So sensitive that The Trump administration spent an estimated 25 to 28 billion dollars in support payments insulating farmers from the consequences of the trade war shot, says another hidden cost of tariffs. In New York, I'm Sabri Benishore for Marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

OPEC has once again put off its plans to increase production end of the year. Now is the new timeline the cartel says that drove oil futures higher today. $71.50 a barrel for the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate. Should you be keeping track? Supply and demand basically right marketplaces. Elizabeth Troval has more now on what's happening in the global oil market to keep OPEC in this holding pattern for so long.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

OPEC is in a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation when it comes to oil production. Jim Crane is with Rice University.

[Kai Rysdal]

They've got a lot of oil capacity.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

Being held back millions of barrels a day. And even though some OPEC countries are tired of sidelining production, the market's just not cooperating.

[Kai Rysdal]

Right. Oil prices have just been weak and demand has been weak.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

But because OPEC has been holding back so much supply, oil prices are still higher than they would be if that oil hit the market. And that's actually encouraged more oil production in countries like Brazil, Canada, Guyana.

[Kai Rysdal]

So a lot of new non OPEC production that you know, they don't take orders from from OPEC secretary General.

[Joe Delora]

All the while demand has been very weak in China, weak ish in the United States.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

Joe Delora with Rabobank says next year he expects more new supply to come online than demand. Even without the additional barrels OPEC is holding back.

[Joe Delora]

If they start bringing back a lot of that supply, we're going to be.

[Kai Rysdal]

In an extremely oversupplied market and we.

[Joe Delora]

Could even see like $50 a barrel.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

Crude, which would not be good for any oil producers, OPEC or not, in the US it could especially cause problems for companies in the Permian Basin where it's more expensive to produce oil, says Ed Herz with the University of Houston.

[Joe Delora]

If oil drops down to $50 a barrel, they're going to be having some difficult times continuing production and meeting their financial obligations.

[Elizabeth Trovall]

On the other hand, if OPEC decides to ramp up production, that would drive down prices for U.S. consumers. I'm Elizabeth Trovall for Marketplace Wall Street Day.

[Kai Rysdal]

A word to the wise. If you are looking for political indicators from the markets stop, they're along for the ride just like the rest of us. Elsewise, equities fell to start the week. We'll have the details when we do the number the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the blue chips, as they are sometimes called, is 30 companies in this economy, most of which are household names. Before trading starts on Friday, though, two of those household names are going to be shown the door. Two others are going to be ushered in. Intel, the chip company, and Dow Incorporated. That's a material science company. No relationship with Dow Jones, a publishing company, and it of the index. Anyway, those two are being replaced respectively by Nvidia and Sherwin Williams. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes looks at why Nvidia and Sherwin Williams are part of the in crowd now.

[Jeffrey Schott]

Just like with the cool kids back in high school, you've heard of who's in the Dow.

[Jim Crane]

These are name brand companies, everything from Walmart to Goldman Sachs to UnitedHealthcare.

[Jeffrey Schott]

James angel is a finance professor at Georgetown University. He says the Dow is meant to reflect the US Stock market and how it's doing. At a glance, the Dow is what's called a price weighted index. That means the higher the price of a stock, the more it can swing the index or not. Intel stock price, for example, has fallen significantly over the past few years.

[Krista Swanson]

And it wasn't representing the semiconductor group the way the index is supposed to represent it.

[Jeffrey Schott]

Howard Silverblatt is with S and P Dow Jones Indices. That's the administrator of the Dow. He says a committee decides which companies are in the index and that it chose to swap in the AI powerhouse Nvidia with its higher stock price because it wants the semiconductor industry to have a stronger presence. Similarly, he says Sherwin Williams better represents how the materials industry is doing than Dow Inc. Which it's replacing. Mike Harrison is an analyst at Seaport Research Partners. He says Sherwin Williams stock price has been on something of a tear recently.

[Kai Rysdal]

So we're looking at a company that's basically grown about 25 times in the last 20 years, which is a really, really impressive track record, right?

[Jeffrey Schott]

Sherwin Williams main business is paint, and Harrison says its presence in many brick and mortar stores have helped it make inroads lately with the pro contractor market. While success like this can put you in the in crowd, in this case the Dow, the companies there don't change that often. And if you're out, it is possible to get back in. Howard Silverblatt with S and P Dow Jones Indices says General Electric has been in and out three different times. I'm Stephanie Hughes for Market Lens.

