The renter-homeowner wealth gap

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: The Renter-Homeowner Wealth Gap Hosted by Marketplace, Episode Released on November 28, 2024

In this comprehensive episode of "Marketplace," host Amy Scott delves into several pivotal topics shaping today's economic landscape, with a particular focus on the significant wealth disparity between homeowners and renters. The episode intertwines discussions on business spending, housing market dynamics, demographic shifts, and cultural trends, offering listeners a multifaceted understanding of the current economic climate.

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1. Business Spending and GDP Updates

The episode begins with an analysis of recent data released by the Commerce Department. Amy Scott highlights that new orders for durable goods—a category encompassing products expected to last at least three years—increased modestly by 2.10% in October. Additionally, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) provided a revised estimate for third-quarter GDP, maintaining the headline growth rate at 2.8% annually. Notably, the BEA adjusted the non-residential fixed investment component upwards, indicating a rise in business spending.

Stephanie Hughes from Marketplace elaborates on these findings, emphasizing the nuanced growth within different economic sectors.

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2. Durable Goods and AI Investments

Ethan Struby, an economics professor at Carleton College, discusses the surge in businesses investing in artificial intelligence (AI). He remarks, “The only way to know how it fits into your process is to try it and to see if it actually is successful” (03:04). This sentiment underscores the experimental nature of AI integration in business operations.

The episode also touches on the increased expenditure in transportation equipment, with new orders rising by 0.5% in October. Ryan Young, a senior economist with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, interprets this as automakers and other industries stocking up on equipment in anticipation of future economic policies and potential tariff changes (03:26).

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3. Inflation and Housing Market Insights

Amy Scott provides an update on the inflation landscape, noting that the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index—the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation—rose at an annual rate of 2.3% in October, slightly above the Fed's 2% target (03:51). Concurrently, the National Association of Realtors reported a 2% increase in pending sales of existing homes last month, signaling a robust housing market despite rising home prices.

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4. The Renter-Homeowner Wealth Gap

A central segment of the episode examines the stark wealth disparity between homeowners and renters. Samantha Fields discusses findings from the Aspen Institute, which reveal that the median net worth of homeowners is approximately $400,000, compared to just about $10,000 for renters (05:10).

Key Insights:

• Homeownership as Wealth Building: Chris Herbert from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies emphasizes the long-term financial benefits of homeownership, stating, “If you can buy a house in your 20s or early 30s and pay off that 30-year mortgage over time, you're going to build wealth much earlier and accumulate more over your lifetime” (05:24).

• Investment Disparities: Kristen Talheimer Bingham from Bingham highlights that higher-income individuals are not only more likely to own homes but also possess other investments such as stocks, bonds, and 401(k)s. “Nearly 80% of homeowners have at least some of those [investments], but less than half of renters do” (05:51).

• Economic Stability for Homeowners: Ethan Struby adds, “The opportunity to stabilize your housing expenses affords a household more opportunities to gain more wealth by paying down debt and putting money into savings or retirement” (06:08).

The discussion underscores the formidable barriers renters face in accumulating wealth, exacerbated by the recent surge in home prices, making homeownership increasingly unattainable without significant financial backing or familial support.

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5. Baby Boomers Moving South: The "Baby Chasers" Trend

Transitioning to demographic trends, Heather Gillers from the Wall Street Journal explores the phenomenon of baby boomers relocating to the southern United States, a trend she refers to as "baby chasing." These older Americans are moving closer to their grandchildren, leveraging their accumulated wealth to purchase homes without the burden of high-interest rates.

Notable Points:

• Population Shifts: Gillers notes a decade-long growth in young families in southern states like Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas, intersecting with the traditional retirement destinations (07:56).

• Economic Impact: Cities like Georgetown, Texas, exemplify the positive economic effects, with residents over 55 contributing significantly to local spending—“people 55 and over make up for 45% of personal spending in the US” (10:43).

• Future Considerations: Gillers speculates on the sustainability of this trend, suggesting that as grandparents age and seek more support, their proximity to family will continue to influence relocation patterns (11:45).

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6. Market Updates and Holiday Sales

Amy Scott provides a snapshot of the stock market, reporting declines across major indices: the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 138.3 points (approximately 0.31%) to close at 44,000, the Nasdaq dropped 115.6 points (about 0.60%) to 19,060, and the S&P 500 decreased by 22 points (just under 0.37%) to end at 5,998 (12:52).