[Kai Rysdal]

Lost in everything. It's easy to forget that after tomorrow's election there is still going to be a lame duck session of Congress. To get through. At the top of lawmakers agenda, one assumes is funding the federal government. The current spending bill expires December 20th. They might also take up the AM radio for every Vehicle act, which it turns out has a whole bunch of bipartisan support. It would do just what its title suggests require carmakers include AM radio receivers in all new vehicles made in this country. As Marketplace's Henry Epp reports, the bill has put two big industries at odds, carmakers versus broadcasters.

[Henry Epp]

Temperatures outside are 57 degrees in Burlington, 55 in Plattsburgh, and we have winds blowing into the 20s or so.

[Joe Delora]

Ginny McGee is live every weekday morning, 6 to 10am on WJOY, a tiny AM station near Burlington, Vermont. Her studio is lined with pictures and mementos from her 40 year career, and from here she gives updates on weather, traffic news and plays pretty much any music she feels like. She also takes calls from listeners, many of whom she knows by name.

[Henry Epp]

I bet this is going to be Jeanette. Good morning, wjoy. Hi, Jeanette. How are you? You're okay. You're not, but you're not crappy.

[Joe Delora]

This kind of show is an endangered species in the radio world, especially on am, which is now dominated by a few formats. If you're interested in political talk, if you're interested in sports talk, if you're interested in religious radio, then that's often where you're going to find people who are really interested in Amazon. Michael Stam is a professor of history at Michigan State University. AM radio was once the dominant medium for everything. Before FM and TV came around, it was broadcasting. And despite the plethora of other media options out there, AM still has a dedicated audience. According to Nielsen, the ratings company, 82 million people listen to it at least once a month. 82 million Americans are telling you they continue to value AM radio. And that's not even accounting for the enhanced need in those times of public emergency. Curtis Legat is president of the national association of Broadcasters. His group is lobbying for the bipartisan bill in Congress, which has support from Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Legat says AM stations are a crucial link in the emergency alert system, and after a disaster, they're often on the air when cell service and power go out. Consumers principally access radio in the automobile. So without that connectivity, you're leaving consumers in the dark, literally. The automotive and tech industries don't buy this. Gary Shapiro is CEO of the Consumer Technology Association.

[Kai Rysdal]

This is nothing but a bailout for panicked AM radio broadcasters who, seeing their declining audiences as people shift to streaming audio, to other things that they really value.

[Joe Delora]

Shapiro and others also say electric vehicles interfere with AM signals, though an independent study found that issue could be fixed for about $70 per vehicle. Opponents of the bill argue there are plenty of way for people to get emergency alerts, including FM radio. And Shapiro says the bill would interfere with the free market.

[Kai Rysdal]

Forcing it on everyone is unprecedented in the history of consumer electronics.

[Joe Delora]

Beyond the special interest fight, Matthew Jordan, a professor of media studies at Penn State, sees an opportunity. If Congress mandates AM in cars, he says lawmakers could at the same time push stations to get back to a principle. He says many have strayed from serving the public interest.

[Kai Rysdal]

In the early days, those were the justifications for radio that they could it was a medium where you could get farm reports, weather reports, all these things that were of public interest.

[Joe Delora]

That kind of programming isn't completely gone from AM. A little after 8 in the morning at Ginny McGee's WJOY studio, a colleague pops in from the FM studio across the hall to tell her about an accident on the local interstate. A couple minutes later, Magee is on the air with the news.

[Henry Epp]

Just got word from my buddy John across the hall that there's been a tractor trailer and two cars crashing on the interstate southbound on I89 and that the bridge is closed.

[Joe Delora]

It's still possible for now that some listeners heard about the crash from McGee on their Car Am radios. I'm Henry Epp for Marketplace.

[Krista Swanson]

Coming up, is putting something on the waterfront sustainable?

[Kai Rysdal]

Magic 8 Ball says doubtful. But first, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials off 257 points today. 6 10%, 41,700 194 on the blue chips. The NASDAQ down 59 points, about a third of 1%. 18,179. The S&P 500 dipped 16 points. 3 10%, 57 and 12. Heard from Elizabeth Troval about OPEC news. So Houston, Texas based Chevron added 6/10 of 1% today. TotalEnergies, headquartered just west of Paris, gained 8. 10%. BP, based in London, surged 1 1/10 of 1%. Present on this day in 1960, Dr. Jane Goodall observed chimps using tools for the first time. So some tool companies shall we snap on? Which makes tools specialized for the marine, automotive, railroad and other industries, up 2 10%. Stanley Black and Decker, which makes not only tools but fasteners in storage, ratcheted up one and a 10th percent today. Lincoln Electric holdings, which makes welding tools and equipment, dropped one and a half percent today. Bonds rose Yield on the 10 year T note down to 4.2 niner percent. You're listening to Marketplace. You've turned to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Rysdal. Turns out even on the beach, right of way really matters.