In anticipation of the holiday season, Scott cites a CBRE analysis expecting holiday sales in the US to surpass one trillion dollars, with returns projected to account for approximately 160 billion dollars or 16% of sales. She examines the performance of major online retailers, noting varied impacts from these returns:

• Amazon.com: Shares ascended by 1%.
• Walmart: Increased by 6.10%.
• Target: Rose by 2.8%.
• Etsy: Slid by 9.10%.

These figures illustrate the mixed fortunes of retailers grappling with holiday return volumes.

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7. Memory Palace Podcast Discussion

In an engaging interlude, Ethan Struby converses with Nate DeMaio, the creator and host of the "Memory Palace" podcast, about his new book, Memory True: Short Stories of the Past. DeMaio articulates the inspiration behind the podcast and the book, drawing parallels to the "memory palace" technique—a mnemonic device used to organize and recall information by associating it with specific spatial environments.

Highlights:

• Storytelling Philosophy: DeMaio emphasizes the importance of capturing the "in-between moments" of history, where real life unfolds beyond the sanitized narratives often told (20:15).

• Personal Reflections: He shares a poignant anecdote about discovering contrasting photographs of his grandparents, illustrating how personal history can be more complex than family stories suggest (20:37).

• Sustainability of Creative Projects: DeMaio reflects on maintaining the podcast over 15 years by staying true to its unique, earnest storytelling approach, despite the challenging economics of the industry (22:15).

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8. Chocolate Shops and Rising Costs

Kristen Talheimer Bingham of Dean's Sweets in Portland, Maine, discusses the challenges her business faces due to significant increases in the cost of chocolate. Over the past year and a half, the price of dark chocolate has surged by approximately 20%, while milk and white chocolate prices have jumped by 40% (25:14).

Key Points:

• Operational Challenges: Bingham describes the meticulous preparation her team undertakes for the holiday rush, emphasizing inventory management to handle unexpected spikes in demand (25:14).

• Customer Behavior: Despite rising costs, Bingham observes positive signs of consumer spending in her niche market, indicating resilience and sustained enthusiasm for quality chocolate (25:14).

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9. Thanksgiving Food Waste

Concluding the episode, Amy Scott addresses the staggering amount of food waste associated with Thanksgiving. The nonprofit ReFED estimates that approximately 316 million pounds of food, valued at over half a billion dollars, will be discarded during the holiday season, including the equivalent of more than 8 million turkeys (27:40).

Notable Quote: Journalist Brian McManus from Vice poignantly describes turkey as, “almost without fail a dried out, depressing hunk of sun-baked papier mache, a jaw-tiringly chewy, unsatisfying and depressingly bland workout” (28:00).

This segment serves as a reflective commentary on consumer habits and the environmental impact of excessive food waste during festive periods.

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Conclusion

This episode of "Marketplace" meticulously navigates through diverse economic topics, with a spotlight on the entrenched wealth gap between homeowners and renters. Through expert interviews, data-driven insights, and engaging storytelling, listeners gain a deeper appreciation of the multifaceted forces shaping personal finances and societal trends. Whether discussing the economic implications of business spending, the challenges of homeownership, or the cultural shifts driven by demographic changes, the episode delivers a wealth of information designed to inform and provoke thoughtful consideration.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Amy Scott]

Get yours [e-mail] the Macro Economy still looking strong. We'll look at the micro too, from American Public Media. This is Marketplace in Baltimore. I'm Amy Scott in for Kai rysdal. It's Wednesday, November 27th. Good to have you with us. Consumer spending gets a lot of attention this week, what with Black Friday and all. But businesses buy stuff too, and today the Commerce Department is out with some new data on that spending. New orders for durable goods products meant to last at least three years increased slightly 2, 10% in October, and the department's Bureau of Economic Analysis is out with a revised estimate of third quarter gdp. The headline number remains the same. The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8%, but one component that was revised upwards what the BEA calls non residential fixed investment, another measure of business spending. Marketplace's Stephanie Hughes has the details.

[Sponsor Announcer]

The electrical contractor Kelso Burnett is based in Chicago, and in the last five years the company's gotten more business installing solar panels in Illinois.

[Amy Scott]

As you can imagine, out in the middle of the cornfields, you know, they're buying up some property and they're building the solar farms.

[Sponsor Announcer]

William Martin Jr. Is a branch manager for the company. To build those solar farms, his company has to install metal pilings that support the panels. Kelso Burnett had been renting equipment to do the work, but earlier this year it decided to spend half a million dollars on its own pile drivers.

[Amy Scott]

We see a big market in the solar field area, so dove right in.

[Sponsor Announcer]

And bought two machines.

His company also just bought some AI software to see if it speeds up the process of estimating the number of electrical outlets a building might need that could allow them to bid on more projects.

[Amy Scott]

It takes a little bit of time for everybody to kind of understand this new program. If we like it, if it's going to work for us.

[Sponsor Announcer]

The software purchase is considered an investment in intellectual property, which is a growing part of GDP. In the third quarter, businesses spent more than $1.5 trillion in IP. Economics professor Ethan Struby at Carleton College says a lot of companies are experimenting with AI these days.

[Ethan Struby]

The only way to know how it fits into your process is to try it and to see if it actually is successful.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Companies also spent more on transportation equipment. In October, new orders were up 0.5% from the month before, according to the Durable Goods Report. Ryan Young, a senior economist with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says that's a sign that automakers, for example, are stocking up.

They're buying now while it's cheap, anticipating.

[Ethan Struby]

That prices might go up later if.

[Sponsor Announcer]

There are new tariffs or other policies.

Remember that durable Goods report is from October, so the companies buying didn't know yet what would happen with the election, Young says. They were preparing regardless, he says, now that they know the outcome, companies that have been eyeing a pile driver say for a while might be more likely to go ahead and buy it. I'm Stephanie Hughes for Marketplace.

[Amy Scott]

One more item from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The PCE price index, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, rose at an annual rate of 2.3% in October, so still a bit higher than the 2% the Fed is aiming for on Wall Street, a dip before the holiday. We'll have the details when we do the number. Quick update on the housing market from the national association of Realtors, which says pending sales of existing homes rose 2% last month. We hear all the time that home ownership is the main way people build wealth in this country. And of course, it takes some wealth to even become a homeowner. But some new data on the wealth gap between those who do own and those who rent is still pretty striking. The Aspen Institute finds that the median net worth of a homeowner is about $400,000. A renter's just about 10,000 marketplaces. Samantha Fields has more.

[Samantha Fields]

Owning a home is one of the main ways people build wealth in this country, especially if they're able to buy when they're young. Chris Herbert at the Joint center for Housing Studies at Harvard says if you can buy a house in your 20s or early 30s and pay off that.

[Ethan Struby]

30 year mortgage over time, you're going to build wealth much earlier and accumulate more over your lifetime.

[Samantha Fields]

That's a big part of this story of homeowners having more wealth than renters. But it's not the whole story. Home equity only accounts for about half of the renter. Homeowner wealth gap. According to the Aspen Institute, people with.

[Kristen Talheimer Bingham]

Higher incomes are more likely to become homeowners, but they're also more likely to have other kinds of investments.

[Samantha Fields]

Vanessa G. Perry at George Washington University says those investments include stocks, bonds and 401ks. Nearly 80% of homeowners have at least some of those, but less than half of renters do.

[Kristen Talheimer Bingham]

There's a sort of ripple effect when you have home equity and you have.

[Ethan Struby]

The opportunity to stabilize your housing expenses. That affords a household more opportunities to.

[Samantha Fields]

Gain more wealth by paying down debt and putting money into savings or retirement. But with the huge run up in home prices over the last few years, it's getting increasingly difficult for people to get into the housing market, especially without family money.

[Amy Scott]

So that does make it even more important for us to think about if you're a renter, how can you build that wealth as early as possible in your Life?

[Samantha Fields]

Catherine Lucas McKay is with the Aspen Institute's Financial Security Program.

[Amy Scott]

One of the easiest ways is just.

[Samantha Fields]

By opening a retirement account or an investment account. And in recent years, McKay says that's gotten a lot easier to do on your own. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

[Amy Scott]

We just heard from Sam about how hard it is to get a foothold in the housing market today. Now a story about folks a little further along in their housing and life journeys. Southern climes have long been a magnet for older Americans. Just think of all the retirement and over 55 communities in the Sunbelt. But warm weather and golf aren't the only attractions. Many baby boomers are moving to be closer to their grandchildren. Heather Gillers is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal where she wrote about these so called baby chasers. Heather, welcome to the program.