[Lucien Perry]

Oh, should I let these guys go?

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah. These guys crossing in front of us are a group of Navy SEALs. They're having a way worse day than we are. Yes, they are research yields for Special Forces. They're lugging jet skis out into the surf, some of them in fatigues and white T shirts, some in black wetsuits. I don't know. Special warfare is no joke.

[Lucien Perry]

A lot of times it's in the ocean with full gear and boots on.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah. And it's 59 degrees, cloudy, wet, and these guys are getting in and out of the water. We made a visit to Naval Amphibious Spacecraft Coronado last spring down near San Diego. It's one of two such bases in the whole country. It's on a narrow strip of land that separates San Diego Bay and the Pacific ocean. So Navy SEALs get more than 5,000 yards of coastline to train on. Besides them, the beach is pretty wide and pretty empty. The sand is wet and packed down. We get into a white pickup truck along with two people from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which works with the Navy researching sea level rise and what coastal changes are going to mean for Navy bases. So literally, we're just driving along the beach.

[Lucien Perry]

Yeah. So we're going to, we're going to head up to the northern end of this stretch here and then we'll do.

[Kai Rysdal]

That's Lucien Perry. He's a Marine technician. He's also driving today. Our truck has big red letters on the side that say survey in progress. Scripps has been using trucks like this one, also ATVs, airplanes, even jet skis to map the coast from the Mexican border about 50 or so miles north up to oceanside. They do this survey every month to see how the coastline's been changing, how beaches are narrowing and Cliffs are eroding in the face of climate change and sea level rise. There's a metal roof rack on the truck with what looks like a little gray robot, think R2D2 sitting on it. So that thing on the, that thing on the roof is spinning.

[Sabri Benishore]

Yeah.

[Kai Rysdal]

And what's it telling us?

[Lucien Perry]

The laser is sending out like 500,000 pulses per second. And a lot of those bounce off of the sand and the surroundings and they're recorded. And so at the end of the survey, we will have maybe 15 gigabytes of data.

[Kai Rysdal]

And it's like sand elevation and location and stuff like that, right?

[Lucien Perry]

Yeah, it's pretty detailed. You know, you can make out a person's features. That's how detailed it is. So we'll be able to, like, when we go back into the lab, we'll be able to see all these birds and the seaweed.

[Kai Rysdal]

Oh, wow. This survey gets repeated over and over again and with other data can help create a climate prediction model, which in this case can help Scripps warn the Navy ahead of coastal flooding. And then what do you do with the models? Do you take them to the policymakers and say, hey, this is what it's going to be like in 15 years? Or if you do nothing, it will, you know, Coronado will fall into the ocean or what?

[Jim Crane]

Well, for this particular project that we were working with with the Navy, we built them into long term projections.

[Kai Rysdal]

That's Mark Merrifield, a professor of oceanography at Scripps and UC San Diego. He's in the passenger seat.

[Jim Crane]

So what's going to happen in 2050, 2070, going out to 2100, looking at like, not just how high is the water going to get, but details like how much of the beach is going to be gone. Like the operations we just saw with the seals, how does that affect the mission of the training mission? How often is the beach wide enough to actually use? So we're trying to give them as much detail as we can of a time horizon of potential problems so you can get out in front of them in a proactive way.

[Kai Rysdal]

Scripps get some funding from the Army Corps of Engineers to do this work, and obviously they work closely with Coronado Amphibious Base too.

[Jim Crane]

So this, you can see on the left here, this berm that's built in.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah, basically sand barriers built on the beach by seabees, Navy construction battalions to keep the water back.

[Jim Crane]

Every year seabees come out here and just scrape the sand from the beach toward the shore. And that little bit of just that little Bit of berm's pretty critical for protecting the base there. It's a pretty low lying area and so.

[Kai Rysdal]

It'S not much. It's like what, four, five feet high.

[Jim Crane]

Yeah, but you can already see, I mean you can see it. High tide.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yep. It already hits.

[Jim Crane]

It's already hits. And the big trouble here is El Nino events. So El Nino comes, the water level's higher, the waves are bigger, and it wasn't this El Nino, but the one in 2015, 16, that the beach was actually, I mean that that berm was breached and led to flooding in the back area there.