[Heather Gillers]

Hi. Thanks for having me.

[Amy Scott]

So who are these babies chasing grandparents and where are they moving?

[Heather Gillers]

So they are generally sort of the baby boomer generation and they're mostly moving south. And this is sort of the intersection of a bunch of different population trends that have been building. One is that we've seen sort of a 10 year growth in population of young families in the southern U.S. texas, Florida, Carolinas, and then, you know, obviously these are traditionally places where older Americans have retired to warm weather golf. And now there's a new attraction which is that a lot of their grandbabies live there at the same time. The baby boomers are a generation that have accumulated a lot of wealth. Many of them, you know, have retirement portfolios that grew over a 10 year bull market. They have paid off or nearly paid off homes. So they're sort of cashing out and moving south where, you know, they don't have to worry about high interest rates because they have this cash from selling their homes. They can buy a place and be near their grandkids.

[Amy Scott]

I wanted to talk about some of the data behind this trend story. How do we know? I mean, obviously there are a lot of reasons people move. And you mentioned the south has been a destination for retirees for a long time. How do we know that a lot of this is motivated by being close to the grandkids?

[Heather Gillers]

There aren't census takers going from house to house saying to grandmas, did you move here to come see your grandbaby? But we do have a lot of information from the real estate industry and a little bit of sort of like demographic data that sort of bears this out. So the national association of Realtors surveys home buyers and the age of repeat homebuyers is at a 40 year high right now. And the biggest reason that they cite for selling their homes is moving close to friends and family. And then another trend in home building that kind of bears this out is that 55 and over communities within all ages communities have become very popular. So there's a clear trend of like older Americans wanting to live close at least to somebody's grandchildren and potentially to their own families.

[Amy Scott]

Right. Or maybe their own children, even if they don't themselves have kids.

[Heather Gillers]

Yeah.

[Amy Scott]

Talk a little bit about the economic impact of this group on the cities where they're moving. As you said, these are folks that might have some accumulated wealth, a little more flexibility.

[Heather Gillers]

Yes, yes. So the fastest growing city in the U.S. right now, the fastest growing city, over 50,000 is Georgetown, Texas. And about a fifth of its population lives in one giant retirement community. And it's just been great for the city. I mean, this year it got a triple A bond rating. I mean, these are people who, they don't send their kids to school. So that's a costly service that they don't make use of. They pay taxes, they own property, they have a lot of spending power. Like a statistic I like to cite is that people 55 and over make up for 45% of personal spending in the US so they're generally like a credit positive, as a bond rating agency would say. You know, they do use ambulance services, but a lot of the other sort of services that cities spend a lot of money on. This population is not going to be a big user of those services.

[Amy Scott]

Well, where do you see this going? Is there any way to know how lasting this trend might be.

[Heather Gillers]

You know, another really interesting piece of this is that eventually someone like that may be doing a lot of childcare. But as kids need less childcare, these grandparents are also getting older and the US Has a real shortage of care workers for older people. So as these grandparents age and the grandchildren no longer need care, you know, they may find that they are happy to be close to their children because they themselves need help.

[Amy Scott]

Yeah. All right. Heather Gillers wrote about baby chasing Grandparents Making Moves for the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much.

[Heather Gillers]

Thank.

[Amy Scott]

Coming up, the cost of chocolate.

[Kristen Talheimer Bingham]

Has gone up over the past year or year and a half.

[Amy Scott]

Sigh. But first, let's do the numbers. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 138.3 10% to finish at 44,000. The Nasdaq subtracted 115.6 10% to close at 19,060 and the S&P 500 lost 22 points, just shy of 4. 10% to end at 5,998. Holiday sales are expected to top a trillion dollars in the US this year and of that, about 160 billion's worth, or 16%, is expected to be returned, according to a new analysis from cbre. Checking in on some online retailers who have to deal with those returns, Amazon.com declare ascended 1%, Walmart added 6. 10%, Target pocketed 2 and 8. 10% and Etsy slid 9. 10%. You're listening to Marketplace.

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[Amy Scott]

This is marketplace. I'm Amy Scott. We often talk about history on this show as context for what's going on today. But there are so many stories that slip through the cracks, missing out on their due. Which is why I'm a big fan of the Memory Palace, a podcast launched in 2008 by Nate DeMaio, who I should say is a Marketplace alum. The Memory palace features unexpected stories of people throughout history, both the not so famous and the famous. Like Guglielmo Marconi, known as the father of the radio.

[Ethan Struby]

Marconi became convinced that sound never dies, that sound waves once emitted from a radio, from the vibrating strings of a Stradivarius, from whispering lovers or a baby discovering how to make a ba or g sound for the first time, lived on forever, flowing permanently, but growing weaker and weaker with each moment. He just hadn't yet managed to build a radio powerful enough to tune in the signal.

[Amy Scott]

Nate DeMaio is now out with a book based on the podcast called the Memory True Short Stories of the Past. Nate, great to talk with you again.

[Ethan Struby]

Oh, it's the best, Amy. So happy to be here.

[Amy Scott]

So you've had this successful, beloved podcast for more than 15 years now. Why write a book?

[Ethan Struby]

I have always sort of wanted to do a book. Not only is it helpful to have a book as a business, and not only is It a good thing to do. Boy, do I love books. And I would think about the books that I had as a kid, these sort of collections of short pieces. Like, I would stay home from school sick and I would pick up for the 12th time some collection of Ripley's Believe it or not stories. Or I would look again for the thousandth time at where the Sidewalk Ends, the collection of short poetry. And I always wanted to collect stories from the Memory palace, sort of old and new. And that might be like one of those books that I had as a kid and loved as a kid that don't really exist for adults and make one for adults about adult concerns.

[Amy Scott]

Hmm. The name Memory Palace, I assume, comes from a technique that people use to remember stuff.

[Ethan Struby]

Yes.

[Amy Scott]

Can you talk about that and how it inspired you?

[Ethan Struby]

Sure. I mean, you know, I think, I believe it was Cicero. It might not be. Despite the fact what I do for a living, I often, you know, I get the facts right on air, but I often get the facts wrong off air. But yeah. So back in the day, you know, he came up with this technique that people would, you know, walk around a space that they knew really well in their imaginations, like maybe it was their childhood home, and people would remember the speech that they were trying to say and remember four score and seven years ago today. And they would do that while looking, while remembering, you know, the entryway to their parents house. I like the notion of that we're creating this imaginary space again where, you know, by telling the story of Carla Wallenda, the last of the original flying Wallendas, who died not too long ago. Thank you. As you know, from natural causes, which is an incredible achievement in her family of people who died, you know, usually in pain, on their backs, on the.

[Amy Scott]

Floor, underneath some tightrope, in spectacular fashion.

[Ethan Struby]

Yes, exactly. Like, you know that when I tell that story and even when I just speak it right now and give you that image of a failed acrobat and one who happened to live a long life, it kind of does hang with you in your imagination. And the Memory palace felt like an appropriate name in that way.

[Amy Scott]

There are so many beautiful stories in this book. Many of them existed in audio form on your podcast, but you also turned the lens on yourself and your own family for several chapters. So you find this picture of your grandparents at the beach that complicates this story that you had been telling yourself about them. Can you talk about that and just how it kind of informed your thinking about history?

[Ethan Struby]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Amy Scott]

Write large.

[Ethan Struby]

Sure. You know, and living in that house, I was exposed to all of these sort of different artifacts of my own family. And there was this one photograph that everybody in the family had of my parents, sort of my grandparents, you know, young and attractive, and the early 1940s, clearly in love with their arms around each other on the beach. And this was a story that. This was a day that I had heard about from my grandmother a million times. She would talk about the day that she went to the beach with my grandfather and they rode back and some Studebaker and they piled into the back and she had to sit in his lap. And as they were sitting there, the charge between them, she realized that she was in love. And I'd heard this story forever. And here was this incredible picture. But then I also found this other photograph. And in this photograph, they are not sort of intertwined. They are not beaming with love. They are kind of sitting next to each other in what almost feels like discomfort. But the implications of these two pictures were remarkable. That maybe the picture where they're lovey dovey was the second picture. And maybe the photographer. And I'd never even thought about who this photographer would be. They seem uncomfortable. He said, hey, guys, I know what's going on with you two. Like, who are you trying to kid? Or maybe he's like, come on, let's come on, give me some action here. I don't know what it was, but there's something to me about that second photograph that speaks to all those in between moments, all the life we live, between the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. That is where life takes place, and that is where I like the memory palace to live.

[Amy Scott]

So back to the podcast where this all started. The economics of the industry are really difficult right now, especially when it comes to ad sales. But you've been keeping this going now more than 15 years. How are you staying afloat? And are you optimistic that you can keep doing what you love to do and have done so well?

[Ethan Struby]

The answer kind of is. It has sort of ever been thus, right? The way that I was doing this thing and the way that it was sort of particularly sincere and particularly idiosyncratic. The stories themselves, in their idiot idiosyncrasy and in their sometimes strangeness, we're drawing people to it. And as the podcast serial suddenly sort of like lifted all boats, and if you happened to be in the water at the time, there was suddenly a way to, you know, to draw advertisers to you. And there were always ways, like, throughout that I could have, like, you know, I could have stepped it up in a certain way and maybe like produced them more frequently, but I realized in producing them more frequently, they would not be as good. And that is, of course, the way that every creative person in every sort of creative industry is wondering what they're going to do next. And as we expand, will the service that we provided. And in my part, that service is ridiculous. It is writing tiny little, deeply earnest stories focused on wonder about the past, like that is a weird product to sell.

[Amy Scott]

I wouldn't call it ridiculous. It's very, very important and moving. Well, thank you very much, Nate DeMaio, creator and host of the Memory Palace Podcast and now author of the book by the same name. Nate, so great to talk to you. Congratulations and thanks for joining us.

[Ethan Struby]

Couldn't be happier to be here. Amy.

[Amy Scott]

Okay, now to Chocolate shop owners like Kristen Talheimer Bingham of Dean's Sweets in Portland, Maine, are gearing up for the holiday rush. We checked in to see how she's doing.

[Kristen Talheimer Bingham]

The season is upon us and we are very happily busy. Everyone is working extra hours, starting early and staying late. Our two stores are bustling. Our phone is ringing. We've been working the past six months to make sure that these holiday weeks are the best they can possibly be. And every year we challenge ourselves to do the holidays better. I think a lot of people are already aware that the cost of chocolate has gone up over the past year or year and a half due to some pretty tough climate issues that have affected the cocoa growing regions. We've watched as prices of chocolate and cocoa have gone up at least three separate times in the past year, totaling about a 20% increase in the cost of dark chocolate and a 40% increase in the cost of milk and white chocolate in our store. And in conversation with customers, I've been watching for signs to see whether spending is up or down and whether people are being careful in their purchases or shopping without a lot of worry. And I'm happy to say that at least in our small chocolate world, I see signs of a good season ahead. I'd like to think that every year we as a team get a little smarter about how to prep for the holidays and especially how to build inventory that will get us through from Thanksgiving to the end of December. And as much as we plan and look at our numbers and anticipate, there are always going to be surprises. Surprise orders are really the best because if we've planned well and built our inventory, we're able to jump on those surprises and get the chocolate out the door quickly. And that's what builds the business not only for this year, but hopefully also for the coming years. So even though we've been working for months to get ready for these next few weeks, it's actually still early days for us. But then after Thanksgiving, everything turns up a notch. A big notch. So our test each year is to keep our energy up, to take breaks when we need to, and to work through this holiday season.

[Amy Scott]

Kristen Talheimer Bingham of Dean's Suites in Portland, Maine this final note on the way out today, something to consider as you load up your dinner plate tomorrow. The nonprofit refed estimates some 316 million pounds of food, more than half a billion dollars worth, will go to waste this Thanksgiving holiday, including the equivalent of more than 8 million turkeys. And I didn't realize so many people don't even like turkey until I read this quote from journalist Brian McManus in Vice, who wrote, it is almost without fail a dried out, depressing hunk of sun baked papier mache, a jaw tiringly chewy, unsatisfying and depressingly bland workout. Whatever your feelings about turkey, that's some juicy writing. Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Jessen 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 Amy Scott. We'll be back tomorrow. This is apm. Money, money, money. Kids always have questions about it and.

[Ethan Struby]

Maybe you do too. That's why Million Bazillion, the Webby winning podcast from Marketplace, is here to answer the awkward and sometimes surprising questions your kids have about money. We explain concepts like savings accounts, retirement, and the differences between brand names and non brand names. Million Bazillion is the place for you and your kids to learn about money. Together, we help dollars make more sense. Listen to Million Bazillion wherever you get your podcasts.