[Kai Rysdal]

This was kind of a big deal. Navy buildings and a parking lot were flooded. About $100 million in emergency repairs. Extrapolate for me, up and down the coast of California and up and down the west coast of the United States, same thing is happening, right?

[Jim Crane]

It is. So let's see, since there's been sea level measurements here since the early 1900s, last century, sea level went up about 8 inches or so. Between 22,000 and 2050, it's predicted to go up another foot. So that's. Yeah, that's what everyone is dealing with. It's not just San Diego, it's the whole coast.

[Kai Rysdal]

The whole time we're driving, we're collecting data that is used to track changes over time.

[Lucien Perry]

There's a section at the south end of this survey, I think you guys are going to exit before we get there. But it's an area where over the years it's changed a lot and now we can't do drive past that section anymore.

[Kai Rysdal]

It's that change over time. That's the thing. More than a decade ago, a stretch of beach a little bit farther south than where we are went through sand replenishment, adding sand dredged up from offshore to the eroding beach, which years later, combined with El Nino, blocked an estuary.

[Lucien Perry]

And it has some unexpected consequences like closing off the mouth of the Tijuana river and there was a die off of animals like leopard, sharks.

[Jim Crane]

Just it's a complicated issue because one of the things you can do for beach protection is put a bunch of sand on the beach.

[Kai Rysdal]

Right, right. And that's not new. We've been doing that for a very long time.

[Jim Crane]

Right. And they do it because it's basically effective. It gives you five or six years of a wide beach. They had a little trouble here because when they put the sand out, the sand grain wasn't quite the native grain size and led to some unusual buildup of kind of a moat almost of water that was at a high speed.

[Kai Rysdal]

That's wild. Such a small detail causes such big problems.

[Jim Crane]

Yeah.

[Kai Rysdal]

Toward the end of the drive down the beach, I see a building off to the left. It's new, shiny brick, lots of glass. Yeah, that's actually really interesting. Right. Here's the Navy building a new Special warfare center just over the berm. So after the drive, we asked the Navy about it. Tell me who you are and what you do around here. Sure.

[Krista Swanson]

My name is Jason Golumski Jones. I am the Navy Region Southwest Fleet Environmental Director.

[Kai Rysdal]

You get the data, you get the input from Scripps and others, and then you guys have to make policy decisions, Right?

[Krista Swanson]

Correct. Correct. So we have to take that data, work with our headquarters, work with DOD and kind of figure out how we look at buildings, how we look at infrastructure, where we look at building. You'll see about three miles down the road, the brand new coastal campus. We just drove by, Beautiful, brand new facility. But to do that we really had to study on. Is putting something on the waterfront sustainable?

[Kai Rysdal]

That's literally what we were asking ourselves as we drove by. And clearly the Navy's made the investment. Right? Gotta be multi million dollar. And you guys said okay?

[Krista Swanson]

Yes, yes we did. We looked at some. We looked at and studied and analyzed that ad nauseam planning determining that it's about a hundred year flood or 100 years worth of use before we could be impacted by that.

[Kai Rysdal]

This is way above your pay grade, but there's going to come a point where somebody's going to say, you know what, we have to move the amphibious Coronado, we have to move the SEAL school, we have to move the whole smash. We just, we can't be here anymore. Might be 100 years from now, but it's coming.

[Krista Swanson]

That may come at a certain point, yes. But I don't think the Navy is going to shy away from the waterfront. Our mission is here, our focus is here and we need to complete that mission. Where that happens, it'll always be near the water, unfortunately, which makes the challenges coming towards us a little bit more exciting to kind of work on.

[Kai Rysdal]

Exciting's doing a lot of work there.

[Krista Swanson]

Yes.

[Kai Rysdal]

There's the military's mission and then there's preparing for climate change. That's the tension we kept coming across in our series about American national security and the shape shifting threat of climate change. It's on our podcast, how we Survive. You can download or follow or subscribe on the platform of your choice. This final note on the way out today, a not great kind of troubling, actually piece of data on homeownership in this economy. It comes to us from the national association of Realtors. Their annual State of the Market report out today. The average age of home buyers in the United states is now 56 years old. That's up from 49 just last year. Reading between the lines here, it means younger would be homebuyers are just being priced out. Our daily production team includes Andy Corbin, Lise Hassan, Maria Hollenhorst, Sarah Leeson, Sean McHenry and Sophia Terenzio. I'm Kai Rysdal. We will see you tomorrow. Everybody. This is apm. You turn to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate.